PARLIAMENTARY GOSSIP.

Te Aroha News, Volume VIII, Issue 488, 12 July 1890, Page 4

PARLIAMENTARY GOSSIP.

AN IMPORTANT MEASURE. The Directors Liability Bill has not yet been circulated, but it is a measure to prevent the floating of 'bubble companies. Under it tho Government propose to make every person whose name appears as a director on the prospectus of a company, or other notice inviting people to take up shares, personally responsible to the investors for any damage they may suffer through misrepresentation. Any person, however, who proves that he did not consent to the statements contained in the prospectus, or withdrew his consent prior bo the issue of thedocument, or that he made reasonable inquiries, and found grounds for believing the statements to be true, is to be exempted from such liability. Again, people who pay money on tho strength of false representations are to bo entitled to compel a refund by the company, while a penalty up to £590, or six months’ imprisonment, is to be the punishment for the unlawful assertion or false statement in the prospectus. MINING COMPANIES ACT AMENDMENT. An important Bill entitled the Mining Companies Act Amendment gives power to the Court instead of the creditors to appoint liquidators. It makes provision for yearly statements by managers, and sets out that a share in a Company shall not be deemed to be transferred until the name of the transferreo be entered as such in the register of shareholders. Foreign companies carrying on business in the colony are to be brought under (he operations of the Act. Managers are not to act as sharebrokers, and are not to discloso information to persons not lawfully entitled to demand it under a penalty of £SO. It is also provided that the proceeds of the sale of forfeited shares may be applied to pay calls made as well as those due.

THAMES HARBOUR BOARD BILL is a measure to define the limits of the port as extending for a radius of 5 miles from Oponi Point (except that up river limit is observed about 20 chains beyond that distance in order to reach the definite sectional boundary), and provides for the reconstitution of the Board as from second Monday in next January. The precise form of future constitution has nob yet been determined by the Cabinet. AN IRONSTONE DEPOSIT.

Mr Hobbs has been interesting in the development of the ironstone deposit, Okatliau, and lias been in communication with the Mines Department with that object in view. In reply Mr Hobbs has been informed that the Okaihau deposit is recognised to be right. They can’t undertake to do what had been requested, viz, to send a sample to London at the Government’s expense. It is pointed out that with every advantage a similar deposit of ironstone at Collingwood, Nelson province, has not- yet been worked. All efforts to get English capital to take it up had failed. ABOLITION OF GOLD DUTY. The Gold Duty Abolition Bill, of which I have previously wired a brief outline, has now been circulated. It provides for a reduction of the gold duty to one shilling per ounce previous to exportation from the colony, and it is not intended to apply to the North Island, except in certain cases depending upon a petition from not less than half the holders of mining rights, praying the Governor to bring the Act into operation, and that tho majority of the county and borough councils receiving revenues derived from the duties on gold shall approve of the request made in such petition.