The Sun.
London, England, 1861-05-04 00:00:00

PRICE 4D. STAMPED, SD,

G.REENWICH HOSPITAL BILL.

The Bill of the First Lord of the Admiralty for
remodelling the constitution of Greenwich Hospital
proposes that the office of Governor be continued,
‘er o r Pkasy,
with a salary of £l,OOO a-year out of the funds of
the hospital, in addition to his half-pay, but that
" he shall not take any active part In the manage-
ment of the hospital." For that management the
present commissioners are to give place to a new
thecom Firstmission , eonsistin consisting
Commissioner of
of
Paymaster-General
ree
per-
sons to be appointed (and removable) by the
Admiralty—namely, a civil commissioner, with a
salary, an admiral superintendent, and a medical
commissioner, with a sßlary ; the admiral superin-
tendent to be of the rank of rear-admiral, to be
appointed for five years, to have no salary, but to
receive his full pay and an allowance in lieu of
rations, servants, and the other perquisites of a
rear-admiral, and to be provided with a suitable
house. These commissioners are to have the man-
agement of the hospital, "subject to the control of
the Lords of the Admiralty." The Admiralty are
to appoint to offices in the hospital and school,
award the salaries, assign the duties, and
reduce or increase the number of offices as they
think fit. The medical officers are to be
appointed for five years only _ and to have
no salary, but to have a residence, receive their full
pay and a commuted allowance for rations and ser-
vants, and service to be equivalent to service in
any other hospital. No commissioned officer is to
be admitted except as the holder of an active admi-
nistrative office, nor unless he is in health, and of an
age enabling him to discharge the active duties of
the office.. One captain, one commander, and three
lieutenants in the-- nairyfaud snch number of w
rant officers as are thcingbtp-seaessary, may be em
ployed in the management of the hospital, holding
office for five years only. The Admiralty are to ap-
point the persons to be provided for in Greenwich
Hospital (a phrase which includes the schools), and
to make regulations as to the qualification for ad-
missions and the classification of the pensioners ;
but no appointment or regulation is to be made
that is not in accordance with the original design
of the hospital as expressed in the letters patent
of 1694, and in appointments to the school due
regard is to be had to the maintenance of the
existing rights of Lloyd's Patriotic Fund Corpo-
ration. The £20,000 payable to the hospital in
lieu of merchants' sixpences is to continue charged
on the Consolidated Fund. Compensation out of
the hospital funds, to be payable to persons de-
prived of office by these changes.

THE BANKRUPTCY BILL.

