The practice Of individuals entering into large associations, now called joint-stock companies, which were originally only extended partnerships, has led to a separate code as to these being framed for the United Kingdom. See JOINT-STOCK COMPANIES. The practice of limiting the liabilities of partners or shareholders in joint-stock companies had of late years led to the belief that a similar restriction might well he extended to ordinary partnerships, and accordingly a bill was introduced into parliament in 1W4 to enable this to be done. But that view was not carried out•eXcept to a limited extent, though an attempt was made to simplify seine of•the rules as to partnership liability, which are somewhat perplexing. It had long been matter of complaint that every man who had a share of the profits of a trade was said to be liable also to bear his share of the loss; whereas by lending money at a fixed rate of interest he was a mere creditor and could be exposed to no risk but the loss of his advance. The house of lords, how ever, in 1860, had held it to be a mistake to suppose that a person who advanced money on terms of profits was necessarily a partner. To remove part of the difficulty, however, an act of 28 and 29 Viet. c. S6 was passed, which enacts that if advances are made by written contract to a person in trade on terms of sharing profits, that of itself will not make the lender a partner. Nor will the payment of a servant or agent by a share of profits, nor the receipt by a deceaSed partner's widow or child of part of the profits as annuity, make any of these a partner. But the benefit of this act was con
fined in most cases to written contracts, and thus the old law remains as to other cases. It is still the law that a person, not a partner, becomes liable as one, if he has either represented himself as a partner, or authorized another so to represent him; and the third person dealing with the firm must have known this representation to enable him to hold the dormant partner liable. In 1870 a bill was passed "to facilitate compro mises and arrangements between creditors and shareholders of joint-stock and other companies in liquidation," but these points do not call for notice here.
In Scotland the law of partnership, though in its essential features the same with the law of England, differs in one or two particulars. The partnership is treated as a dis tinct person in law, the partners being only its sureties or eautioners; and the conse quence of this is, that in actions by or against the firm, the individual partners need not be named, though in practice one or two of them generally are named. Each partner may also sue the than as if it were a distinct person; and the firm may be made bankrupt without any of the partners being sequestrated. See Paterson's Comp of E. & S. Law, A. 214.