Preference Shares.

Evening Star, Issue 6843, 5 March 1886, Page 3

Preference Shares.

An important decision wag lately given in the Court of Appeal in London (says the ‘ St. James’s Budget ’) on the power of a limited liability company to issue preference shares. As regards purchasers of ordinary shares, It is a matter of prime importance to them to know how far their dividend prospects can be affected by the sudden issue of preference shares ranking, for dividend purposes, in priority to their own. If the memorandum of association is silent upon the subject of the terms of the original contract under which the company is formed, then there is an implied condition that all holders shares are entitled to rank equally as regards dividend without any preference or priority between themselves. Such is the fundamental principle. On the other hand, the articles of association are usually included in a contemporaneous document; and if it appears clearly on this document that the meaning of the original contract was otherwise, then the implication of equality is rebutted. As a rule the question in such cases resolves Itself into the inquiry, Does the memorandum or the articles of association empower the issue of shares to which a proforental dividend is attached ? The shareholders will In most cases have to pass the necessary resolutions, but the decision of the Court of Appeal in the South Durham Brewery Company’s case, following as it doe,s a similar decision of the late Master of the Rolls (Sir George Jessel), shows how important it is for the subscribers or purchasers of ordinary shares in limited liability companies to give special attention to the point.

In the course of a vigorous address to the members of the Australian Natives Association, Mr Service said : He had had a visit the other day from the French Consul, a gentleman who was worthy of all honor, and anxious to cultivate, on tho part of his Government, the most amicable relations with the colonies. The consul stated that his Government were desirous of co-operat-ing with Victoria to expedite the capture of criminals who had escaped from New Caledonia. He thanked him (the consul) for tho amicable feeling on his part, and stated that this country rose up in rebellion against the Mother Country when it was attempted to send a shipload of convicts here. He told tho consul that he wished him to understand that Australia resents in the bitterest maimer the deportation of French criminals to any portion of the Facilic. We were a nation of three or four million inhabitants, and it would bo some time before we were able to assert ourselves ; hut when the time eamc, neither France, nor Germany, nor any other nation would be allowed to send a single convict within these seas.—(Applause.) Thera was no doubt that he Lad impressed the consul with the feeling of Idie people of this colony. Ho had no* the slightest doubt but before many years thero would not bo a single convict in the seas of tho Pacific j that that would not bo brought about without a good strong physical Administration.” Mr Service’s declaration of Australian sentiment on the question of the French recidlvistes was received with thunders of applause.

A Yankee editor epigramatically defines the position of the great mass of the population when he says: “I am a capitalist at heart, but a working man from necessity.” The editorial room of a newspaper is generally pretty democratic ; the paste-pot only feels stuck up. Humor has about tho same _ enlivening effect on some people that a sitting hen lias on a china egg. Professor Landmark, Chief Director of the Norwegian Fisheries, asserts that salmon sometimes jump perpendicularly sixteen feet. “ What great blessing do we enjoy that the heathens know nothing about 1” inquired a Sunday sehool teacher. “ Soap !” was the answer that came out like the crack of a pistol from the small boy at the foot of the class.