The Sun.
London, England, 1860-07-20 00:00:00

an earlier period of the year, when it can receive the due
consideration necessary to enable it to pass, for there is at
growing and urgent demand for legislation upon this sub-
ject. (Hear, hear.) I have only now to express my regret
if, in my earnest anxiety to carry this bill, I have ever seemed
to evince any impatience towards the house. (( beers.) I
had hoped that during this session it would have been pos-
sible to make some important advance in the improvement
of this branch of our law. Circumstances have, however,
prevented it; and I trust I can say that nobody will be able
to reproach me with having lost any fair opportunity for
bringing this great question to a successful termination.
(Cheers.) I move, sir, that you do now leave the chair with
the view of proposing, when the house resumes, that the
order of the day be discharged.
Sir H. CAIRNS—I have so often ventured to express
anxiety with regard to the progress of this bill that I am
sure the committee will believe me to be sincere when I say
that I entirely concur in the regrets which have been ex-
pressed by the Attorney-General at the necessity which has
arisen for its postponement till another session. I do not
• mean to say one word by way of suggestion that the course
which has been taken by the hon. and learned gentleman is
not a necessary course, is not the most advisable one which
he could have adopted. lam sure that the committee will
respond entirely to the demand which the Attorney-General
has made upon us, and will join with me in expressing the
gratitude which is due to him for the pains and labour which
he has bestowed upon this measure. (Hear, hear.) I cer-
tainly hope 1 hat those pains and that labour have not been

thrown away, hut that at some future time the bill will be
reintroduced and carried through this house. If I may
venture to make a suggestion to the hon. and learned gentle-
men it is this, that, when the subject of the bankruptcy law
again comes before the house, great advantage would be
gained if the measure first presented was not a bill for con-
solidating the entire law of bankruptcy, but was confined
to the changes proposed to be made in that law. Such a
measure would distinctly raise the question as to the effect
and the extent of those changes, and after it had been
passed the consolidation of the law would be a matter of
very little difficulty, In place t,f having a bill of 500 or
600 clauses brought before the house, we should in the first
instance have one of some 50 or 100 clauses containing all
the changes, and the larger measure would afterwards be
treated more as a matter of routine than as one of discus-
sion. As my hon. and learned friend has referred to the
bill which was brought in by the late Government, I think
I may add that that was the course which was taken by
the late Government, and I still think, as I thought then,
that great advantage would have resulted from its adoption.
The course taken was to lay before and pass through the
other house a bill confined to the changes proposed to be
made in the law, with the view and upon a statement that
when that bill had passed both Houses of Parliament it
should be followed by a general measure repealing all pre-
vious statutes and consolidating the law. Of course, I do
not now propose to advert to my hon. and learned friend's
proposal as to making non-traders liable to the bankrupt
laws. I still think that, if accompanied by efficient safe-
guards, it may safely be &one. What those safeguards are
I will not now discuss. I must, before I sit down, say that
it will be matter of great regret to every one that the reso-
lution at which my hon. and learned friend has arrived has
not been earlier communicated to this house. We are here
this evening apparently expecting a discussion upon the
Bankruptcy Bill, and I greatly fear that a number of mem-
bers who are very much interested in the questions which
are to come on upon going into Committee of Supply are
not at all prepared for the change which has been made. I
cannot help thinking that the resolution which has been
come to must have been known to the Government for
some time, and it would have been more convenient if it
had been earlier announced what business was actually to
be proceeded with to-night. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. MALINS deeply regretted that circumstances had not
enabled his hen. and learned friend to go on with this very
valuable measure. At the same time he thought that his
hon. and learned friend had exercised a sound discretion in
abandoning it for the present. He had stated more than
once in the house, as be had communicated to the Attor-
ney-General privately, that he was afraid that the time had
come when if the measure were passed it would be so mu-
tilated, and would be deprived of so many of its most valua-
ble provisions, that it would confer upon the public but
little benefit, and upon its author very little lasting reputa-
tion—very little, indeed, of that reputation to which the
days and nights of labour which he had bestowed upon it
entitled him. (Hear.) By the course he had now taken,
and by availing himself of the very valuable suggestions
which had been thrown out in the course of the debate, the
Attorney-General would have an opportunity, if he intro-
duced the measure early next session, of passing it in such
a form as would be advantageous to the public and most ho-
nourable to himself. The suggestion which had been thrown
out by his hon. and learned friend near him (Sir H. Cairns)
as to the form in which the measure should be re-intro-
duced was a most valuable one, and in his opinion the At-
torney-General would do well to adopt it. If he had the
good fortune to be in the house next year he shOuld do his
utmost, as he had done this year, to assist in passing a mea-
sure which should embody the great principles which had
been enunciated by his hon. and learned friend. He regretted
that the house had not been earlier informed of the cl_ ange
in the business of the evening, but he was sure that if his
hon. and learned friend could have communicated the in-
formation earlier he would have done so.
Mr. HADFIELD was sorry that this bill could not be
passed into law during the present session, but thought it
much better that it should be withdrawn than that any
further concession of its principles should be made.
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL—I should have been
extremely sorrow to be wanting in courtesy or attention to
the house in this matter. The decision which I have an-
nounced was not arrived at until 2 o'clock to-day, and it was
immediately intimated to the gentleman who is the usual
organ of communication with hon. members opposite.
(Hear, hear.)
Sir J. PAKINGTON—I do not, of course, object to the
withdrawal of this bill, but I entirely concur in the great
admiration expressed by my hon. and learned friend the
member for Belfast for the ability and labour which the
Attorney-General has bestowed on the subject, and in the
feeling of regret that the extraordinary course of business
in the present session should have rendered necessary the
abandonment of so valuable and important a measure.
(Hear.) Nor can I help pointing out to the noble lord at

