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