The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1852-11-16 00:00:00

LAWS RELATING TO COMMERCE

THE proceedings at the meeting of the Liverpool
Chamber of Commerce, a report of which we pub-
lished last week, were more than ordinarily impor-
tant with reference to the subjects discussed. It is
a singular anomaly, that in the greatest commercial
nation which the world ever knew, the transactions

of which are so enormous in amount, and influenc-
ing, as they do, almost the whole of the civilised
world, the state of the law should be so defective

and uncertain as to demand an immediate and

searching reform. With the exception of the Com-
mittee of Privy Council on Trade and Plantations,
there is no recognised Minister of the Crown whose
duties are specially devoted to British commerce ;

and in matters of dispute, nine-tenths of which

might be satisfactorily decided by experienced

chants, the disputants are compelled to resort to the
dilatory and expensive process of an appeal to lawyers,
very few of whom knowanything about the usages and
customs or even the law of trade. For shipping
cases there is a court which consults experienced
mariners and decides accordingly, but merchants
must clog their causes with the costly uncertainties
of legal technicalities, and rarely ever arrive at a
satisfactory conclusion. What is wanted is a corn-

petent tribunal, as inexpensive as a County Court,
in which mercantile experience shall have its due
weight, where commercial integrity shall he the
foundation of justice, and equity the principle of
law. Liverpool, with her splendid array of mer-
chant princes, could find ample materials for such
and its purpose might be defined like the
inscriptions on the old copper tokens—" For the
honour and love of Trade." The question is about
to be brought before the serious attention of Go-
vernment, and with such men as Messrs. Turner,
Horsfall, and Brown, in Parliament, we may an-
ticipate a successful issue to their exertions.

a court,

Another subject which was brought before the

Chamber of Commerce was a comparison between
the Bankrupt and Insolvent laws of England and
Scotland. When the latter country was just
emerging from the semi-barbarism of Highland
warfare, and the Union had done little to cement
the two, countries, it was perhaps of little conse-
quence that she retained her peculiar code of laws,
in which no doubt she felt some national pride.
Now, however, that Glasgow has become a second
Manchester, and every large Scotch debtor bas
perhaps a majority of English creditors, it becomes
of the last consequence that the requirements of
trade should be no longer hampered by peculiar
legal difficulties, but that the laws affecting trade
should be so far assimilated as to afford the same
facilities to one country which are enjoyed by the
other. There can be no national rivalry on such a
question. If the Bankrupt laws in England are
better than those in Scotland, there can be no
reason why the latter should not undergo the same
or still further improvement. If, on the other hand,
as was stated by Mr. HASTINGS, the law respecting
mercantile contracts and the recovery of debts is
better in Scotland than in England, there can be no
good reason why the latter should not undergo
revision. It is, however, a gratifying circumstance
that the whole subject is under the consideration of
a committee of merchants and others associated for
the improvement and assimilation of the Commer-
cial and Bankrupt laws of England and Scotland,
and it is to be hoped that under such auspices it
will undergo that careful revision which will not
only recommend it to the Legislature, but obtain
the expected advantages to the trading community.

SPECI AL CONIMISSION.—We understand the winter
Special Commission, for the trial of prisoners for the
southern division of this county, is fixed for Monday, the
6th December.

BANKRUPTCY COURT, YESTERDAY.—Richard Hand-
land, glass manufacturer, St. Helen's, came before Mr.
Commissioner Perry, on his adjourned last examination :
hut, as the balance sheet had not been filed, a further
adjournment took place to the 27th December.

EXCISE DEDUCTIONS FROM SALARY.—The officers of

()cm held a preliminar3

last Friday eve

with the view to have

count c

deductions from the
4 and 5 Wm. IV.. c

salaries, now made under the act
24, appropriated to a fund, to be

established for the r(

lief of their widows and
which object is very d

justly flue

to that part

TITUTION

WHAT THE LIBERALS SAY OF THE
QUEEN'S SPEECH.

THE desperate attempts of the Anti-Ministerial
p..ess to find cause of quarrel in the QUEEN'S
speech are, unfortunately, far from amusing. Like
the miserable equivocations by which a few oppo-
sitionists in the House of Commons strove on
Thursday night to cast odium on the manifesto of
the Government, the newspaper phillippics have
proved flat and stupid failures. If the expressions
in the speech which have been the topics of a hos-
tile comment could by a single honest hearer or

reader have been for a moment misunderstood, the
explicit manly declarations of the leaders of both
Houses of Parliament must have removed every
cause of doubt. Her Majesty's Ministers have dis-
tinctly declared that as respects the question of our
commercial policy—whatever may be their theore-
tical belief on the subject—they bow, as they are
bound to do, and as they have always declared they
would do, to the clearly expressed opinion of the
majority of the people. But then the self-appointed
teachers of government and people demand aloud
that Ministers should recant their faith, abjure their
errors, acknowledge that Free Trade is the truth,
and its apostles, true apostles. Oh ! how rejoiced
they would be were the Government to pursue so
dishonest a course. Then would there be some
show of reason for accusing Lord DERBY and his

colleagues of tergiversation, inconsistency, and im-
posture. Surely it is not because the majority of
the people think Free-trade a wise policy, that the

minority must give up its opinions on the subject

nor because the Government may reg

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