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a definite voice in its control and management. The contributions to the City Hall having been unequal in amount the beneficial interests of the shareholders are equivalent to those of tenants in common. In other words, their existing rights are for all practical purposes those of tenants in common.
Now the rights which they themselves possess the shareholders can legally delegate to others, and it therefore follows that a Committee of Management constituted and selected by the shareholders is beyond all doubt a legally constituted body possessing all the necessary powers for the management of the City Hall edifice, in the same way as is the Committee of a Club or of any other kindred society with numerous and fluctuating members, competent to conduct its affairs. The rights and responsibilities of such Committees have been frequently defined in Courts both of law and equity,
In point of fact it was with a committee so appointed, of whom Mr. Rennie was then chairman, that Sir Richard MacDonnell opened the negotiations which eventuated in the Government grant of $1,200 for the purposes of the Museum, to whom or to whose appointed officer it has always been paid and whose receipts have been hitherto accepted as sufficient. In the same way it has been with just such a Committee, through their Secretary, that the present Governor has engaged in cor- respondence and negotiation and with the names of whose constituent members he was acquainted, as is shown by his speech at the Legisla- tive Council as reported in the Government Gazette of the 11th Instant. flis Excellency's statement in the same speech that these gentlemen "have no legal position whatever as far as the City Hall is concerned," seems therefore, with all due respect, to be rather more forcible than
accurate.
Now this annual grant of $1,200 had no relation to the lease of The the ground or the rights existing under it whatever they were. papers published by His Excellency demonstrate this. The negotiations were opened with Mr. Rennie, an officer of the Government, who was chairman of the committee, but not one of the lessees. Mr. Rennie wrote throughout "on behalf of the Committee," and the only pretext for saying that the grant was made to the lessees arises out of the equivocri uso of the word "Trustees," in Governor MacDonnell's minute of the 11th May 1869. It has apparently been assumed that His Ex- cellency, in using this term, referred to the Lessees.
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These gentlemen however have never been so described in any legal instrument, and I fail to find anything in the correspondence between him and Mr. Rennie giving even the faintest indication that the Governor had the lessees present to his mind at all during the negotia- tion for the grant. The evidence as printed is all in favour of Sir Richard MacDonnell having by the term "Trustees" in point of fact In the absence of any letter or other alluded to the "Committee," evidence of any request made by Mr. Rennie between the dates of his letters of the 2nd and 3rd October and the 11th May 1869, it must be taken that the request alluded to in that minute was the one contained in Mr. Rennie's C. 8. O. of the 2nd October, in which he says that "the Committee trust that a grant in aid of the fittings, and a small annual contribution towards the working expenses, may be placed on the estimates for 1869, now in course of being laid before the Legisla- ture." Moreover if in alluding to "Trustees" he meant the "Com- mittee," His Excellency used a quite accurate expression, because the grant of this especial fund differing from the grant of the land, was made for a purely public purpose, and the recipients of it doubtless did become "trustees" for public purposes. The fact of the payments having been from the commencement made to the Committee or their officer, affords a practically unanswerable argument in support of this
view.
There is another point opened up by the C. S. O. of the 11th I allude to the statement that June, which requires a passing notice. the legal estate under the lease for the City Hall is vested in Mr. a correct Ryrie as "sole surviving lessee;" I do not regard this as view of the case. Looking at the lease and the surrounding circum- stances, I think that the estate taken by the three lossees was that of tenants in common and not of joint tenants, that there was there- fore no jus accrescendi or benefit of survivorship, and that to the personal representatives of Messrs. MacDouall and Turing (if it be a fact that the latter is dead) bave passed the interests in the lease held by the deceased lessees. But for the assertions as to Mr. Ryrie's powers in the C. 8. O. of June last, this question would be one of little practical importance; as they have been so made, it is neces- sary to point out that technically they rest on an unsconre foundation.
For the foregoing reasons I am therefore of opinion :---- 1.That Mr. Ryrie is not, under the constitution of this Society
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Dec.
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