the head of the Government and to the house the extreme
inconvenience which must arise from the withdrawal of a
public bill of this importance and magnitude in this sudden
and unexpected manner, when the house has assembled
with the intention of considering the measure in committee
for several hours. The result must inevitably be to defeat
the objectlfor which the order of our business is printed. I
observe that the next order on the paper for this evening is
the consideration of the navy estimates in committee of sup-
ply. Upon the motion for going into committee the hon.
and gallant admiral the member f,r Southwark has given
notice of his intention to call our attention to the subject of
Greenwich Hospital, but my hon. and gallant friend is not

now in his place, and in all probability he has no idea of
the sudden change which has taken place. lam bound to
accept the statement which the Attorney-General has made;
but, on the other hand, I must remind him that it was mat-
ter of current rumour in this house on Monday and Tues-
day that Government had decided, or very nearly so, to
withdraw the Bankruptcy Bill. Under these circumstances
I would ask the noble lord at the head of the Government
—who I must say canducts the business of the house gene-
rally with great courtesy and fairness—whether it is not
desirable that Ministers should make up their minds upon
matters of this importance a little sooner, so that the house
should not be exposed to the serious inconvenience which
must arise from sudden and unexpected changes in the
course of business. (Hear.)
Lord PALMERSTON—I very much regret the incon-

venience, if any, to which the house may be put by the an-
nouncement which the Attorney -General has made. At
the same time, I think the house would have been put to
still greater inconvenience if we had persisted in asking the
house to go into committee on the Bankruptcy Bill after we
had resolved to withdraw it for the present session. (Hear.)
Sir J. PAKINGTON—I did not ask you to do that.

Lord PALMERSTON—I mean if we had invited the
house to give a decision upon a material point of the bill
while we were satisfied in our own minds that the measure
could not be carried through. I think one statement which
the right hon. baronet has made in some degree diminishes
his complaint, because he says that, as far back as Monday
and Tuesday, it was generally believed in this house that
the bill was to be abandoned for tho present session. If that
be so, the announcement which the Attorney-General has
made cannot have taken the right hon. baronet, at least,
wholly by surprise.

Sir-J. PAKINGTON—But the Bankruptcy Bill is on
the paper for this evening.

Lord PALNERSTO—It is. But all I can say is, that
we attached so much importance to this measure that we
were exceedingly reluctant to give up the hope of being
able to carry it through during the present session. We
clung to that hope, perhaps, longer than reason would have
justified. There are cases in which hope is said to survive
reason; but, be that as it may, we were unwilling to with-
draw the bill until the conviction forced itself upon our
minds that there was no reasonable expectaiion of our being
able to pass it in the present session. We almost came to
that opinion yesterday, but our decision was made to depend
upon a communication which I was to have with the Attor-
ney-General this morning. I had that communication; I
found that he entirely concurred in the conviction to which
we had come; and he has taken the earliest opportunity to
state it to the house. (Hear, hear.) Those hon. members
who are interested in the business of the house this even-
ing will naturally have looked at the orders. They will
have seen that Committee of Supply was appointed
to follow the Bankruptcy Bill. Suppose that the labours

of the Attorney - General elsewhere had rendered him

unable to go on with the bill to-day—not at all an unlikely
thing to have happened—we should then have proceeded
at once to the consideration of the navy estimates in com-
mittee of supply. Hon. members ought to take such con-
tingencies into account; at any rate nobody can complain

that we should now go on with the next order of the day,

(Hear, hear.)
Mr. BOUVERIE joined in the regrets which had been
expressed for the fate of the bill, and in the conviction that
that fate was unavoidable. He certainly thought that it
would have been wiser to have divided the scheme into two,
Or three measures, ancltn,.;t.ix •NO the coutroverted,rnatter