The Sun.
London, England, 1853-07-05 00:00:00

IMPERIAL PARLIAM ENT.

HOUSE OF LORDS--(YESTERDAY.)

The LORD CHANCELLOR took his seat on the woolsack
at five o'clock.

CRIMINAL LAW IMPROVEMENT.
Lord LYNDHURST asked the noble and learned
lord on the woolsack when the committee on the bill for
the improvement of the criminal law would meet again?
The LORD CHANCELLOR said the committee
stood over for the convenience of the Lord Chief Justice.

Lord BROUGHAM hoped an early day woull be
fixed, as it was of great importance that the committee
should finish its labours as early as possible.
The Earl of DERBY presented a petition from medi-
cal men of the town of Croydon, praying for legislation
for the improvement of the medical profession, and from
Staines praying for the abolition of the duty on the ex-
portation of British salt to India.

THE SCOTCH BANKRUPT LAW.
Lord BROUGHABI rose, according to notice, to pre-
sent a petition from merchants and traders of the city
of London who were concerned in the trade with Scot-
land, on the subject of the Scotch bankrupt law. He
should certainly feel much disappointed if their lordships
did not favour him with their attention while he stated
some matters respecting this petition, for it must be ad-
mitted that, generally speaking, though petitions were
respectfully received by their lordships, there was a great
indisposition to attend to anything respecting them un-
less they had to touch upon some personal or party mat-
ter, and then there was no lack of attention either to
the petition or the motion made thereupon, or any mat-
ter mingled with it. He was sorry, however, to add
that not only was this a petition, but it was a petition
on a subject which was in itself not very likely to be a
lively one. It was upon the subject of Scotch bank-
ruptcy. But he should first state to their lordships who
the petitioners were, and what their interest was in the
subject before he proceeded to give their statement of
their grievance and their suggestions for the remedy of
that grievance. The petitioners represented the first
houses in the city of London in every respect, and the
first houses concerned in the trade of Scotland. There
were upwards of 200 of these firms, the partners in
which had signed this petition, and when he looked at
the names of these firms, many of them he recognised as
well known to him as being among the first in the city
of London, and others he knew as. holding that position
by their description from persons intimately acquainted
with them. To show their importance, it might suffice
to state that five of the houses out of the 200 repre-
sented by the petition carried on business with Scotland
to the amount of considerably upwards of 1.000,0001.
sterling a year. He had a petition to the same effect,
complaining of precisely the same grievance, from par-
ties not in London, but connected with and carrying on
trade in Scotland. This was a petition from Sir James
Campbell and other office-bearers in the Glasgow and
West of Scotland Guardian Society for the Protection
of Trade, and who, as such, were interested in the pro-
per administration of the estates of bankrupts and in-
solvents. Every one who was acquainted with Glasgow
was acquainted with the house of Sir James Campbell
and Company ; and this society was composed of mer-
cantile houses who were all the great traders in the
city of Glasgow. He had also a petition from a cor-
porate body (the directors of the Chamber of Com-
merce and Manufacturers, established by royal charter
in the city of Glasgow, under the seal of the corpora-
tion), and signed by the chairman and secretary. Another
petition with which he was intrusted was from the Mer-
chants'-house of Glasgow, also a corporate body, signed
by the Lord Dean of Guild, and sealed with the seal of
the corporation. He had also two petitions, to nearly
the same effect, from different parts of England ; one
from Bradford, from the town-conncil ; and another
from Carlisle, the merchants and manufacturers of which
city, from their proximity to Scotland, were deeply in-
terested in this matter, arising out of the constant com-
mercial intercourse between them and the northern parts
of the United Kingdom. From Huddersfield he had a
petition, signed by 23 merchants and manufacturers,
and from Cupar Fife a petition signed by seven procu-
rators practising before the Sheriff and Court there, who
were parties interested in the proper administration of
the estates of bankrupts and insolvents in Scotland,
and in the assimilation of the bankruptcy and commer-
cial laws throughout the United Kingdom. He be-
lieved that a vast number of other petitions would very
soon be presented to their lordships, all upon the same
subject, all complaining of the present system, and all
craving a speedy and effectual remedy. The case was
shortly this—and he would solicit the attention of his
noble and learned friends while he alluded to it, for it
must be admitted that though they were not bound to
listen to all the suggestions which mercantile men might
give for the reform of the law relating to bankruptcy,
and though their lordships were bound to exercise their
own discretion according to the best lights they could
obtain, yet when the question was as to the sufferings
which were experienced under the present state of the
law, they were bound to listen to those who were the
sufferers, and who addressed their lordships for the pur-
pose of detailing their grievances, because it was the
most important fact in the case that such grievances
existed, and that such sufferings were by the petitioners
endured. Now, the petitioners set forth the manner in
which the law affected them, and he should endeavour,
as distinctly as he could, to explain the state of the law.
In 1831 a great change took place in England on the
subject of the bankrupt law, as was well known to his
noble and learned friends, and that change was deemed to
be necessary by the evils of the previously existing system.
