§ MR. COXsaid, he rose to move for leave to bring in a Bill to empower joint-stock companies who were unable to register, with limited liability, under the provisions of the Act 19 & 20 Vict. c. 47, to do so at any time during the present year. Some companies had been utterly unable to register at the time prescribed, and he desired simply to extend the period of making the register.
§
Motion made, and Question proposed—
That this House will immediately resolve itself into Committee, to consider the Act 19 & 20 Vict. c. 47, for the Incorporation and Regulation of Joint-Stock Companies and other Associations.
THE SOLICITOR GENERALremarked, that if the circumstances of the case had remained unchanged no person would have objected to the Bill. He did not wonder that there should be a misapprehension with regard to the state of the law upon this subject, and that the hon. Gentleman should have fallen into it. 1478 There was no doubt that the Act of Parliament referred to required that companies to have the benefit of it, should register before the last day of December in the year in which it was passed; but there was nothing whatever in the Act which prevented a company from registering after the last day of December in that year. On the contrary, all the Act said was that if they did not register before the last day of the year they must not pay dividends or exercise tire corporate rights which were given by the Act; but there was no provision in the Act which would disable a company from registering after the expiration of the year, and in point of fact many companies had registered after the end of the year. If, however, there were any doubt upon this point there was a Bill which he hoped to see come down shortly from the other House of Parliament consolidating into one Act the whole of the law with regard to the constitution, the regulation, and the winding up of joint-stock companies. If the hon. Gentleman then adhered to the same opinion that a practical impediment stood in the way of the registration of these bodies, any Amendment which the hon. Member could satisfy the House was desirable would be naturally introduced into that Bill. He hoped, therefore, that the hon. Gentleman would net insist upon bringing in a Bill which would only add one more to the dreadful crowd of enactments on joint-stock banks, which already encumbered the Statute-book.
§ MR. COXsaid, that he happened to be a member of a company which could not register itself, and which, upon consulting eminent counsel, had been advised that it was impossible to register under the law of limited liability. As, however, there would be an opportunity, when the Bill came down from the House of Lords, to bring the question under the notice of the House he would adopt the suggestion of the hon. and learned Gentleman, and withdraw his Motion.
§ Motion, by leave, withdrawn.