There is thus a good deal to be said for setting capital free, before we have even arrived at the most serious objection to regulating it under Treasury licence.  This objection is the exasperation, delay and uncertainty involved by this control.  Even if we had an ideally wise and expeditious body to decide about capital issues it might not be the best thing to set it to work.  But when we remember that in order to see that the wrong sort of issue is not made, all issues will have to pass through the terribly slow-working process of official selection before the necessary licence is finally granted, it begins to look still more likely that we should do well to run the risk of letting a few goats through the gate, rather than keep all the sheep waiting outside for months, with the probable result that many of them may lose altogether their chance of final salvation.  It will be noted from the official statement that the arbitrary methods of the old Committee are to be modified.  It has long been a by-word among those who had dealings with it; they abused it in quite sulphurous language and were wont to quote it as an example of all that bureaucratic tyranny is and should not be, thereby doing some injustice to our bureaucrats, seeing that the Committee was manned not by officials but by business men, clothed pro hac vice in the thunder of Whitehall.  The new Committee is to sit by panels of three, so as to expedite matters, and so as to allow applicants the privilege of giving oral evidence.  This is an innovation that will save some exasperation, but it will hardly accelerate matters, especially as the decision of the panels will be subject to confirmation by the full Committee, so that all the work will have to be done twice over.  There is thus much reason to fear that delay, so fatal in business matters, will be an inevitable offspring of the efforts of the new Committee, and the list of different forms on which applications are to be made, given above, shows that all the paraphernalia of red tape will dominate the proceedings.

Now for the terms of the new Regulation under the Defence of the Realm Act.

    “1.  The following regulation shall be inserted after Regulation 30
    EE:—­

    “30 F. The following provisions shall have effect in respect of
    new capital issues and to dealings in securities issued for the
    purpose of raising capital: 

    “(1) No person shall, except under and in pursuance of a licence
    granted by the Treasury—­

    “(a) issue, whether for cash or otherwise, any stock, shares or
    securities; or

“(b) pay or receive any money on loan on the terms express or implied that the money is to be or may be applied at some future date in payment of any stock, shares or securities to be issued at whatever date to the person making the loan; or

    “(c) sub-divide any shares or Debentures into shares or Debentures
    of a smaller denomination, or consolidate any shares or Debentures
    of a larger denomination; or