The Sun.
London, England, 1857-07-24 00:00:00

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

• HOUSE OF LORDS--YESTERDAY.
BANKRUPTCY LAWS.
Lord BROUGHAM then rase, pursuant to notice,
to call attention to the subject of the bankuptcy laws.
lite said that it was not his intention to enter at large,
eff indeed at all, upon the general subject of the bank-
gaptcy laws. The subject, however, to which he was
about to call attention was one of the greatest passible
importance, and he therefore hoped that during the ap-
proaching recess his noble and learned friend on the
woolsack would devote attention to it, with the view of
devising remedies fee the administration of the bank.
ruptoy laws, and for the defects in these laws themselves.
His reason for calling attention to this matter was the
proceedings that took place at the beginning of the pre-
sent year, just on the eve of the last session, before the
'peat conference of delega es from all the manufacturing
towns, but particularly from the great towns of Man-
chester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Sheffield, Bristol, and
Hull. He might add that Edinburgh and Glasgow,
and, he believed, Belfast and Dublin, were represented
at that conference, which was assembled under the aus-
pices of the Law Amendment Society, over which he
presided so unworthily. He was called upon to attend
the meetings of that conference, and ho must do the
gentlemen who attended it the justice to say that diving
the four days and the four evenings during which the
conference lasted he c sold not discover the least ground
of objection to any one part of their proceedings. The
great number of delegates who were present, the great
variety of opinions on the subject which they had met to
discuss, and the still greater variety of opinions that ex-
isted among their constituencies, bad no effect whatever
io producing any discord or anything like wrangling or
contention, or anything other than a calm, deliberate,
and businesslike consideration of the highly important sub-
ject that had brought them together—which was neither
more nor less than the grievances which they had to
oomplain of with respect to the state of our mercantile
law in general, and of no one branch of it more toan
that relating to bankruptcy and insolvency. Upon that
branch of the law a highly important discussion took
place, and most valuable information was communicated
front various parts of the country. With respect to the
reality of the grievances connected with the administra-
tion of the bankruptcy laws those delegates ought to be
regarded as judges without appeal. Their testimony
was entitled to all possible respect, because it was for
them and the communities represented by them that the
mercantile law was made. The measures of relief which
they proposed might be well or ill-advised, but no one
could gainsay their evidence as to the operation of the
existing mercantile law. He believed that some of the
measures proposed by them were not at all adapted to
give that relief which they sought. He woul I shortly
state the grounds of their complaints, and how far be
was disposed to concur in the measures which they sug-
gested by way of remedy. There was nothing on which
the conference was more unanimous than that the ex-
penses attendant upon bankruptcy proceedings were
grievously heavy. Taking au average of the bankruptcy
proceedings during the last three years of which returns
had been made,—namely, 1353 4-5 (and he would omit
the names of the towns in which they cad taken place,
because the delegates averred that the expenses were
not so much owing to the law as to the officers by whom
it was administered) he found that under 121 bank-
ruptcies a sum of 90,0001. we,- cellested, while the amount
distributed among the creditors was only 44,000/ , the
remaining sum of 46,000/. having been consumed by the
henkruptcy proceedings. No person was more strongly
opposed than himself to the payment of officers of a
court of justice and judicial expenses by fees upon suitors.
But he made a very great distinction between litigation
and administration, and while he would not listen to any
argument for making toe suitors pay for the salaries of
the Lord Chancellor, the Vice-Caancellor, the Mast-er
of the Rolls, and the whole judicial stiff so far as they
were employed in deciding causes, it was a very different
thing when persons were employed in the administration
of causes. In the one case all fees would be contrary to
principle ; in the other they might be allowed to be paid
to a certain extent by those who benefited by the labour s
of the Court. He thought that the commissioners and
the higher officers of the court ought to be paid by
salary as io courts of justice, but that the payme tof the
administrative officers ought to be thrown to a certain ex-
tent upon the creditors. Their lordships would be sur-
prised
still to be paid as compensation to these Commissioners
of Bankruptcy who by his of 1831 were dispensed
with, and who had not been otherwise provided for by
legal promotion, and that the whole of tnis sum came out
of the pockets of the creditors in the Bankruptcy Court.
It was utterly unendurable that after a quarter of a can-
tury this compensation should continue to be &frayed by
creditors in the present suits before the courts. The ex-
tent of the bill which he had prepared did not go beyond
the transfer to the Consolidated Fund of the compensa-
tion payable to the commissioners whose services ware
dispensed with in 1831. He doubted whether the services
of the messenger could he dispensed witb, and, although
he hail framed his lola so as to dispense with the account-
ant sod broker, he thought the messenger should still be
kept, subject to the aetkority of the commissioners in
each case whether it were fit that the messenger shoo'.
