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guarantee from the requirements of Section 114C, in the same way as
they were exempted from Section 136 of the Companies Act 1948 (now
Section 372 of the Companies Act 1985) in Britain or that, at least,
the section should be amended to provide that only another member
of the club could be appointed as a proxy. The almost universal
reaction was that strangers should not be able to speak and vote
at a general meeting of a private club.
4.10
The criticism of Section 157A was rather less strong
and three of the organisations consulted felt that they could live
with the section. However, most did feel that the section was an
unnecessary complication which went against their existing rules and
procedures and that there was no real justification for it.
4.11
With regard to Section 114C, Members recognised that the
application of the section to all companies was in line with the
recommendation of the Jenkins Committee. One Member, with considerable
experience of these matters in Britain, thought that the situation there
was very different as far as private clubs were concerned in that far
fewer of them were incorporated as companies compared with Hong Kong
where, for various reasons, a large number or clubs are incorporated
as companies limited by guarantee. This meant that when the Jenkins
Committee decided on their recommendations to extend Section 136 of
the Companies Act 1948 to apply to all companies, they had not had
to take into account the impact of such a change on a large number
of clubs. Accordingly, even if the Jenkins Committee's recommendations
had been implemented in Britain, this would not have meant that they
would have constituted a good precedent for Hong Kong. It was also
felt that when the Companies Law Revision Committee had agreed in
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