436
(1) This exception has been altered in the Amending Ordinance of 1900 Section 4.
The whole of the assets of the Debtors, which the property of these creditors had created, taken out of the jurisdiction.
The position of the creditors is shown by the later case of Dulaney v. Marry (1901) 1 Q B 538.
2.
The Hong Kong Ordinance of 1891 as amended by the Ordinance of 1892 substantially applies to the Colony the provisions of the Bankruptcy Act 1883, with some exceptions.
One of these exceptions is in sub-section 1 (d) of Section 6 which enables a petition to be presented against a firm if one of the partners is domiciled &c or the firm has within a year had a place of business in Hong Kong.
Another exception is in Section 78 which seems to have been carelessly worded in the confusion which it makes between a Receiving Order and an Order of Adjudication.
A Receiving Order is of course properly made against a firm in the firm name. But an adjudication must of necessity be against individuals.
This is shown by the well-known case of re Beauchamp.
The effect of the law laid down in the Vogeler Co cases as applied to the Hong Kong Ordinances of 1891 and 1892 is that "a debtor" in Section 4 is restricted in the case of a foreigner to a debtor who at the time of the commission of the act relied on as an act of bankruptcy was personally present in the Colony; and consequently that a person not subject to the laws of the colony and not resident there could not be made a bankrupt in the Colony although carrying on business and incurring debts in the colony by means of an authorised Agent.
3.
The object to be attained by any fresh legislation is, I would submit, that a foreigner who carries on business within the limits of any part of His Majesty's dominions should not be exempted from the operation of the Bankruptcy Laws which are in force in that part of His Majesty's dominions.