The news that the Departmental Committee of the Board of Trade in London has recommended that all dealings in stocks and shares shall be pro.ibited unless the dealer is registered under stringent new conditions, or is a member of a recognized stock exchange, will be welcomed by the many who have viewed the operations of unscrupulous bogus or worthless share pushers in, Britain with anxiety. To a certain extent this recommendation, if it is put into force as it is hoped it will be, may work some hardship upon the thousands' of honest outside brokers against whom no fault is alleged. Of recent years the Courts have had to deal with an alarming number of smart operators who have cheated the more confiding members of the British public of millions of pounds by their roguery. In some instances, especially where American criminals have carried on their operations on a big scale, hundreds of thousands of pounds have been stolen from the public, and it has been found difficult to deal with the culprits, either because they have escaped from the country and have been able successfully to fight extradition proceedings, or because victims of their wiles have been reluctant to come forward and give evidence which generally tends to show how foolish they have been, An enactment such as is now suggested provides for the immediate enforcement of the law long before the major crime of swindling has been committed, for if anyone upon passage of the appropriate legislation sets himself up as an outside broker without having secured prior legislation, he will by that very fact have brought himself within the scope of the law. Rigid administration of such a provision should afford protection to the surprisingly large number of gullible people who, despite repeated disclosures and warnings in the press, are tempted to part with hard-earned money in all sorts of get-rich-quick schemes. By the time the crime is discovered the damage is done and even when the criminals have been brought to justice the gulls have lost their money. There are those who believe that such legislation as that proposed savours of mollycoddling, but if the legislature can protect the against themselves it is quite clearly its bounden diary to do so, especially when the remedy appears to be so comparatively easy.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.