delivered. Nor is there any question raised upon the record as to the right of this company as a foreign corporation to hold real estate or even mining leases in this state. If the commonwealth has any interest in such inquiry, it can be raised by her proper officer. It is a matter with which the plaintiff in error has no. concern.” Since the decision of this case in the trial court, the Supreme Court of South Dakota, in an elaborate and instructive opinion by Bennett, J., has passed upon the identical statute here in question, which South Dakota, like North Dakota, received at the hands of the late Territory of Dakota. The conclusion reached by that court, after a full review of the authorities, is thus stated: “Aided by the light of these able decisions, endeavored to be reviewed upon both sides of the question raised in the case at bar, we have come to the conclusion that the constitutional provision and legislative enactment in our state, as quoted above, was not designed or intended as a prohibition upon foreign corporations to contract in this state, to the extent to declare such contracts void, but were merely intended to furnish the means by which our citizens could procure personal judgments against foreign corporations who were their debtors. And while the statute did in terms prohibit the transaction of business until its provisions are complied with, yet whatever objection there might be made to a foreign corporation for noncompliance, it being a statute regulating a public policy, this objection could not be urged collaterally by a private person, but it must be done by a direct proceeding instituted by the state.” Wright v. Lee, (S. D.) 51 N. W. Rep. 706. Sec also, Mor. Priv. Corp. § 665; Fritts v. Palmer, 132 U.S. 282, 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 93; Fortier v. Bank, 112 U. S. 439, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 234; Reynolds v. Bank, 112 U.S. 405, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 213; Chase's Patent Elevator Co. v. Boston Tow Boat Co., 152 Mass. 428, 28 N. E. Rep. 300; Merrick v. Engine & Governor Co., 101 Mass. 384.
The cases which we have cited from the various classes demonstrate, perhaps, the lack of uniformity with more certainty than they point to the correct rule of construction. Yet when studied,
