The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-07-04 00:00:00

speculator—the over-sanguine or incautious, con•
stitute the great bulk of debtors in the true

rsc tlu fit].
really the men who could get any amount of
credit on their good name, and who are the
honest defaulters.

Til elQa ore

There are hosts of others who get into debt in
what is thought a less legitimate way, and others
who have no means of paying anybody. These
two classes of debtors constitute only a wretchedly
small fractional part of the immense debtor
interest. That there is such an interest, and that
it ought to be protected no one will pretend to deny.
Our bankruptcy laws were originally formed for the
protection of the trade defaulter, and the Insol-
vent Act for the. relief of all debtors. The exis-

tence of these statutes proves that the debtor
interest was recognised, and treated with earnest
solicitude by a former Legislature. Our civil
jurisprudence had scarcely assumed a constitu-
tional and intelligible shape, when the Bankrupt
and Insolvent Courts were established. Previ-
ously debt was often used for the purest purposes
of prosecution, and we can all remember seeing
the little boxes on prison doors, and baskets
hanging from the windows of gaols, with the me-
morable appeal—" Remember the Poor Debtor."
Men known to be wealthy were not unfrequently
the recipients of the bounty bestowed on the sup-
posed mendicant. Incarcerated by a single
creditor, and robbed by his nearest friend, the
debtor was cruelly plundered, and the others
whom he ought to have paid were openly
swindled.

Bankruptcy and Insolvency have removed the
possibility of such things being done in these
days. The Chancery victim alone is left for
life in prison without a chance of a re
lease, or redress for his sufferings. If the
debtor will not submit an account of his deal-
ings to his creditors. they can compel him
to do so, cr send him to a felon's prison. If,
when he has accounted for all his acts, if fraud
can be proved against him, he can be dealt with
as a criminal. If men contract debts which they
have no means of paying, and obtain goods
under false pretences, they can be indicted,
and punished summarily, or sent for trial
by a jury. And with these means of
making those who have property disgorge
all they possess, of punishing the fraudu-

lent debtor and swindler, the creditor interest
are not satisfied. They must make debtors'
prisons what the abode of felons ought to be, and
they take from the debtor who they cannot punish
with all the doors the law leaves open to them,
all those little comforts and indulgences which
would render the breaking down of an
honest man less painful to his friends
and less agonising to himself. This is carrying
paltry persecution to its greatest limit. It is
making England too Continental for Englishmen.
It is giving the prosperous man too much power
over the unfortunate tradesman and thoughtless
spendthrift.

The man who is not indictable for his acts cannot
be guilty of offence against his creditors, and as a
simple debtor he ought to be treated as an
innocent subject. These were the ideas enter-
tained by the popularity-seeking Whigs only
a very few years ago. We remember certain
Ministers now in office talking largely
about
the propriety of abolishing arrest for debt—
the folly of locking men up because they were in
difficulties—the wickedness of sending the unfor-
tunate to gaol—and all that professional liberalism
which sounds so well in an electioneering ballad.
A score years, or so, mattes a wonderful change
in the general character of our political carols.
We either have a cataclysm of purity in those

compositions, or a frightful mixture of falsified
pledges and.forgotton vows. We are glad, however,
to find the legislature are about to discuss a bill
which will give the creditor interest the power of
enforcing judgments obtained in any competent
court in England, Ireland, or Scotland, by
means of execution, in all parts of the United
Kingdom. And our readers will all agree with
Mr. HADFIELD in saying that it is quite right
to do away with the existing distinctions where
there are but " one sovereign and one government "
Let the creditor have all he can ask in justice for
his protection, and let the debtor be treated as an
honest man deserves, and punished for fraud
when it is proved, as the law directs. At present
he neither enjoys the immunities of honesty nor
the penalties directed against cheating.