be employed or not. He bad no doubt that the official
assignee had the greatest ground of complaint, and be
found that there was among the judges no difference of
opinion as to the present mode of paying 'hat most use-
ful and necessary officer. There was the greatest variety
in the emoluments of official assignees. In certain casts
his profits, which were paid by commission, barely
auefieePto pay the expenses of his office, and he was
literally left without emolument. In other oases his profits
amounted to several hundreds, and even to thousands of
pounds. In two instances the official assignees were in
receipt of 3,0001. a-year, and in other cases they obtained
upwards of 2,0001. a-year, while in other instances they
' had nothing. He proposed that the official assignees
should be paid in a certain proportion by salaries and
the rest in fees, which latter mode of payment would
whet their zeal and maintain their activity. There
ought, however, to be a maximum of income from both
sources. Another complaint, which was not wtogether
without foundation, referred to the irregular attendance of
the commissioners. He stroi gly re:en/linen-led the Lord
Chancellor to look into this subj.-c;, and after having ob.
tained a return of their attendance during the last 12
months be trusted that his hon. and learned friend wool
insist upon a more frequent and regular attendance upon
the part of the commissioners. Another objection which
was urged to the present system was that the comitii.-
sioners in many in-lances lived at t)o great a dust mace
from their respective courts ; that in their anx;ety 'lotto
miss a particular train in order that they might reach
their residences iu good time the business before them
was often postponed until the next day, and that great
inconvenience to the suitor was the result. He might
also state that he found from returns which had been laid
upon the table of the house that in one town 130 sitti"gs
in bankruptcy had been held in the eour-ie of a single
year ; while in another there had b -en 185; in a thir.,,
. 151 ; and in a fourth, 705; dut, icia3.nuch ae there were
only 365 days in a year, be had been at a loss to account
for the 14. q-mentioned nuinber until he found that what
was termed a " sitting" embraced the consideration of
only one of the different matters which might have ben
brought before the commis-ioner for decision. Tne fact
was he learned that those 705 sitcings bad been held is
54 days, so that not less than 13 cases had, upon an
average, been determined daily. The consequence bad
been the accumulation of the business to be done in a
given time to an extent of which suitors complained. lie
should next advert to the suggestions which bad been
male by the committee to whom the bill which he was
about to present to their lordship bad been referred Tbey-
had expressed themselves as being in favour of permit-
ting the estate of a deceased person who, if be had bet n
alive, would corns under the operation of the bankruptcy
law, to be administered under that law, and hail com-
plained that under the present system a right of appeal
was given from the commissioner before whom a caw)
had been heard, and who, having seen both the bank-
rupt and the witnesses, was likely to be the hest judge
as to whether a certificate ought or ought not to be
granted, to the Lord Justices of Appeal, who would be
in posses ion of no such advantages. The committee
had therefore suggested that an intermediate court of
appeal should be constituted which shoal consist of the
commissioner before whom the case had been tried and
two of his fellow commissioners. He migbt add that
another great objection which bad been urged against
the law as it stood was that it made no distinction
between traders and non-traders—an objection in the
justice of which, however (the noble and learned
lord was understood to say), he could not alto-
gether concur. A very general feeling against a
resort to imprisonment in the case of a bankrupt had
also found expression in the committee, and he himself
was of opinion that, except in cases of absolute nece-si-y,
it was not desirable that such punishment should be in-
anted.- He had, be believed, submitted to their lore:-
'hips' notice some of the chief defects which existed in
the present law, and in the hope that the bill which he
"all about to ley before them would in some degree ob-
viate those defects he should conclude by moving that it
be read a first time. (H-ar )
The LORD CHANCELLOR said it would appear
from the statement which had just been made by his
noble and learned friend that the attempts to amend
the bankrupt laws from 1831 up to the present mo-
ment had been productive of no very beneficial re-
sult. Before 1831 the administration of the estate of
A bankrupt had in reality been a matter of private
arrangement, inasmuch as in the country districts the
name
parties concerned had the power totheir own
commissioners. The result of that system, however,
had been found to be extremely unsatisfactory
and his noble and learned friend had in consequence
terposed and created a new machinery, which be (the.
Lord Chancellor) could not help thinking experience had
shown to be far too comprehensive for the duties which
it was meant to discharge, and wt.iich had consisted cif a
certain number of commissioners and a Court of Review.
The Court of Review had very soon been dispensed with,
and its functions were now discharged by the Lords Jus-
tices of Appeal. In 1842 another change in the law had
been made, and commissioners for the principal towns
threnghout the country had been appointed to a gr, ater
ifixteet than he deemed to be necessary. The consequence
had been that he had two or three years ago obtained the
assent of the Legislature to a measure providing that in
case any of the country commissioners should from any
cause mare to hold office it should not be incumbent upon
the Crown to supply. their places until their numbers
should be reduced to that point which might be consi-
dered adequate to the prdischarge proper of thehdaudtiier
TA duties
whioh
they had to perform. The bankruptcy
•
deed several additions made . law
it since 1842—a. for it •
stenos, by the passing of this bill commonly 'called Lor
Dalhousie's Act, the Winding-up Act, and the Bank-
uptcy oOnsOlidatio., Act; but notwithstanding all these