CIVIL SITTINGS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 9300, 16 December 1891, Page 4

CIVIL SITTINGS.

LODGE AND OTHERS V. THE ROXBURGH AMALGAMATED MINING AND SLUICING COMPANY, LIMITED. This was an action to obtain a declaration that the plaintiffs are entitled to a certain number of shares in the company, to be issued to them as fully paid-up shares. The plaintiffs are Sidney AA'alter Lodge and AVilliam fllurdoch (executors of the will of AA riiliam Anderson), George Cockburn, Frances Jane AA'aters, Sidney AA'alter Lodge, and Robert Kirkwood. Jlr Hosking, with him Mr AA'oodhouse, appeared for the plaintiffs, and Mr Chapman for the defendant company. In opening the case for the plaintiffs, Jlr AVoodhouse said the object of the action was to obtain a declaration that the plaintiffs were entitled to 9600 shares in the company, to be issued to them as fully paid-up. Plaintiffs were, or represented, the original vendors to the company of the properties owned 'and worked by the company. The vendors consisted of three parties—AA'aigth and party, Anderson and party, and Pyke and party. It was agreed by these parties to put various claims and holdings into the company, and that 30,000 shares (fully paid-up) was to be the consideration. .Anderson and party were to get 12,000, AA'aigth and party 6500, and the balance was to go to Pyke and party, who were to do all that was necessary to float the company. Plaintiffs claimed that the shares were so allotted, and that that was shown by the register. The company was floated on the-19th March 1889. AA'aters, one of the vendors, died in August of that year, and his wife was afterwards asked hy Mr Pyke to sign a document purporting to show that AA'aters' interest was not 2400 shares, as understood, but 1988 shares That was the first that any of the vendors heard of any reduction in the number of shares, but they were all subsequently asked to agree to a reduction, but the plaintiffs have never agreed, and the company have refused to issue to them the full number which they claim to be entitled to. The reason given for the reduction of the shares was this: Jlr Pyke was the floater of the company and the chairman of directors. During iBB9 the contributing shares were not going off well, and Jlr Pyke thereupon instructed the broker to promise everyone who took up contributing shares that so many paid-up shares would be allotted as a bonus. Plaintiffs were no parties to that promise. The vendors never authorised it. Ever since then the company, or Jlr Pyke, had been trying to induce plaintiffs to consent to the reduction so as to carry out the promise which plaintiffs said Jlr Pyke had no right to make, or which, if he did nuke, he should havo paid the cost of out of his own pocket, particularly as the interest of Pyke and party was only of a nominal character. AA'aigth and party had agreed to the reduction. His Honor: So that at present it is merely Anderson and party who object. Jlr AA'oodhouse replied in the affirmative. There were four shares among five shareholders iv Anderson and party's claim, Lodge and Kirkwood holding a half-share each. His Honor asked what defendants had to say as to why there should be a reduction. Jlr Chapman : AA'e say that all the parties agreed to make the concession, and that otherwise there would have been no company at all— the whole thing would have gone to smash. I shall show that. Jlr Hosking remarked that the shares that had been given could be recovered. Jlr Chapman had no doubt they could be, in the same way that other things could be recovered—by paying for them. The evidence is too voluminous for publication even in a summarised form, for the witnesses called were under examination for over , live hours. For the plaintiff the following witnesses were called and examined : — Johu O. Matthews (brother of Jlrs AA'aters), Frances Jane AA'aters (widow of John AA'aters), and Sidney AA'alter Lodge, who was under examination when the court rose. The court adjourned at 10 minutes past 5 until 10.30 this (AA'ednesday) morning.