Star.
London, England, 1817-08-26 00:00:00

EXTENTS IN AID.

Th,t Report t.y the Select Committee of the House
of Commons apFointed to enquire into the Mode of
issuing Extents in Aid, and the Expediency of regu-
lating or of discontinuing the same, has just been
publir.lred. Alter a cursory view of the origin and
history of this prerogative process, the Cummittce
proceed to observe, that the issue of it has" encreased
in a degree inconsistent with the equitable spirit of
the Bankrupt Laws, and the ease of the subject, and
peculiarly ill suited to the state of things produced
by that extended commerce of which this country so
justly boasts." From accounts given in the Appen-
, ix to the Report. it appears that the wholk number
of Extents in Aid issued from 1801 to 1814, both
inclusive, was only 207, or less than 15 per annum.
of which the majority probably had a legitimate
object, i. e. the recovery from the parties of monies
which really belonged to the public and might other-
wise have been lost ; while in the year 1815 alone
the number issued was no less than one hundred and
eight. "Of this multitude," the Committee remark,
by tar the greater proportion " have been ob-
tained for the purpose of gaining an unjust priority
in the recovery of private debts, in direct contradic-
tion to the law as formerly laid down ;" and an
inspection of the documents, it is added, " will yield
the strongest presumption that many persons have
procured themselves to be made Crown Debtors with
the express and sole view of abusing the power they
surreptitioaray obtained."

To illustrate the full effect of this oppressive pro.
cess, the Committee proceed to give a detail of the
manner in which it is conducted, and in the follow.
ing paragraph sum up its evil operation, with singu-
lar force and clearness:—" On this affidavit (of the
creditor) and the previous legal proceedings, loose
and unsatisfactory as they are at best, and often hur-
ried through with all the expedition of a race to de-
feat that equitable division of the property which a
rival Commission of Bankrupt is seeking to effect,
does an Extent in Aid issue ; and against a person
not a debtor to the Crown, sometimes not so even in
the second degree ; but it may be against a solvent
man unfortunately indebted to one who chooses to
believe him insolvent, and who has sufficient inge-
nuity to set himself up as a Crown debtor. The ex-
ecution is of the severest kind; every thing down
to the minutest article of his property is then
seized ; his books, papers, and accounts by which
he might be enabled to dispute his creditors'
demands or to enforce his own, are carried off and
withheld from him. Nor is this all ; his person
too (which a common execution, after having taken
the property, would leave untouched) may be thrown
into gaol, and kept there at the discretion of that
very creditor by whose oppressive conduct such a
waste of his property may be occasioned, as alone to
produce that very insolvency, on the allegation of
which, as previously existing, the whole process was
founded ; and neither can a Commission of Bank.
ruptcy nor an Insolvent Act release him. Nor is this
mere imagination; it appears to the Committee, that
as far as respects the debtor, the whole is realized in
at least one case detailed in the Appendix."
The Committee after thus pointing out the extreme
oppression often worked by this mode of procedure
on the unfortunate debtor who is the object of it, and
the injustice it occasions to his other creditors, direct
their attention to the validity of the reasons urged'
for its maintenance. Is the revenue, they enquire,
hereby secured Is the public interest advanced
Both questions they answer decidedly in the nega-
tive. " Of the numerous cases," they state, 44 which
have of late been brought within public observation.
this (the public interest) does not appear to have
been the object, in one single instance ; in very few
can it be shewn to have been even incidentally or
probably served ; and in several the interest of the
individual prosecutor of the Extent has been pursued
to the absolute injury of that very revenue, for the
safety of which, exclusively, the process was originally
instituted."

11 It seems scarcer doubtful," the Committee con-
clude, 64 whether the whole process for private debts
(1. e. Extents in Aid) might not be abolished without
any disadvantage to the public interests while it will
be worth consideration how far any supposed benefit
may be outweighed by the evils attendant on conti-
nuing the practice. The ruin of unforninate debtors,
the injury of innocent and unsuspecting creditors,
and the extensive injury wrought among the com-
munity at large by the breach of good faith, and the
consequent destruction of that honourable confidence
on which the interest and the prosperity of a com-
mercial country so essentially depend."
Parliament wasiyesterday prorogued, in the usual
form, till the fid of November. •
An article from Vienna, in the last Paris Papers,
states, that all trace of the plague, on the Turkish
frontiers, has disappeared, and that the intercourse
between the Austrian States and Turkey is again
open, subject only to the u.ual sauita) precautions