it
What I
1 16571
Jon Scour
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•
407
registration of companies at Shanghai would raise
serious difficulty in connexion with the nationality
of the companies. A company was a juridical entity
and His Majesty's Government had no right as against
the Chinese Goverment to create juridical entities in
the dominions of the Emperor of China, and subsequently
to regard them as British. It was most unlikely that
the Secretary of State would assent to a system under
which a company was to be recognized as British, when
the juridical act which gave birth to it took place
in a foreign country. His Majesty's Government had
in reality no more right to claim companies registered
in China to be British than they had to claim as such
companies registered in Germany or in France.
In
this view 3ir H. de Sausmarez acquiesced.
Sir E. Davidson and Mr. Hurst suggested that the
above difficulty might be met by facilitating the
registration in London of companies desirous of hav-
ing their headquarters established in Shanghai;
the
1
registration in London would justify His Lajesty's
Government