OTHER MATTERS RELATING TO SHARES 105
incorporated by registration notwithstanding his infancy
(see re Laxon & Co. (1892), 3 Ch. 555), and by virtue of
s. 25 (1) of the same Act he becomes a member upon the
registration. But although an infant may legally be a
shareholder he cannot compel a company to register him as a
shareholder. In some cases the articles of association of a
company expressly prohibit the transfer of shares to an infant.
Even in the absence of such an article a company could not be
compelled to register an infant. There are not in general any
such provisions applicable to a statutory company, but it has
been held (R. v. Midland Counties and Shannon Railway Co.
(1862), 15 Irish Common Law Reports 514; 9 Law Times
Reports N.S. 155) that a railway company cannot be compelled
to register a transfer of partly paid shares to an infant. It was
said (by O’Brien J. in that case) that the result of so doing
would be to relieve the original shareholder from liability
without giving the company a shareholder whom they could
hold. If the company brought an action against the infant for
future calls it would be open to him, during his infancy, to
plead his infancy (and, it must be added, to repudiate his
shares), and if the action was brought against him after he had
attained his full age it would be open to him to plead that he
had repudiated the transfer after coming of age.

This reasoning obviously does not apply to a transfer of
fully paid shares to an infant, but it is submitted that the
principle is the same, for a company ought not to be compelled
to accept a transferee who might conceivably repudiate the
transfer at some future time, leaving the company in a
difficulty as to the true ownership of the shares in case the
transferor could not then be discovered, and (before repudia-
tion) in respect of payment of dividends and other matters,
although, as O’Brien J. said in the case above cited, referring
to fully paid shares, ‘it is not likely that there would be any
repudiation either during infancy or on majority; and the
company might not raise any objection to the registering of the
transfer.” There does not, however, appear to be any direct
authority upon this point, all the decided cases, naturally
enough, being cases in which there was a liability upon the
shares.

Where a company has registered an infant as a shareholder
in ignorance of his infancy, it may, upon discovering the fact,
obtain an order of the Court for rectification of the register by
substituting the name of the transferor (Symon’s Case, L.R.
5 Ch. 298). In the case of registered companies there is a
statutory provision for rectification of the register. In the
case of statutory companies regulated by the Companies