The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-02-08 00:00:00

COMNIERCE

It is with much gratification that your council can re-
port that these important questions, so intimately asso-
ciated with the original objects of the chamber, are
steadily progressing. The special report issued by your
council, alluded to at the last half-yearly meeting, has
been extensively circulated, and was frequently referred
to as containing valuable information and suggestions at
the conference held in London in November last, on Law
Reform, under the auspices of the Society for Promoting
the Amendment of the Law, and at which your chamber
was represented by a deputation, in common with most
of the leading towns of the kingdom. Although the
practical conclusions of this conference were conlined to
bringing forcibly before her Majesty's government and
the public the evils arising out of the want of the con-
solidation and the assimilation of the law, yet an oppor-
tunity was afforded to the Liverpool deputation for urging
upon the representatives of the commercial communities
of the provinces what, to them, is a far greater inconve-

nience and pecuniary loss, namely, the absence of perma-
nent local courts, with summary powers and equitable
jurisdiction over all cases of mercantile disputes. This
class of tribunals is essentially requisite, perhaps, only in
the provinces throughout which, at present, the adminis-
tration of civil justice in all disputed amounts over £5O is
suspended during five-sixths of the year, while the costs
are multiplied indefinitely. by the system of working all
preliminary proceedings-through London. The late re-
forms of the Courts of Law do not touch the leading
grievances under which the assize and other towns labour ;
and your council cannot declare too emphatically, that if
these grievances are to be abolished, the commercial com-
munities of the provinces must help themselves ; for it can
be neither the interest nor the wish of the metropolitan
circles, whether professional or mercantile, to help them.
As a body, the provincial communities entirely concur
with the views of the Liverpool chamber, and your
council will take into early consideration the expediency
of inviting a general conference of the commercial associ-
ations of the kingdom to be held in Liverpool. In the
meantime, it will be incumbent on the new council, at
the re-assembling of parliament, to embody, as far as they
may consider expedient, the practical conclusions em-
braced in the report alluded to by petitionsto Parliament.
Before quitting this subject, the committee desire to
' record more permanently their sense of the courtesy and
attention which the deputation from this chamber received
from the managing committee of the London Society for
Promoting the Amendment of the Law, and the value
they attach to the unvarying solicitude of that association
to secure the reform of legal abuses pressing upon the
interests of trade and commerce, when once satisfied of
their existence.

PASSENGERS' ACT AMENDMENT BIL7A.

Under this head your council can only repeat their ex-
pressions of regret used at the half-yearly meeting, that
so few of the amendments proposed by their special corn-
mittee were adopted by Government, and that a measure
of such importance should have been passed in so ob-
jectionable a shape.

CHARTERS WITH LIMITED LIABILITY.

A motion was brought before your council by one of
the directors to the effect that the chamber should me-
morialize Government against granting to shipping com-
panies charters with limited responsibility ; but, after
giving the subject the fullest consideration, it was re-
solved that the question of limited partnerships, being
one of the greatest importance, should be approached
with the utmost caution. The matter, as regards ship-
ping, was, therefore deferred until the council can fulfil
its intention of taking up the entire subject.
RENEWAL OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY'S CHARTER.
This matter, though brought under the notice of the
chamber, has been referred to the East India and China
Association, in deference to the intention expressed by
that body of giving it their full consideration. Your
council will be glad, hereafter, to co-operate with the
East India Association for any desirable object in con-
nection therewith.