The Sun.
London, England, 1848-08-19 00:00:00

AUGUST 19,
___lB4B.

BANKRUPT LAW OF ENGLAND
REPORT.

By the Lords Committees appointed a Select Committee
to consider of the Bill, intituled " An Act to consoli-
date and amend the Bankrupt Law of England;" and
to whom were referred two petitions on the subject of
the Bankrupt Law.
Ordered to report,—That the Committee have met, and
lost no time in proceeding with the important Bill to them
referred. They have sat fifteen days consecutively, and
examined a great number of witnesses, as well persons en-
gaged in trade, wholesale and retail, as Commissioners of the
Court of Bankruptcy, Registrars of Bankrupts. Courts, offi-
cial assignees, barristers and solicitors, and others. They
have examined, amongst others, the principal persons who
have lately presented to this House the petitions referred to
the Committee, and they have examined such persons/as
these petitioners suggested to be examined.
Upon some points, both of the existing law of debtor and
ereditor, and of the changes proposed in the Bill, there has
been an entire concurrence of opinion and of evidence in all
the wanesses examined. Upon other points there has been a
difference of opinion, greater or less.
To the former head belong the subject of the change in
the bankruptcy administration instituted by the Act of 1831.
All the opinions and all the evidence, without any exception,
is in favour of that new system, as a great improvement, and
as universally approved by the mercantile world. There is
the same unanimity of opinion and evidence in favour of the
proposed extension of the jurisdiction of the Commissioners,
so as to retain the appeal within the bankrupt court, subject
to ultimate review of the Great Seal ; of the conferring upon
them, under proper guards, a direst power of penal jurisdic-
tion ; of the change in the procedure by abolishing the fiat,
and substituting a direct petition to the Court ; and of other
changes proposed by the Bill. There is likewise the same
agreement of opinion in considering the proposed digest as a
valuable addition to the statute law.

To the head of points on which there is a difierence of
opinion belong the important subject of arrest on mesue pro-
cess, and the late Acts respecting protection to insolvents
the effects of these changes in the law upon the security of
creditors, upon the protection of unfair debtors, upon the en-
enabling fraud to be practised, upOn the postponing declara-
tions of insolvency by persons whose circumstances are fail-
ing; there is also a great diversity of opinion on the very
important and difficult subject of assimilating the law touching
traders and nontraders, and consolidating under one court the
administration of that law.
Upon these important subjects great discrepancy of opinion
and of evidence exists; and there is some, though not con-
siderable, exception to the general concurrence of opinion in
favour of the transfer to the Court of the power of granting
certificates. There is hardly any difference of opinion in re-
spect of the propriety of paying the official assignees in a
different manner, so as to equalize the profits more nearly,
and yet to give a duo stimulus to the activity of each.
There seems as considerable a concurrence in favour of the
course proposed, that the balance-sheet should be made out
in the official assignee's office, and that he should have a
reasonable remuneration for this increased work and labour.
Under these circumstances the Committee recommend
that the Bill to them referred should not be further proceeded
with during the present session ; but that, as early as may
be in next session, this Committee, or any other to be
named by the House, should further proceed to consider the
matters on which the discrepancy above referred to exists,
and on which they are not at present prepared to report any
opinion to the House.
And the Committee have directed the minutes of evidence,
together with an appendix and index thereto, to be laid be-
fore your Lordships.
- -- -
GERMAN PROJECTS OF UNITY

