Related Papers on the Law of Commerce Virtus Post Nummos?
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chapter 16 Related Papers on the Law of Commerce Virtus Post Nummos? In the years of his professorship at the Amsterdam Athenaeum (1862–1877), and partly on account of this position, Asser—either of his own accord or at the request of third parties—commented in writ on various aspects of the law of commerce in response to topical debate. We will now review these papers. 16.1 The North Sea Canal and Art. 51 of the Code of Commerce (1865) 16.1.1 The Historical Backdrop Towards the end of 1865 Asser contributed a paper to the Magazijn van Han- delsregt on an issue that was arousing heated debate in Amsterdam society.1 Its backdrop was the following. In 1824 the Noordhollandsch Kanaal (North Holland Canal) had been dug to give Amsterdam direct access to the North Sea.2 From the 1850s, the resurge of commerce and the explosion of size and draught of vessels rendered a wider and deeper gateway imperative. The pre- dicament invited the search for alternative options to shorten the trajectory to the sea. In the end, a new canal, the Noordzeekanaal (North Sea Canal) was projected. It considerably reduced the distance, actually from 75 to 21 kilo- metres, and provided sea-going ships direct access to the port of the metropolis in a straight line from the mouth of Y River (Ymuiden) to Amsterdam city centre. By royal decree of June 1863 the concession of an estimated Dfl. 27 mil- lion was granted to the Amsterdamsche Kanaal Maatschappij (AKM).3 As Dutch contractors lacked the expertise to execute the huge project, an English com- 1 ‘Eenige bladzijden uit de wordings-geschiedenis van het Amsterdamsche Noordzee-Kanaal; Bijdrage ter verklaring van Art. 51 van het Wetboek van Koophandel’, in: Magazijn van Han- delsregt VII (1865) Mengelingen, pp. 178ff. Reprinted in Studien 1889, pp. 111–124. 2 The canal, an initiative of King William I, meandered along a stretch of 75 kilometers from Den Helder through Alkmaar and Purmerend to Amsterdam. Meant to keep Amsterdam har- bour accessible to the sea, it featured raft bridges and sluices. 3 The AKM was headed by Simon Wolf Josephus Jitta (1818–1897), the representative of an Am- sterdam Jewish family we will meet again in our pages; see below, Ch. 26.3. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004397972_019 480 chapter 16 pany was contracted, Henry Lee & Sons. The digging of the canal started in March 1865 and lasted well over a decade (1865–1876).The project was an ambi- tious enterprise and a daring piece of engineering. Drainage necessitated the construction of side-canals and locks. State-of-the-art devices transferred the colonial wares that were shipped in from the Indies onto canal boats to pass them on straightaway to the German Hinterland. On the side-line, an ingenious process to reclaim land in the vicinity of expanding Amsterdam was effectu- ated. From the first, the huge project prompted animosity. The 1860s were the days of manual labour. The role of mechanics and hydraulics was still negli- gible. Working conditions were downright appalling. Diseases and infections throve wild among the labourers lodged in makeshift huts of straw, driftwood and turf. Liquor and disillusion invited abuse and debauchery. Still, from the day King William III opened the canal, in November 1876, it was an unquali- fied success. It was a typical case of ‘all’s good that ends good’. However, this happy outcome had been very questionable at the outset, in 1864–1865. On the eve work started, massive protests nearly wrecked the Kanaal Maatschappij. Or, as Asser puts it in the prelims to the reprint of his paper in Studien (the volume of Collected Papers from 1889), the genesis of the canal was not merely fascinating from a technical point of view, its legal entanglements were no less intriguing.4 In November 1864 opposition from various parties and on different grounds triggered heated debate in parliament. Protests came to a head in January– February 1865, when the legitimacy of the Kanaal Mij., and by consequence its concession were challenged on account of alleged irregularities in the company charter. The move was politically well-timed. The concession was to elapse by mid-March. The claim of the opposition was based, inter alia, on Art. 51 of the Code of Commerce. This Article stipulated that at least 10% of the company capital had to be paid-up in advance—quod non. 16.1.2 Asser’s Position Charmed by the legal conundrum, Asser intervened in the raging debate in contributions to the daily Algemeen Handelsblad of 25 January and 4 February 1865. Writing under the pen-name ‘Amstelodamensis’, he never left his cham- pionship of the project in doubt and made short shrift of legal opposition.5 Asser was never fooled: the legal front merely covered political strife and per- 4 Reprint in Studien 1889, pp. 111–124, at p. (112). 5 Studien 1889, pp. 114–117 under reference to Code of Commerce (1838) Arts. 27 and 47..