words are to. be construed in favour of the Crown (a position with which I fully agree, though it cannot be pressed too far): see 10 Halsbury 442 Jeaks, paragraph 1396, and A.G. v. Ewelme Hospital (22 L. J. Eh. 846); and] therefore the Crown is entitled to go behind the certificate of incorporation to see the real character of this Company; and when it di covers from that that the incorporators are many of them at all events persons who in China are claimed by the Chinese authorities (not admitted "by the British authorities) to be Chines and therefore not subject to the Jurisdietion and control of His Majesty's Courts in China, it is entitled to refuse this transfer, even though such persons have the cloak of incorporation as a British ar ficial person. My first comment on that is that this right to inquire 10 the nationality of shareholders is not given anywhere by the legislature, whereas it is expressly ven in the ease of companies. limited by guarantee: Order in Council: 1916. ly, it is @ power greater than is granted to the Registrar of Companies in the actual formation of a China Company: see Order in Council 1915, Articles 8, 9 10 and 13. Thirdly,' all the cases' referred to where this power was exercised were wartime eases and it excised in every case as a whereby some other essential facts were determined: in the Daimler case to discover control and therefore. enemy character: in the Polzeath case to discover where the real "residence" of the Company was: in the St. Tudno to discover who were the real owners for Prize Court purposes of a ship. The nearest approach to any case like this that I have discovered is R. v. Arnaud (16, LI. QB. 60), where Custom House officials were' ord ed to register as a British ship one owned by a corporation, even though the members of that cor poration were foreigners and therefore incapable of owning a British And that case is still quoted The might be to defeat the object and policy of the navigation laws, inasmuch as the individual members of ish Corporation might either ly or by transfer be all foreigners. Such does not appear to be contemplated or provided for fed by the Act in question,... As the case stands it seems to me that the' British Corporation is to all intents the legal. owners of the vessel and entitled to the regis anid that We ednnot notice any diol be
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.