AND REGENERATION. - -
On the 6th August last the whole of Germany made a
demonstration to celebrate the unity of the German na-
tion. An act of homage was performed by the armies
of the several States to the new Vicar-General the Arch-
duke John, of Austria. From Berlin to Munich, and
from Hamburgh to Carlsruhe the German banner waved,
and a simultaneous shout of exultation was raised, in
which all classes of the community joined with more or
less sincerity. One great fact has, therefore, been some-
what pompously announced to the world. Thirty mil-
lions of civilised citizens have declared their desire to
unite their forces for the purpose of attaining their com-
mon weal. The French have done the same on many
occasions. For a long succession of years the fetes of
July recalled the revolution of 1830 to the minds of the
people. In February of the present year, trees of liberty
were everywhere planted throughout the same country
in token of the emancipation of the people from the sys-
tem which theft/es of July had celebrated. In Italy,
too, the banner of union has floated on every tower from
Milan to Palermo. The watchword of liberty, whether
" Pio Nono," or " Carlo Alberto," was as current on
every tongue and as familiar to the ears of twenty mil-
lions of Italians, as that of the " Reichsoerweser" was in
Germany on the 6th August. We shall not, therefore,
appear hypercritical if we look upon the demonstration
in favour of German unity as the mere expression of a
wish, of no greater promise in its present phase than its
precursors in France and Italy, a dream of what ought
to exist, and might, perhaps, under very favourable cir-
cumstances be achieved, but presenting at present no
visible guarantees for its realization.
Unhappily, as we examine further into the doings of
our Teutonic neighbours, this dream of unity appears to
rest upon the visionary substructure of her other dreams,
of which we have only to state the nature in order to
convince all who are awake, of the disappointment and
confusion which cannot fail to ensue from a dependence
upon them.
There is a vision of political dominion which forms the
back ground of the picture of unity conjured up at the
moment, and which is not the less alluring because
dangerously unsound, nor the less unreasonable that it
appears to rest upon national wants, and to be within the
compass of national exertion. The candidates for the
leadership in the State, which it is now attempted to
' form, make no attempt to conceal that unity in Germany
is intended to form an arm which shall raise discord in
abundance beyond the German frontier. These states-
men have shaped out for their political career no such
dull task as that of setting their households in order;
of arranging and mediating between the claims and in-
terests of classes, and providing guarantees for the li-
berties, which they vote in abundance; or in resuscitat-
ing the trading activity which the despotic Governments
were occasionally accused of having purposely under-
mined. The glory of the new Fatherland is not to be
drawn from its own resources, not to bo worked out on
its own soil. Conquest is the lure that is not plainly
held up to view, but which is the theme of every sorg
and of every speech, more or less covertly expressed as
the class of hearers to whom each is addressed seems to
require. The conquest of the sea board, or, at least, of
the mouths of the great rivers, is the favourite vision of
the moment. It is apparently demanded by the dignity
of the Confederation, and by the interests of trade.
Difficulties never deter dreamers, and to revolutionary
writers all is practicable, The Sound of the Darda-
nells, like the Elbe and the Rhine, are sighing to be re-
am, Theeann
gnedrrei Germanssifl ut i
thisisnbeced tatnacoaashrkt diei
000
re-
lieved of the commercial restraints imposed by Danes
end Dutchmen, as by Czars and Sultans. This is the
project with which a writer, of no ordinary stamp, en-
tertains a people carried away by the enthusiasm engen-
dered by a successful revolution. To plans like these a.
paper of standing like the Allgemeine Zeitung opens its
columns. Regenerated and united Germany is to be the
knight-errant of commercial freedom and of trading or-
ganization.
sfeoaedl
rti dot
tiobehysbef,
eomt rbhsa
accomplished,
ctuv
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suppressionpp
occupa-
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Iswhatfhewde
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a tl
ewfenearleestsoldthtahaatsiixt
nearly
territory
ear ey
tthe territories
fi
double
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ot
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be io tnasni
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Confederation,bTl
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Bohemia, Moravia, and Hungary, number eleven mil-
lions, the Hungarians are six millions, the Wallachians
four millions, and the population of the Danish pro-
vinces of Turkey four millions. Here we have twenty-
fivenueuntte
he f
acreen ttrea I
beE uardodpeed, , taos wwheilclhasthe
the DLaenmebs
millions occupying nearly one-fourth of the conti-
, whom theeyeemeaabd
becauseths
Venetians, a ar
dn sd atnh de
tshaeniseouwtrhieternr doomss teof st subjection
Tyro-
lese and Carinthian Alps.
This may seem !pretty well for one vision, and the
reader may form from the mere enumeration of the ob-
jects comprised within its scope, a tolerably correct
.zior,
tion of its tubstantiality. But it is melancholy to see a
nation professedly studious, and boastingly contemptuous
in its criticisms of the deeds of its neighbours, so utterly
unable to profit by their experience. Even the French
Republicans well know the cost of a foreign war; the
price in domestic liberty has been taught which must be
paid for military glory. But the prospect of having
some day to settle accounts with a Radetzky or a
Wrangel, does not cross the mind of' a German any
more than the extent or the numbers of the population
of the fields to be conquered. Dutch and Danish men-
of-war and merchantmen, Polish scythemen and Lancers,
the Hussars of Hungary, and the Coasacks of Russia,
are to be dispersed to the four winds of heaven before
the triumphant career of united Germany, which neither
fears their hostility nor courts their co-operation.
The second dream of the day is an orgnaization of in-
dustry, of a nature that would put Louis Blanc and the
Communists to the blush, for they can scarcely have ex-
pected to be so much outdone in absurdity. The Atelier
National supposed at least a concentration of force. It
might be difficult to get some of the collaborateurs to
work, but, it they were inclined, the Communists pro-
posed to give them the advantage of division of labour
and of a command of machinery. But what are we to
say to an organization on the principle of isolation?
What is likely to be the amount of power exerted in
scattered villages and hamlets, where competition is not
to be extinguished by co-operation, but where each trades-
man, and of course each journeymen, is to be the judge
of the extent of competition to be allowed in
his locality, where the scattered sites 'of the dwellings
precludes all concentration, whether of manual labour or
of machinery, if indeed the latter be at all considered
under circumstances which must preclude all accumula-
tion of capital. Our readers have to be told that a
congress on industrial organization is now sitting, com-
posed of tradespeople, who have formally drawn up a
proposal for reconstituting the guilds of the middle ages,
1 tor licensing all trades according to numbers, of which
the said guilds are to be solo judges. As, of course, no
one class of the community can at the present day arm-
gate to itself such a power without seeming to have the
good of the other classes at heart, the same kind of right
must be conceded in self-defence to the workmen, who
will then fix the number of hands that each master
shall employ. Between the two the market price of
goods will of course be fixed, and must be maintained
by protecting duties on foreign products. Since the
manufacturing population (being the majority) will
hardly allow themselves to be victimised in this manner
without retaliation; we may expect that they will devise
the means of fixing the price of bread end meat, and
that they will forthwith impose corn-duties on fixed
or sliding scales, according to the apparent urgency of
the case, and thus seek to reimburse themselves of the
sums of which the tradesmen shall have mulcted them.
Hence, according to the plan sketched_ out by the
" Gewenb Congress," we should see every faulty are-
rangement that has been successively discarded from the
last century downwards re-established. Corn:, awe, pro-
hibitive duties, trades' unions, and borporation guilds,
would combine to construct a social and
industrial
edifice of so wenderf,il a nature, that, as we have said,
.. , .
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f the Pkeliiirtire and the Atelier National would seem
models of perfection beside its hideous deformity. This is
the second vision of United Germany, and one which
has, like its political fellow, no small number of enthu-
siastic admirers.

