The Sun.
London, England, 1858-07-29 00:00:00

BANKERS' CHEQUES.

I The feud between the law officers of the Crown
which crippled the law reforms of the late Govein-
ment appears to have been entailed upon their suc-
cessors. That which the Attorney-General pro-
mises in the Lower House the Lord Chancellor
upsets in the Peers. The Bill of Sir Fitzroy Kelly
on bankers' checks was io its original form a simple
measure, which not only fulfilled the wishes of the
mercantile comtrunity, but also was in harmony
with the general principles of the law of England.
It provided that a crossing on a check should be
deemed an essential part of the document, and, as t
logical consequence, that a banker paying a check in
disregard of the crossing or after it had be- n tam-
pered with should be Tesponsible for so doing. A
emeedment Wet proposed, in toe in er.'s s of :he
bankers, that if it should !um ou• tent the cross-
ing had been dexterously o'diterated no hale:lily
hetild attach to them. This was in a greet degree
to damage the entire measure, because it la,s been
rtcently shown that crossings can be eased so as
to escape ordinary ob eteratlona joint-st .ck bank
having availed itself of the plea to throw the lost-
from such a circumstance ou its cm otner. Bet,
aeomalons t.s it was—since, if bankers are to I.e
exonerate 1 from the consequences of paying do-
coment s a t,r they have been tampered with in a
manner wbielt amoueti to fora. ry, acceptors of
hills, and parties to eve: y other kind of instrument,
should likewise be exonerated in similar cases,
where a special indorsemeut or a signat ur •
of any kind has been expunged—the colleagues of
the At terney- General appear to have taken frigle,
and to have threatened him with desertion unless
he would all w his measure to he defaci-id, and be-
come a party to placing upon the statutes-took
another discordant and unmeaning ace The
amendment was therefore accepted witheut a
struggle by the Government, and the b inking class
were thus conciliated at the same cost of pr nciple
as when a f rimer Ministry exempted then from
reseonsibil,ty in paying cheques with forged in-
dorsements. But the 1,500 leading firms of Lon-
d .n who had petitioned for :he bill in its integrity
were not likely to reit:l,in quiescent, and there was
acme t-ille of an endeavour being yet male to re-
store it to its ratonal form. The Government cell-
seqtr ntly, of er having been frightened by the
bankers, were now in turn frightened by the public,
end nude: th-se circumstances Mr. Nicoll, the
tit mber f TFrome, obtained a virtual promise ft om
the Attorney-General that the obnoxious clause
should be resisted in the Lords. Hence the bill
was allowed to get through the Lower House.
Last night it came on in the Lords, and the Geste' re
went, instead of fulfilling their intimation, turned
round and absolutely recommended the clause in the
stronzest way. "It should always be borne in
mind," observed the Lord Chancellor, " that a
c';eck which got into dishonest hands got
there through the negligence or fault of the
person who drew it. - In the great n-tajori y
of cases the broker could not protect himself
but the cus'omer could." The whole of this
statement, which is a reproduction of some
Fainted platitudes circulated by the bankers doting
the past month, is directly at variance with f 'et.
As to the drawer of a check being able to protect
himself, if such were the cuss there would he no
teed to cross a check at. all. Checks are eres,ed
for the very purp-se of gu:arcling against those acci-
dents whi;li the Chancellor says cannot take place
without negligence. They are sometimes stolen
from the post, sometimes mis•ipp:opriated, and
sometimes lost. A men centeet answer that a letter
cont-icing a cheek shall not I e pueleined,, or that
he will never bs robbed while he bee a check in I is
pocket, or that a confidenial clerk will net abscond.
But while the Chancellor says the holder of a cheek
can protect himself, be cot, tends the bauksrs can
do nothing for their own security, and that t-e re-
cognized principles of law must therefore be set
aside for their behoof. To this headlong and
unguarded assertion the reply is—first. that
bankers can make themselves pet fec ly safe by the
adoption of tinted paper, a precaut'on not in the
power of their cu tomers who use the checks sup-
plied to thew ; secondly, ha' the tanking interest,
by resorting to a mu nal guarantee-fui:d: may avert
all danger except suds as would he utterly insigui-
fican,, but which, falling rip•Ni individuals, nrght
lead to ruin ; and, finally, that if they do not. find
their profits suftLient to cover even this nominal
risk, althou.h joint-stock b •nks are declaring divi-
dends of more than 20 per cent.., they may give
notice to their customers to that effect, and eitee r
refuse their accoun• s, unless they are to be held
free from such liability, or deaide upon making an
insurance charge. There was no occasion, there-
fore, to introduce confusion into the law in order to
suit their convenience. Of course they would not
have adept-d any cf these de ernativt s, because the
statistics of b erking show that the risk compared
with their gains would not he worth a thought,
and it is only a few weeks since a private firm ex-
pressed gratification that it was a joint-stock and
not a private bank which had resorted to what it
considered the shabl:y practice of not accepting
voluntarily evety respensitiility that could fall i;i
this way. Looking, therefore, at every feature of
the case, it is not too much to say that a more paltry
or objectionable piece of legisietion was never wtt-
nessed, and that the manner in which it has been
carried reflects discredit upon all concerned.—
Times' City Article.