The Sun.
London, England, 1861-06-08 00:00:00

TILE BANKRUPTCY BILL.

The Bankruptcy Bill, which almost exclusively
occupied the earlier portion of the session, and upon
which the eyes of the commercial classes were for
some time so earnestly fixed, is once again before
the world. It passed almost triumphantly through
the House of Commons, and was sent up to the
Lords with a general acclaim, scarcely warranted,
perhaps, by the rather circumscribed character of
its general scope. There, however, it met with a
less favourable set of critics. It was regarded.
with much more suspicion than enthusiasm, and it
was sent upstairs to a select committee for close,
searching examination. There were many points
upon which the general community had con-
siderable misgivings, and upon which they
lo Aced to the Law Lords for information,
and perhaps for protection. The non-traders
were in some measure apprehensive that their rea-
sonable security was about to be sacrificed, in order
to gratify that eager rush to judgment which
seemed to have become the prevailing desire of all
commercial men. Quiet folk, who have nothing to
do with money or articles of merchandise, and who
know money only as a regular income which they
earn, receive, and spend, were afraid of being
caught up and drawn into a terrible machinery
the rapid action of which was only necessary to
seize the fleeting assets of men whose business it is
to deal with large sums of money as jugglers deal
with balls and knives, making them move rapidly
before our eyes for a certain time, and then
mysteriously disappear altogether. To allay these
fears we looked to the Lords and their Select Com-
mittee. But we had no desire and no apprehen-
sion that the Peers would interfere with the general
mechanism of the bill, so far as it related only to
the administration of bankrupt estates ; and we
certainly expected that the commercial body would.
have been allowed to be the best judges of their
own interest in collecting and distributing the
assets of a bankrupt trader.
This bill is now brought forth from its secret
torture-chamber, and we must confess that it is
a decrepit and a broken spectacle. The rack has
been used more relentlessly than we had ever
anticipated. We little thought, when we saw
Sir Richard Bethell's offspring passing so jauntily
upstairs for a sort of friendly examination, it would
come halting down again so haggard and so wan-
Doubtless very many of the excisions which we
see are improvements. Some of them are cor-
rections of clumsy drawing not very creditable in a
Government bill. The non-professional reader may
be astonished to find the Lords quarrelling with.
the special provision that when the bill speaks its
the singular number it should be understood to
include several matters as well as one matter, and
when of the masculine gender that it should be
understood also to speak of the feminine gender,.
But the Lords are aware that there is a general
Act of Parliament which has already amply pro-
vided for all these small matters of interpreta-
tion, and that it is not only a very useless and a
very inartistic, but also a very noxious practice, to
encumber the statute-book with unnecessary and
conflicting interpretation clauses. When, however,
we have passed over about a dozen of these merely
formal amendments, there is a terrible remainder of
great organic changes. In the first place, the Court
of Bankruptcy itself, which the original bill esta-
blished, is swept away. The Chief Judge, with
his £5,000 a-year, his rank among the Superior
Judges, his Secretary, his Registrar, and his retiring
pension, is removed off the face of the bill. This
looks like striking the character of Hamlet out of
the play. The Chief Judge of this Court was the
central figure of the great design ; everything else
seemed to lead up to it ; and, if we are to lose this
most imposing part of the scene, and to go back
again to such old properties as the Court of Appeal
in Chancery, we lose a great deal of the novelty,
to say the least of it, of the Attorney-General's
new production. The new important portion of this
bill was the assimilation of remedies against traders
and non-traders, and the fusion of jurisdiction in
cases of bankruptcy and insolvency. It aves in
this we expected to find the most grievous -mutila-
tion, for it was against this that Lord Chelmsford's
hostility was principally directed. Strange to
say, however, this part of the bill Itas been scarcely
touched, except to render its p'eovisions more clear
in their expression. A little more latitude is given
to the non-trader to remain abroad or to lie
in prison at home, but generally he is left
open to the operation of the Bankruptcy Law pretty
much as he was by Sir R. Bethel!. A :third prin-
ciple of the new measure was to throw the collection
and distribution of bankrupt estates into the hands
of the creditors. The principal grievance brought
forward by the Chamber of Commerce was the
expense attending the proceedings towards a divi-
dend ; it was always said that this expense was
principally • ccasioned by the working of the system
of official assignees. It was accordingly provided
by this bill, that for nearly all purposes a creditors'
nominee should take the place of the official as-
signee ; and, perhaps, one of the most important
clauses in the bill was that which provided that
upon the appointment of the creditors' assignee the
bankrupt's estate should be divested out of the
official assignee and vested in the creditors' assignee.
All this has disappeared from the bill. The creditors
are allowed to choose their assignee, but what his
duties and powers are to be does not very clearly
appear. All those which were assigned to him by
the original bill have been entirely disallowed. There
is one other alteration in the bill which will be felt
to be of importance to the general public. The mea-
sure which passed the House of Commons contained.
a provision that, even in cases where a bankrupt
was not opposed, the Court might consider whether
his conduct, as it appeared from the proceed-
ings, disclosed any reasonable objection to his
discharge, and also whether there appeared to be
ground for charging the bankrupt with conduct
amounting to a misdemeanour. In the latter case
the Judge was empowered. to try him for this mis-
demeanour. By the Bill as amended, however, the
power to refuse a discharge to unopposed bank-
rupts is struck out, and the power to try a bankrupt
in the Bankruptcy Court is made conditional upon
the bankrupt's consent.
These are the principal alterations which the
Lords have made in this important Bill. We fear
they will be considered both by the author of the
measure and by the commercial classes to be by no
means improvements. It is by no means certain
that we might not, if it be necessary to save the
Bill, give up the Judge and his Court, and content
ourselves with the accustomed judicial services of
toe present Commissioners. We might also, for the
sake of peace, forego some portion of the protection
against commercial swindling which we had hoped
this bill would give us. It is hardly, however, to
be expected that the Chambers of Commerce will be
satisfied to surrender their favourite point of getting
the funds out of the hands of the lawyers and adminis-
tering them themselves, and we may be sure that that
battle at least will be fiercely fought. On the other
hand, Lord Brougham and his friends in the Peers
are known to be equally strenuous in their convic-
tion against the policy of creditors' assignees. Surely,
however, this is a matter upon which the desires of
the parties who are interested ought to prevail ?
They must be supposed to understand what their
own interests are. As there is no party question
involved, and no great principles of policy in dis-
pute, we may hope that all these points may yet be
temperately discussed, and that some compromise
may be effected between the professional views of
the Law Lords and the trading views of the Cham-
bers of Commerce. Something, perhaps, is to be
cunceded on both sides. There is so much good.
still left in this bill that we should be sorry to see.
it miscarry even as it at present stands. but we must
confess that we have been disappointed in the
extent and the importance of these Lords' amend-
ments.— Times-

