The Express.
London, England, 1867-06-20 00:00:00

KRITANNIA

RvENINn. DINI: 1), Oa; NV ILI.; Olt, TOR ARNO' 'HEWS
TALE —%li rr 1111dt-or-old mid • ttttt ode E NIA Ha I AGE
cEnriFicATE ult.. % mtorilEit'S HONOUR. %In. S. Lai....
—And 0 EOM: EliAlt7sW ELL. Mr. J.ll. Hose, Miss S. Mlles

MOO W \TKII AT LONDON MINS.

TQfe Div —%l.4lling. :th. 4h Ilm.
10-I.loriow—Mondou, td eym Aftvnux,n, 4b.

LONDON, THURSDAY, JUNE 20.

A BRIEF and almost casual conversation in the
House of Lords on Monday evening went to the
root of one of the difficulties which perplex and
encumber the proposed bankruptcy legislation.
The tendency of public opinion has set strongly
in the direction of abolishing imprisonment for
debt. It has been abolished for a quarter of a
century in the cam of debts under 201. In the
Bankruptcy Act of 1862 provisions were made for
its virtual abrogationin other eases, and i n the !tills of
both last year and this year its almost entire abolition
in the Ca8l! of debts to any amount has been proposed.
Yet, strange to say, it has been resuscitated in the
case of debts under 201. by means of machinery
devised in statutes only a year or two later in date
than thus,' which first attacked the principle. The
County Court Judge is entrusted with power,
either in his original judgment or by subsequent
summons, to inquire into the circumstances under
which the debt was contracted, and if the debtor's
conduct has been fraudulent the Judge may commit
him for 40 days. Moreover, if the Judge is satisfied
that he has means of paying, but will not pay, the
like power of commitment may be exercised ; and
as it may be exercised time after time, the impri-
sonment may become of indefinite duration. But
no such power is entrusted to courts of higher
jurisdiction. And though the debtor to a small
amount may be imprisoned till he has paid the
uttermost farthing, having no power to escape by
bankruptcy, the debtor to a large amount is not
only free from gaol, but is entitled to liberate
himself entirely from all his obligations by a sur-
render of his property in bankruptcy, even though
it does not pay so much as a penny in the pound.
This anomaly is hard to justify, and it is not won-
derful to find that, though Lord CHELMSFORD, the
Tory Lord Chancell,,r, defends it, Lord CAIRNS,
the late Tory Attorney-General and present Lord
Justice, declares it to be indefensible. Yet, on
the other hand, we must not leave out of view
that the County Court Judges, in whom the dis-
cretion of imprisonment for small debts is reposed,
are all but unanimously in favour of its exercise,
and declare that but for its existence their tribunals
might be shut up.
We need not, however, allow our minds to be
much disturbed with this alternative. A court
of law is not in itself an essential blessing, but
only a means of obviating injustice ; and if we
can obviate the injustice otherwise, we may recon-
cile ourselves to the closing of the institution.
And it is to be observed that the right to imprison
a debtor is not inherent in the relation of a
creditor. Credit, when not given on pledge of a
security, is really a confidence based on opinion,
but carrying no abstract right of punishment if the
opinion proves to be ill-founded. The community
may superadd the right of punishment if it thinks
fit, but to do so is at its option, and cannot be
demanded in any other name than that of public
convenience. Now, public convenience is evi-
dently concerned in the punishment of fraud,
when practised by a debtor, as well as when
practised by a seller, for in both cases it
implies a wilful deception, from which
ordinary precaution would not secure the
other party. But when the question comes
to be one, not of fraud, but merely of
refusal to pay what is due, what is then the
nature of the demand that a promise shall be
enforced by punishment ? It is plainly that the '
State shall provide machinery for ensuring
honourable conduct. This is not very reasonable,
if no stronger reason can be supplied. The State
might justly retort that tho maxim in other trans-
actions, Carrot imp/.0, should he applicable
to cases of loan. The creditor should not lend
without security, unless he feels certain of the
amorality of his debtor. He has no justification
in calling on the public to build and maintain
prisons only to enforce a morality which he was
not compelled to put to such a test. Sensible of
this weak point in the case, the advocates of im-
prisonment for small debts say that it is only re-
sorted to in the case of obstinacy combined with
ability to pay, and that it is useful in enabling
the poor to tide over seasons of distress by the

power of obtaining a credit that must otherwise
be refused. But there is something self-contra-
dictory in these allegations. If a man has the
ability to pay a small debt, he must in general
have some little property which could be diatrained
upon fur payment. If he has not he must be
living in lodgings, and existing from hand to mouth
on his woes, and by going to prison his wages
and his means of payment are stopped together ;
so that the remedy is solely applicable as a threat
to induce such a man to lay aside something out of
his wages rather than go to prison. But ought
credit to have been originally given to a man of
such character and position? Would not the
simpler legal remedy have been that which would
have been applied at an earlier stage, by warning
the creditor that if lie trusted a man of such cha-
racter he did it at his peril ? Nor can it justly be