Now, suppose that instead of the evils now complained of,
and which led Parliament to reform the law—suppose it
had been the case in England that the assignees of a
bankrupt not only were apt to forget their duty, to go to
sleep over their duty, and not only to gather in and re-
alise the bankrupt's estate, but that they had an indirect
interest in not doing their duty. In one instance, he re-
membered, it had been found—and this was one great
ground of the change made in England in 1831—that
there was occasionally an indirect interest on the part of
the assignees inconsistent with their duty; and where a
bankrupt had funds it was found that there was a tendency
to allow the proceedings to linger on the part of the
persons intrusted with these funds. In Scotland, how-
ever, the matter was a great deal werse. There was not
only the same chance of neglect, and the same tendency
on the part of these persons to slumber over their duties,
but the trustee was there a paid officer, which the En-
glish assignee never was, and he was interested directly
in delay by receiving payment. The trustee received a
commission, which commission was awarded to him in
the manner he would presently describe, and the conse-
quence of his being a paid officer their lordships would
soon perceive. Suppose another differenee had existed
between the English bankrupt law in 1831 and the law
as it at present stood in Scotland. Suppose the assignee
had not only been the administrator of the funds arising
out of the estate, but had been also vested with judicial
functions ; and had had to adjudicate upon the claims of
creditors as well. Yet that was the case in Scotland at
this instant. He did not believe a system could have
been more cunningly devised to frustrate the great object
and views of the equal distribution of the bankrupts'
estate and the prevention of fraud and of delay—ho did
not think anything more cunningly devised to accom-
plish these two ends could have been conceived than the
system which had long prevailed, and which still, he
was sorry to say, almost in the full force of its abuses,
continued to prevail in the bankrupt law of Scotland.
First, there was the choice of the trustee. For this
officer no qualification was required. He ought to be
both an accountant and a judge. Instead of this, how-
ever, he was required to possess no learning whatever—
no qualification of any sort. But there was one re-
quirement—the trustee must have a majority of votes.
Every kind of means, approaching even to corruption,
were consequently used for the purpose of obtaining
office, and after that, as in the case of an election for
the other house of Parliament, the return of the trustee
was capable of being set aside. As there was always a
competition for the office—always what might be called
a contested election—so there was, he would not say al-
ways, but very often, a petition, as it were, against the
return of the trustee • and an application to the Court to
set aside that return, led, as in the case of a Parliamentary
petition, to "a scrutiny,"—namely, a scrutiny of the votes
of the creditors by whom the trustee was elected. The
case would, under such circumstances, be heard before
the sheriff, who was the judge-ordinary of the district,
from whom there was an appeal to the Court of Session,
and from the Court of Session to this house. The trus-
tee had judicial functions. He had to decide upon the
claims of creditors, but from his decision there was again
an appeal to the sheriff, from him to the Court of Ses-
sion, and from the Court of Session to this house.
The trustee was never a lawyer, but it happened gene-
rally that he was a trader, though he was sometimes
not even that. He ought to be both a lawyer and an
accountant, while it often happened that he was neither
one nor the other. As the office of trustee was a paid
one, there were many who devoted themselves to the
post for the emoluments to be derived from it, and thus
was created a class of accountants such as existed a few
years ago at Guildhall, and whom his noble and learned
friend the Lord Chief Justice would, if he were pre-
sent, recognize under the description of accountants who
whend
could give no account. In his judicial capacity,
sitting to decide upon the claims of creditors submitted
to him, questions of the greatest difficulty were brought
before him—sometimes questions of law, sometimes
questions of equity, and constantly questions of fact—
in all which the trustee acted both as judge and jury.
Those who were acquainted with the state of the Scotch
law would know that the practice in the courts there
was unhappily different from our own—that the principle
of fusion had been adopted there, and that there was no
difference between the court of law and of equity. This
trustee, however, was in all cases ignorant of the law,
so that when a very important bankruptcy occurred he
was sided by an assesor, who was a lawyer. This was
of course all at the expense of the bankrupt's estate,
and therefore at the cost of the creditors, and he him-
self had known an instance not long ago—not more than
20 or 25 years since—of a very important bankruptcy
in which the trustee was aided by a learned person who
was afterwards a judge in the Court of Session—Lord
Cunningham—and they sat for many days, and he
might say weeks, in unravelling the circumstances con-
nected with this bankruptcy, eminent counsel being
engaged, with appeals possible at every stage and at
every decision given by the trustee, and with one ap-
peal of which he had reason to know something, for
it did not stop with the sheriff, but went next to the
Court of Session, and afterwards to their lordships'
house ; he referred to the remarkable case of " Grant
and Baillie," the only instance he remembered in
which the judges of England were called in to de-
cide a Scotch case. By the bill which he (Lord
Brougham) had introduced power of appeal was only
given to the Court of Session, for he looked upon the
I appeal from the trustee to the sheriff as entirely useless.