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

THIRD READINGS.

On the motion of Lord REDESDA.LE, the following
tills were severally read a third time and passed :
Great Northern and Western (Ireland) Railway—Great
Southern and Western Extension Railway—Westwins
tar Terminus Rail vay Extension (oapham to Norwood
Abandonment)—L,&lia Railway—lslington Parish Acts
(34 amended)—Ryth and Tyne Railway (as amended)
Metroliolitan New Streets and Improvements—and
Stratford-on-Avon Railway.

DIVORCE.
L-rd BROUGHAM presented a petition from a
gentleman named Wright, complaining of an injunction
issued by the Court of Chancery, which prevented him
from suing in the Ecclesiastical Courts either for a di-
vorce or restitution of conjugal rights.
PRISONERS REMOVAL BILL.

The report of the amendments of this bill was brought
up and received.
COVIhtONS INCLOSURE BILL.
The report upon this bill as amended was also brought

up and agreed to.
BANKRUPTCY LAWS.

Lord BROUGHAM then rose, pursuant to notice,
to call attention to the subject of the bankuptcy la-vs:
He said that it was not his intention to enter at large,
or indeed at all, upon the general subject of the bank-
ruptcy Jews. The subject, however, to which he wag
about to call attention was one of the greatest possitle
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 for the administration of the bank-
ruptcy laws, and for the defects in these laws themselves.
His reason for calving attention to this matter was the
proceedings that took place at the beginning of the pre•
pent year, just on the eve of the last session, before the
great 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 mi_ht add that Edinburgh and Glasgow,
awe, he beLeved, Belfast and Dublin, were represented
a*: that conference, which was assembled under the aus-
pices of the Law Amendment Society, over which he
pre,id d so unworthily. He was called upon to atterd
the meetings of that conference, and he must do the
gentlemen who attended it the justice to say that during
the four days and the four evenings during which the
conference lasted he c tall 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, had no effect whatever
in 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
complain of with respect to the state of our mercantile
law in general, and of no one branch of it more than
that relating to bankruptcy and insolvency. Upon that
branch of the law a highly important discussion took

place, and most valuable information was communicated
from various parts of the country. With respect to toe
reality of the grievances connected with the administra-
tion of the bankruptcy laws those delegates ought to be
regarded as judges without appeal. Their te,timoil
was entitled to all possible respect, because it was for
there and-the communities represented by them that t' e
wercuitile law was made. The measures of relief which
they proposed might be well or ill-advised, but no one
could gainsay their evidecca 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 would shortly
state the grounds of their complaints, and how far he
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
grievou-ly heavy. Taking an average of the bankruptcy
proceedings during the last three years of which returns
had be-n made,—namely, 1853 4-5 (and he would omit
the names of the towns in which they had taken place,
because the delegates averred that the expenses were
nit so much owing to the law as to the officers by whom
it was administered) he found that under 121 book-
rnptcies a sum of 00,0001. was collected, while the amount
distributed among the creditors was only 44,030/ , the
remaining sum of 40,0001. having been consumed by VA
bankruptcy 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.
Bit he made a very great distinction between litiga..ion
and administration, and while he would not listen to any
argument for makin4 the suitors pay for the salaries of
the Lord Chancellor, the Vice•C ianc dlor, the MaA,r
of the Rolls, and the whole judicial staff so far as they
were employed in deciding causes, it was a very different
thing when persons were employed in the administration
of can=es. In the one case all fees would be contrary to
principle ; in the other they might be allo:ved to be pad
to a certain extent by those who benefited by the hours
of the Court. He thought that the commieeioliers rued
the higher officers of the court ought to be paid by
salary as in courts of justice, but that the poyme tof the
administrative officers ought to be thrown to a certain ex-
tent upon the creditors. Their lorlsbips would be sur-
prised to heat that the auto of 25,000/. a-year continued
still to be paid as compensation to those Coinnii-,siocers
of Bankruptcy who by bid bid of 1831 were dispensed
with, and who bad not beed otherwise provided for by
legal promotion, and that the whole of this sum came out
of the pockets of the creditors in the Bankruptcy Com t.
It was utterly unendurable that after a quarter of a cen-
tury this compensation should cintiune to be d :frayed by
creditnrs in the present suits before the courts. The ex-
tent of the WI which he had prepared did not go bey ol.d
the transfer to the Consolidated Fund of the compen-a-
tion payable to the commissioners whose services were

dispensed with in 1831. He doubted whether the services
of the weeeenger could be dispensed with, and, althouen
he had framed his bill so as to dispense with the account-
ant and broker, he thought the messenger should still be
kept, subject to the authority of the commissioners in
each case whether it were fit that the messenger shoel
. --beitnployed or not. He had no doubt that the offiAel
assignee had the greatest ground of complaint, and he
found that there was among the judges no difference of
opinion as to the present mode of paying that most use-
ful and necessary officer. There was the greatest variety
in the emoluments of official assignees. In certaincases
his pr-fits, which were paid by commission, barely
sufficed to pay the expenses of his office, and he was
literally left without emolument. In other cases 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
lied nettling. 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 maintein their activity. There
ought, however, to be a maximum of income from bath
"uroli. Another complaint, which was not a together
evithoutfoundation, referred to the irregular attendance of
thtztectaltniseionerse He strongly recommended the Lord
Chanullor to look into this subject, and after having ill •
tained a return of their attendance during the last 12
months be trusted that. his hop, and learned friend wool I
and
insist upon a more frequent
regular attendance uponthe part of the cerninissieners. A
was urged to the present system
wtahserthoabtj:ni'ni
sioners in many instances lived at too ewhich
thetina
distance'' -
g
from their respective courts ; that in their anxiety not to
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 greet
inconvenience to the suitor was the result. lie ►night
also state that he found from return, which bad been laid
upon the table of the house that in one town 130 sittihg,
in bankrup.cy had been held in the course of a eingie
year ; while in another there had been 185; in a Ulm',
151 ; and in a fourth, 705; .lot, inasmuch as there were
only 365 days in a year, be had been at a loss to account
tor.the last-mentioned number until he found that what
Was termed a "sitting" embraced the consideration of
only 0120 of the different matters which might have been
brought before the cominis•ioner for decision. Toe fact
was he learned that those 705 sittings had been held io
54 days, so that not less than 13 cases had, upon an
average, been determined daily. The consequence bad I
been the accumulation of the business to be done in a
given time to an.extent of which suitors complained. He
should next advert to the suggestions which had bee.,
ma le by the committee to whom the bill which he was
- about to present to their lordships bad been referred. They
hid expressed themselves as being in favour of permit-
ting the estate of a deceased person who, if he had been