22598-1911-Supplementary-Bills-read-a-first-time--Flogging-Amendment — Page 7

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(2.) A certificate of registration, or a copy of or extract from any statement registered under this Ordinance, if duly certified to be a true copy under the hand of the Registrar of Companies or one of the Deputy Registrars (whom it shall not be necessary to prove to be the Registrar or Deputy Registrar) shall, in all legal proceedings, civil or eriminal, and in all cases whatsoever, be received in evi- dence.

14. Nothing in this Ordinance shall be taken to affect any debt or liability incurred by a registered firm or a registered partner or hung kú shareholder prior to the date of their respective registrations,

15. The Governor-in-Council may make rules con- Governor-in- cerning any of the following matters :-

Council to make rules.

Commence-

ment of Ordinance.

(a.) The fees to be paid to the Registrar of Companies under this Ordinance so that they do not exceed in the case of the original registration of a limited partnership the sum of twenty dollars and in any other case the sum of three dollars. (b) The duties or additional duties to be performed by the Registrar of Companies for the purposes of this Ordinance.

(c.) The performance by Deputy Registrars and other officers of acts by this Ordinance required to be done by the Registrar of Companies.

(d.) The forms to be used for the purposes of this

Ordinance.

(e) Generally the conduct and regulation of registra- tion under this Ordinance and any matters incidental thereto.

16. This Ordinance shall come into operation on the first day of January, 1912.

Memorandum.

The present partnership law, codified in Ordinance No. 1 of 1897. is habitually evaded by respectable and responsible members of the Chinese mercantile community because it runs counter to the essential characteristics of Chinese partnerships. In deciding a case mider that Ordinance the Chief Justice said (3 H.K.L,R, 170):--“This is an Ordin- ance passed in 1897 by the local Legislature, and I can only hold, there being no reference from end to end to Chinese customs, that it was the deliberate intention to ignore the Chinese customs of partnership. Whether this was wise or unwise is not for me to say. But I must point out to the Government the extreme danger of reproducing English legislation bodily into the Colonial Statute Book without at least considering the question how it may effect the customs of the large body of Chinese who are legislated for."

The chief characteristics of the present partnership law are the unlimited liability of each partner for the debts of the firm, the dissolution of the partnership upon the death or bankruptcy of any partner, and the limit to the number of partners.

The chief characteristics of a Chinese Partnership are:-- (1.) Each partner is liable to pay out of his private property only such proportion of a partnership debt as his share bears to the total of the shares of all the partners. But the partnership as a whole may be sued for the whole debt. (2.) Partnerships do not come to an end on the death of a partner, but the deceased partner's sous are admitted as partners and their father's share is sometimes divided between them and some- times remains intact under the father's tong name, the interest being divided among the

onss.

(3.) Firms may take shares in other firms and there is no limit to the number of persons who may become partners.

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