PARLIAMENT

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 142, 13 December 1933, Page 11

PARLIAMENT

TODAY'S PROCEEDINGS

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

Tho Legislative Council met at 2.30 p.m. today; ■ The Municipal Corporations Bill was received from the House of Representatives and read a first time. The Hon. W. Snodgrass asked tho Government what steps (if any) were being taken to dear with the actions of the Performing Bights Association, which, according to the report of the Australian Select Committee, were not legally enforceable. In reply, the Minister of Education (the Hon. E. Masters) said that the Government was. a meiubor of the International Copyright Convention, and, as local legislation would be -likely to encroach on international rights protected by such convention, it was not intended to introduce legislation until further inquiries had been instituted concerning the attitude of the Imperial Parliament on this problem. , Mr. Snodgrass also asked the Government what steps (if any) were being taken to control the menace of the American subsidised shipping in the New Zealand trade. Mr. Masters replied that the Government fully recognised that British shipping was subject "to inequitable competition in the 'Pacific. The situation in that trade could not, however, be considered as a separate and individual problem and the Government was still in communication on the subject with the Governments in the United Kingdom and in Australia. He could not make the position clearer than that at present. In moving the second reading of the Companies Bill, Mr. Masters said that the Bill was intended to bring the NewZealand company law into harmony with the Imperial legislation. It was highly desirable that company law should as far as possible be uniform throughout the Empire, and the Australian States wore already moving in the matter. In the present Bill they had adopted the same wording of the English Act wherever possible, but they had made various- alterations, mostly of a machinery nature whore the difference between New Zealand and English conditions had rendered that necessary. Mr. Masters paid a tribute to the committee. of experts which had been working on the Bill since 1930. The general effect of the amendments in the Bill were to afford a greater measure of protection to the shareholders, prospective shareholders, and creditors of companies. Outstanding among the provisions for the protection of shareholders and prospective shareholders were those as to prospectuses, ensuring that a full disclosure must be made in the prospectuses of the position of the company and of the financial interests of the promoters. It had been suggested in some quarters that the Bill contained too many provisions enabling the affairs of companies to be pried into, but the. view of the expert committee was that any publicity required under the Bill was necessary in the interests of shareholders, creditors, and persons dealing in shares. The Companies Act could be a tremendous instrument of fraud, and the public would be in a most unfortunate position at the hands of unscrupulous persons 'if the safeguards' in the Bill were not .provided.