As the history of our Arst iron men-of-war is a
matter of public interest, and as many contradictory reports
respecting their armaments have gone the round of the
press, according as the opinions of the Admiralty are
balanced in favour of rifled or smooth-bored guns, we give
the following as the latest resolution which has been arrived
at on the matter—The Warrior and Black Prince are each
to have, on the main deck, thirty-four6B- pounders, 95 cwt,
smooth bores ; on the upper deck, two 100-pounders, bow
and stern, pivot guns, rifled, and four 40-pounders, rifled.
These guns will be provided with ammunition as follows—
The broadside gene, 80 rounds; pivot guns, 190. The arma-
ment of the Achilles, now about to be built at Chatham, is
of a more formidable character, namely—Forty-four 100-
pounders, rifled guns, four 40-pounders ditto, and two
32-pounders, smooth bored. These are entirely independent
of 25-pounder Armstrong guns for the pinnaces and
launches. It will not surprise us to hear that the arma-
ments of the Warrior and Black Prinee have again under-
gone modification, and that a larger proportion of rifled
guns are introduced ; but the above is as the order stands
at present. The Duke of Wellington, 131, is ordered to
receive nine Armstrong heavy guns, similar to those sup-
plied to the Marlborcugh.—Arnry and Navy Gazette.
THE MAILS, &C.—SOUTHAMPTON, June 7,—The
Peninsular and Oriental Company's screw steamer Alham-
bra, Captain N. Roskell, sailed hence to-day with the mails
for Lisbon, Oporto, and Vigo, 12 passengers, and £B,OOO in
sovereigns for Lisbon. The Tyne, Captain Woolcott, leaves
on Mondiy with the mails for Cape Verde, Brazil, and
River Plate; the Delta, Capt. Field, on Wednesday, with
the Mediterranean and Bombay mails ; and the Bremen,
Capt. Wetsels, on Wednesday, with mails for New York.
The Ellora, Capt. Joy, is expected here on Monday with
the heavy Bombay and Mauritius mails; the Tagus, Cap-
iu with the Peninsular wails, Tuesday; the
Saxonia, Captain Ehlers, with mails from New York of the
Ist inst., on Thursday; and the Atrato, Captain Woolleb
with the 'West India and Pacific wails, on Friday.