Lord Macmillan—

The sole question at issue in this appeal is whether it is permissible for the appellant company, having regard to the terms of its Memorandum of Association, to engage in the business of exporting salt from Egypt. The respondent company is a shareholder of the appellant company and as such asks and has obtained from His Britannic Majesty's Supreme Court for Egypt, an injunction restraining the appellant company from engaging in this branch of business. The present appeal is against the order so obtained.

To place the controversy in its due setting it is necessary to refer to the agreed documents in the case. From these the essential facts may be briefly extracted. It appears that by decree of 26th August 1886, the Khedive established a monopoly in Egypt of the extraction, manufacture and sale of salt and natron or native sodium carbonate. In 1897 an Egyptian limited company, the Societe Anonyme des Soudes Naturelles d'Egypte, which it will be convenient to call "the Egyptian Soda Company," was formed to operate a concession obtained by it from the Egyptian Government. This concession conferred on the Egyptian Soda Company the exclusive right to exploit the minerals a