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

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, and
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 proceedings of the Committee of the House
o: 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, j
than did the aforesaidehambers 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 some-hing 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 ruts his hand upon it, and
desires the bearers to lay down their 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 loeds
in chorti,, intoned by Lard•Overstone ; anti the
Manchester Chamber. of Commerce, differing, as
usual, from all its sister Chambers, expressed its
own trepidations at any 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 squee zed it, and thrown
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. We 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 to 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 sub-
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 will, perhaps, relieve the minds of the traders to
know that Lord Derby thinks the non-trader ought
to be brought under the operation of the Lair
of
Bankruptcy, so that the principslellfgtoruhese
efoufsn of
the Law of Bankruptcy and Insolvency n
:le relief
fusion
Lordsin
danger. It will, however, be a ti
to non-traders to be assured that the H
is about to give to the provistihieeisi Y
o littlewhichlo this
the
to be effected a more carbeufutl
considerationttcnt
contraband
y nbis,anaiscsl
it would appear, has been g
House of Commons.
These are, however,
t esrc'
as t
ethe whole. bogies. Tolleiere is not the
If
laLitsietliensteinntitohne n
tosPciansfi-•we were
in July, instead of May, we should lift up our
voices
this leisurely proceeding, and ask
power to make the bill
comely in the house itself. It might be done, no
doubt, i
f there were
a p res su againstre o f peerage
an absolute necessity for it.
however, we are in the youth of the
silesssiit hon." pTehnes bill is a young spring bill, with a long
life before it. It h
only all the has every chance of surviving not
ordinary infantile maladies of a bill,
but even the ordeal of a select committee. We have
ihnetaordtitlihianng
that after a certain
age you cannot put a man
without killing him. While he is
young training makes him strong and hardy; when