The Sun.
London, England, 1861-08-02 00:00:00

TUB BANKRUPICY BILL.

The public will not be sorry to hear the last of
the Bankruptcy Bill, a measure which, from the
commencement of the session, has occupied a larger
share of discussion than ie usually devoted to mat-
ters of law reform. On Wednesday the battle of the
" Chief Judge" was brought to a final termination,
the Commons, after a fair stand-up fight, having
given way to the law lords. This result is greatly
to be regretted, for the measure has been so marred
and mutilated in the Upper House that its distin-
guished author will have great difficulty in recog-
nising his own handiwork. Contrary to the advice
of Horace, the Lords have not put a " horse's head"
upon an incongruous body, but they have left a
well proportioned body minus the head. The pro-
cess of decapitation was accomplished in the select
committee by the hand of Lord Crenworth, who,
taking advantage of the temporary absence of two
members of the Cabinet, induced a majority of the
lay Peers to believe that the business of the Chief
Judge would not in reality exceed the 43 or 45 ap-
peals in bankruptcy which at present occupy the
Lords Justices about 15 or 20 days in the year. It
is not true that the late Lord Chancellor surren-
dered the victim to the executioner's knife with-
out a struggle, or that Lord Cranworth had not
before him ample information as to the duties and
the consequent importance of the office of chief
judge. Lord Campbell stated distinctly that the
chief judge would not only hear appeals from the
commissioners, but from the county court judges,
to whom, for the first time, the bill proposed to
give jurisdiction in bankruptcy; that he would.
hear all questions of disputed discharge, try ques-
tions of fact, superintend the administration of
estates under trust deeds, sit in chambers, and gene-
rally regulate the proceedings of the court. In other
words, the great scheme of reconstruction proposed.
by Lord Westbury followed closely those provi-
sions of the Probate and Divorce Acts which have
so beneficially conferred upon a single judge the
entire administration of the testamentary and ma-
trimonial business of the country. Instead of the
chief judge being underworked, we believe that,
what with original and appellate jurisdiction, that
officer would have had his time more fully occupied.
than any other member of the judicial bench. As
the bill stands. the Lords Justices for the re-
mainder of their days will be doomed to hear
nothing but appeals from four hundred and.
eighty-nine county courts, thrusting aside
all equity bus Less proper, and thus unneces-
sarily reproducing those delays in Chancery
hich, until a comparatively recent period, were
the opprobrium and disgrace of English jurispru-
dence. The Lords appear to have proceeded upon
the notion that five commissioners are at least
equal to one chief judge. These commissioners are
gentlemen of mature age, who have passed their
lives in the administration of that very system
which the commercial world has universally con-
demned. Can these gentlemen be expected at once
to divorce themselves from the interests of Basing-.
hall-street, and to learn and set in motion an
entirely new and delicately-constructed machine ?
One of the evils at present most strongly felt is the
want of uniformity in the practice and decisions of
the different commissioners. This evil will only be
increased when these gentlemen, entrusted with a.
larger and more important jurisdiction, have more
frequent and more extended opportunity of differ-
ing with each other as to rules of precedence, and
even the principles of bankruptcy law. The chief
judge was required to give certainty and consistency
to the whole system ; and the absence of such au
officer cannot, we believe, be supplied by a variety
of commissioners, whatever the abilities and good-
will of the individuals may be. There can be no
doubt that even the most vehement opponents of a.
chief judge will, from the working of the measure
in its present mutilated state, becolip convincedof
the early
not
arlynhencely thessity Government ofadd ingt ha h
t centraluthe
House tauthority
of
which
Commons and the commercial public, have so
earnestly, but so unavailingly, sought to establish.
This opinion was expressed strongly on Wednesday
by Mr. Crawford.
It is admitted on all hands that the bill, even as
it now stands, contains many valuable provisions.
Setting aside the question as between creditors
and official assignees, the trust-deed clauses, the
pauper prisoner clauses, the breaking down of the
partition wall between bankruptcy and insolvency
the establishment of one uniform code of debtor
and creditor law, the facilities which are given to
creditors to transfer bankruptcies to the county
courts or to convert them into private arrange-
ments—each and all of these provision's contain
sufficient good to justify the Commons in
yielding to the pertinacious and stolid resistance of
the law lords to a chief judge, rather than imperil
a measure which the public have long regarded
with anxiety and interest. It is seldom that the
Lords impede really useful measures of law reform,
and therefore it is difficult to understand upon what
principle they have on this occasion set themselves
in opposition to the declared wishes of the House
of Commons. Should it by possibility be the case
that the resistance of the Lords proceeded upon
some notion of a job, they must be entirely
whom the
of the character of the great lawyer
by
et of the
measure was framed. If the appoint%
ge would
chief judge had been carried, the p
latre;ton, not in
have been in the hands of Lord ignourpant
Palmerston,
the present
those of the late Attorney-Generia who has devoted
Lord Chancellor. The individua
mt e
en
nyt eaorf s hardbankruptcy
reform
oou
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ta
on c
be-
ech is as gross as it
exempt from an imputation
is gratuitous.—Post.