Western Australian Consolidated Acts Western Australian Consolidated Acts Preamble
Whereas by an Act passed in the sixth year of the
reign of his late Majesty King George the Fourth, intituled ‘ An Act to
alter and amend an Act for the better Protection of the Property of Merchants
and others who may hereafter enter into Contracts or Agreements in relation to
Goods, Wares, and Merchandise intrusted to Factors or Agents, ’ 3
validity is given, under certain circumstances, to contracts or agreements
made with persons intrusted with and in possession of the documents of title
to goods and merchandise, and consignees making advances to persons abroad who
are intrusted with any goods and merchandise are entitled, under
circumstances, to a lien thereon, but under the said Act and the present state
of the law advances cannot safely be made upon goods or documents to persons
known to have possession thereof as agents only;
And whereas by the said Act it is amongst other
things further enacted, ‘that it shall be lawful to and for any person
to contract with any agent intrusted with any goods, or to whom the same may
be consigned, for the purchase of any such goods, and to receive the same of
and to pay for the same to such agent, and such contract and payment shall be
binding upon and good against the owner of such goods, notwithstanding such
person shall have notice that the person making such contract, or on whose
behalf such contract is made, is an agent; provided such contract or payment
be made in the usual and ordinary course of business, and that such person
shall not, when such contract is entered into or payment made, have notice
that such agent is not authorised to sell the same, or to receive the said
purchase money:’
And whereas advances on the security of goods and
merchandise have become an usual and ordinary course of business, and it is
expedient and necessary that reasonable and safe facilities should be afforded
thereto, and that the same protection and validity should be extended to
bonâ fide advances upon goods and merchandise as by the said recited Act
is given to sales, and that owners intrusting agents with the possession of
goods and merchandise, or of documents of title thereto, should in all cases
where such owners by the said recited Act or otherwise would be bound by a
contract or agreement of sale be in like manner bound by any contract or
agreement of pledge or lien for any advances bonâ fide made on the
security thereof:
And whereas much litigation has arisen on the
construction of the said recited Act, and the same does not extend to protect
exchanges of securities bonâ fide made, and so much uncertainty exists
in respect thereof that it is expedient to alter and amend the same, and to
extend the provisions thereof, and to put the law on a clear and certain
basis:
Be it therefore enacted by the Queen’s most
Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual
and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the
authority of the same,