The Committee has encountered many difficulties. The most important of these has been the lengthy negotiations necessary in every case. Frequently, the application when submitted is not on lines which the Committee feels justified in approving, and protracted discussions are required to reduce it to a business-like and acceptable form. The Committee in fact has been in the position practically of an issuing house which had to issue £25,000,000 worth of securities of every possible kind and variety in a very short time. Every one with experience of this class of business will realize what that means. As the Committee’s power is limited to recommending the guarantee of loans, it has found a difficulty in the fact that many companies, at the time of making their application, have not possessed the necessary borrowing powers. Meetings of shareholders and debenture holders have frequently been necessary in order that these powers might be sanctioned. In other cases, the companies have required Parliamentary approval for an increase in their loan capital. All of these difficulties have taken time to surmount, but the Committee has always instructed applicants to start the preliminary work of obtaining their tenders, etc., as soon as it has decided the broad lines on which a guarantee could be given, so that real work can be commenced and men employed from the very moment that the necessary formalities are completed. Guarantees already Given Guarantees have been given in numerous cases. Work which otherwise would not have been done has been provided in the shipbuilding and repairing business, in the construction and improvement of docks and canals, in the extension of railways, in the electrification of railways, and in the extension of a number of electrical undertakings. This has facilitated the employment of direct labour in a number of places, and in addition, orders for the manufactured goods, principally cement and iron, have been placed in the manufacturing towns of the North and Midlands. To take a concrete instance, a guarantee has been given to the London Underground Railways for extensions. This means an immense amount of direct employment; it entails the placing of large orders for new locomotives and rolling stock. The men for whom employment has been found would otherwise have been living on the dole. Not only is their moral improved, but their purchasing power is increased, and the prosperity of industries as a whole has been fostered. Further, new tracts of country will be opened up for the Londoner and an impetus given to the construction of houses in suburban areas. This example, which is chosen at random from a number of others, shows the beneficial effect for the community as a whole, of the guarantees which have been given under the Trade Facilities Act.