A Proposed Uniform Act Making Investment Instruments Negotiable

Abstract

The proposal that public and private investment securities should be made negotiable by statute has been looked upon favorably for many years. No particular effort has been made to define the "securities" in question, but, in general, corporate ·bonds, equipment trust certificates, interim receipts, deposit certificates and other similar paper not within, at least, not comfortably within, the Negotiable Instruments Law, the Stock Transfer Act or one of the acts dealing with warehouse receipts or bills of lading, have been meant. The particular kind of negotiability to be provided for, likewise, has had very little overt attention. Indeed, it does not appear that much thought has been given to the economic consequences to ensue from making still further additions to the category of negotiable instruments. The process, one of incubation, has thus followed up to now a perfectly normal, and in a sense thoroughly haphazard, course. It is time, particularly as regards investment money paper, to reduce at least the more important issues to the concreteness of a draft act." This, not with even a fugitive idea that the period of gestation may be shortened, but in order that the next stage, that of detailed discussion, may develop normally.