Upon these visionary crutches the unity of Germany
is likely to make slow progress to realization, nor can
it with such arms stand its ground against the deeply-
rooted prejudices, the palpable interests, the analyzing
scrutiny of practical men. Kings, priests, nobles,
manufacturers, and workmen, will be impelled by in-
stinct to distrust, and may be driven by hunger to scout
it. Before it is too late something ought surely to be
done to avert the confusion which seems courted on all
sides. If nations dream they must be aroused to a sense
of realities like other people, and the statesman who has
not nerve to declare the truth when its concealment is
likely to prove ruinous to his country, deserves to be
scouted by contemporary as he assuredly will be by
posthumous history.

FRANCE.
[The following appeared in our Third Edition of
last night] : • -
The Constitutionatal says :
" The rumour has been current for some days past
that a new tumultuous manifestation was in the course of
being organized in Paris, and that it was looking out for
a pretext. Italy, it was said, was this time to be the mot
d'ordrAgoland was on the 15th of May, and the parties
werejp ihide themselves behind the Legitimist flag,
as thttykad formerly borrowed that of Prince Louis Na-
poleour, It is said that the intention was to make an
imperious demand for an amnesty, sad a declaration in
favour of the system of M. Proudhon, &c. The autho-
rities have taken measures of precaution, and, in case of
necessity, of repression, but the rumour appears to be
without any serious foundation."
The Univers says, that. in the event of its being
determined that Lombardy shall be an independent
state, it is proposed that it sbould be conferred upon
the Duke of LEUCIITENBEIGi with the title of Duke
of Milan. " This combination," says the finiverg,
" would be agreeable at the same time to France, to
Russia, and a portioe of the people of Lombardy,
who would receive with joy the son of Prince
EUGENE." '-

The Courtier de la Drdme gives the following ac-
count of the army of the Alps :--
" The army of the Alps had made a movement in ad-
vance. The following are the new positions:—The first
division is to march immediately and concentrate itself
round Briancon, where the head-quarters will be esta-
blished. The second division will rest on Grenoble.
The third divison is arriving by forced marches from
Paris to take a position round Iyons. The fourth divi-
sion (the reserve), which left Briancon about a month
ago for the interior, is also on its march to concentrate
itself at Bourg."