The Sun.
London, England, 1861-03-22 00:00:00

THE SUN.

LONDON, FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 1881.

The Bankruptcy Bill is mellowing, and ripening
very satisfactorily into an enactment. Having at
length passed not only through its first and second
reading, but also clause by clause through the
Commons in Committee it was again carefully re-
vised last evening—several objectionable provisions
being either bodily eliminated from the bill or as
cautiously and judiciously, as was in any way prac-
ticable at the moment, modified. Upon one clause,
elapse 207, the implacable clause, through the
operation of which anyone, while mouldering in his
grave, might have been even thus posthuinously ren-
dered bankrupt—upon that cruel provision which
had thence already acquired the invidious title of
the Dead Man's Clause—Sir RICHARD BETHELL
suffered his one defeat upon a division yesterday,
when the House was still carefully revising his
measure in committee. That now happily obli-
terated 'clause being last night struck bodily out
of the bill by the decision of a clear majority of
sixteen in a House (with Speaker and Tellers) of
258—but 119 trooping into the Ministerial lobby
at Sir RICHARD BETHELL'S instance, and 135
walking at the instance of Sir Humit CAIRNS into
the lobby of the Opposition. And that result—when
it was announced that that most harsh and incan-
siderate clause (207) was thus, by a clear majority
of sixteen in a house of more than 250 members,
peremptorily rejected—was hailed, not unnaturally,
with a renewal of those ringing cheers that have
latterly been so frequently audible under similar
circumstances from the benches of the Opposition.

Not, however, that it should for one instant be
supposed by anyone who may not have scrupulously
watched the progress of this new Bankruptcy Bill
through those stages which it has already traversed
in the House of Commons, and traversed alto-
gether so very successfully—not, we say, that it
must be for one single instant imagined (from the
mere accident of that adverse discussion yesterday,
that resolute discussion striking out the " dead
man's clause," whole and entire, amidst the cheers
of the Opposition) that Sir RICHARD BETHELL'S
Bill has received from the Opposition altogether,
or from any one section of the Opposition, other
than the very reception to which it was
alone in itself eminently well entitled—a re-
ception, namely, the most frank, candid, and
magnanimous. Determined though Sir Hum]. j
CAIRNS and Sir GEORGE BoWTER have
shown themselves now very recently to be
in their antagonism to certain extraneous
clauses, as we may call them, clauses, wholly and
absolutely necessary to be made in this otherwise
masterly revision of the laws relating to Bank-
ruptcy and Insolvency—resolute though Sir HUGH
CAIRNS and Sir GEORGE BOWYER have both shown
themselves to be in their antagonism to these excre-
scencesupon the measure as framed by her MAJESTY'S
Attorney-General, the great mass of the Opposition,
the whole bulk of the Commons generally, including
amongst them the hon. baronet the member for
Dundalk, and the right hon. gentleman the
ex-Solicitor-General, have shown themselves to
be, as Sir RICHARD BETHELL in truth has only
in the main given them good reason to be, most
generously disposed to forward this new Bank-
ruptcy Bill on its way to its final promulgation as
Part and parcel of the law of the land, as a fully
developed and perfected enactment. The rapidity
with
which the Bill has already won its way so far
through the Ordeals required to be traversed by
any and every outline of an enactment, is proof ,
positive indeed of the general merit of the Bil
itself it,' its entirety, and of the impartial and
generous spirit with which it has been
welcomed by all
parties and sections of
parties in the douse
of Commons. how-
ever unwillieg the Attorney-General may have
been to have witnessed th© abrupt and forcible
eraoure of clause2o7 from them draft of his abbre-
viatud, but
still cocrnprehensive measure of reform I
in the laws of bank' uptcy and insolvency, the right
hon. an d learned gentleman can hardly recognise
in the fact of Sir lit Gil CAIRNS' amendment that
the clause be got rid of, in the
fact that that amend.'
=exit was ‘-:arried by a majority of sixteen against
the wishes of the Government, or even in that most
irritating fact of all, the cheers that greeted the
announcement of the last triumph won in this way
by her MAJ ItSTY'S Opposition—Sir RICHARD