The Bankruptcy Bill has been the one hope of
the session upon which the commercial mind has
been fixed with fond confidence. There has been
nothing else for which the Chambers of Commerce
greatly cared. It seemed quite safe. It had passed
the Commons unscathed ; it had been read a second
time in the House of Lords. A slight examination
in committee was all the ordeal to be dreaded, end
the much-desired law was expected to come forth
almost the first-born of the session. Not more
anxiously does an ancient spinster, Conscious of two
or three little bits of contraband finery curiously
concealed in the folds of her large apparel, watch
the Custom-house searchers who are diving into her
boxes than did the Commercial Law Reformers re-
gard the prDcecdings of the Committee of the House
ol Commons turning over the clauses of this Bank-
ruptcy Bill. Not more exultingly does she see the lids
all shut down and the chalk mark placed upon them,
than did the aforesaid Chambers of Commerce see the
motion for the third reading pass in the House of
Commons. That quaking spinster, perhaps, drew a
deep breath and thanked her stars that all was over,
What, then, must have been her horror if she heard
a command given to put down those boxes and re-
open them, for information had been received that
there was something wrong in them ? Such has been
the case with the Chambers of Commerce and this
Bankruptcy Bill. Just as it is going quietly through
the Lords, Lord Derby puts his hand upon it, and
desires the bearers to lay downtheir burden. There
is a terrible commotion. Leicester shrieks so loudly
that the Lord Chancellor expostulates against such
disorderly cries ; Halifax, Blackburn, Wake-
field, and a score of other places increase the
wail of woe; " the chief bankers, merchants, and
persons of every description engaged in business
in the city of London" assail the House of Lords
in chorus, intoned by Lord Orerstone ; and the
Manchester Chamber of Commerce, differing, as
usual, from all its sister Chambers, expressed its
own trepidations at auy new examination. The
hard-hearted House of Lords and the obdurate
Earl whose influence is so feared, so potent, so dis-
avowed, and so utterly denied, stop the bill, and
insist upon sending it upstairs to be re-examined.
At this moment Sir Richard Bethell's bill is on its
way to a select committee of 18 or 20 peers.
if we thought, with the Chambers of Commerce
and with the merchants and bankers of London,
that the sending this bill to a select committee
would "lead to its being injuriously altered or to
unavoidable delay in passing it into a law ;" if
we had any idea that this process was intended only
to cover the operation of " burking" this very im-
portant measure, we should certainly not treat so
lightly the expostulations of the great towns which
have spoken their apprehensions through the Duke
of Rutland and Lord Overstone. To " burke" such
a measure as this—we observe that the expression
is strictly Parliamentary—would be a great cruelty;
but, happily for the nerves of the commercial body,
it is a cruelty which has been altogether disavowed
by both parties in the House of Lords. Lord Derby
has made haste to intimate that he shall do all in
his power to facilitate the passing of a bill which
in all its main features is approved by the mercan-
tile body. The only reason for his interference was
that much rough nursing in the House of Commons
had made the bantling somewhat ricketty. After
everybody had kissed it, and squeezed it, and thro ,vn
it up in the air, no one had had time to see whether
all its limbs were straight before it was sent away.
Lord Derby and his friends had discovered that
several severe contusions and some small dislocations
had been suffered during this boisterous fondling,
and it was thought necessary that a quiet private
examination should be made, after which the baby
should be restored to its natural proportions. This
bill, in fact, again exemplifies the necessity of a care-
ful revision of any important bill after it comes out
of a House of Commons' committee. e have said a
hundred times over that there ought to be an officer
for this purpose. There ought to be some one or more
men whose office it should be to point out to the
house any evidently unintended effects which must
arise from amendments made in committee, or any
inconsistency that may occur upon the face of a
bill. If, for instance, there should happen to be
a repetition of that often quoted case, where a pro-
vision inflicting the penalty of transportation was
found in the same bill with another provision that
all penalties should go half to the informer and half
to her Majesty, there should be some one to put this
peculiarity before the house before, it passed into a
law. Smaller and less ridiculous, but much more
noxious, blunders do occur in many bills, and some
of them seem to have crept into the Bankruptcy Bill.
" By the bill," said Lord Derby, " there were eight
acts which went fo constitute bankruptcy in the
case of traders, and it was intended to specify three
acts which should constitute bankruptcy in the case
of non-traders. But by a mistake in the wording
of the bill the non-trader was subjected to the whole
eight acts which constituted bankruptcy equally
with the trader, though it was clearly the intention
of the House of Commons that he should be &ll-
jected to only three." That this should have hap-
pened after all the pains taken to give some neces-
sary protection to the non-trader is rather startling,
and so far diminishes our confidence in the perfec-
tion of the bill as it now stands that we think the
Chambers of Commerce must feel grateful for a re-
examination, even at the expense of a little delay.
It It will, perhaps, relieve the minds of the tradoeurg
know that Lord Derby thinks the non-traderaw ought
to be brought under the operation
Bankruptcy, so that the principlei
is not in
the Law of Bankruptcy and Insotivi
oof:fotlyttelifusion of
greater relief
danger. It will, however, be
to non-traders to be assured that; the Houseof Lords
is about to give to the provsions by which this is
an, as
been given to them by the
to be effected a more careful coysideration th
it would appear, has

House of Conimous. - -
These are, however, but the little contraband
articles in the spinster's boxes. There is not the
least intention to confiscate the whole.
If we were
in July, instead of May, we should lift upour
r
voices against this leisurely proceeding, and ask
for a pressure of peerage power to make the bill
It might be done, no
comely in the house itself. I
doubt, if there were an • absolute necessity for it.
As it happens, however we are in the youth of the
session. The bill is a e e
young spring bill, with a long
life before it. It has every chance of surviving not
only all the ordinary infantile maladies of a bill,
but even the ordeal of a select committee. We have
heard that after a certain age you cannot put a man
into training without killing him. While he is
Mug training makes him strong and hardy; when