The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-05-07 00:00:00

HOUSE OF LORDS.-TUESDAY.

Lord COTTENHAM, in moving the second reading of
his bill to amend the relations of creditors and debtors,
explained that its object was to extend the remedy which
had been applied in 1838 to executions on mesne process,
and to release debtors from imprisonment in any shape.
The bill was founded upon reports, the one made in 1832
and the other in 1840, to which the names of almost every
person whose position entitled his opinion to especial at-
tention were affixed, and who, although in each case dis-
senting upon other points, unanimously agreed in the
recommendations which were embodied in the bill. He
described from these reports the utter ruin, in morals as
well as estate, which imprisonment brought upon the
debtor and his family, and showed also, upon the same
authority, that this evil, to which about 5,000 persons
per annum were subjected, was not necessary as a protec-
tion to the commercial interest. He then entered into a
review of the legislation upon the subject down to the act
by which arrest upon mesne process had been abolished,
exposing the inconsistency of the bankrupt and insolvent
in
flicting
great and contending that imprisonment, while
great and most unjust cruelty upon the debtor, had en-
tirely failed as a safeguard to the creditor. Under the
proposed bill the debtor would be compelled to give up
his property for the benefit of those to whom he was in-
debted, and would receive as a compensating boon an im-
munity from imprisonment. The distinction of the law
between bankruptcy and insolvency would be removed,
and the punishment of fraudulent debtors would be left
to the ordinary tribunals, by which the contracting debts
without a prospect of raying them would be treated as a
substantive offence for the consideration of a jury.
The LORD CHANCELLOR highly approved the measure,
and promised it his cordial support.
Lord Brougham, the Duke of Richmond, Lord Den-
man, and Lord Campbell, severally expressed their ap-
probation of the bill, which was accordingly read a second
time.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.-TIIESDAY.

A question was put to Mr. Hogg by Lord JOCELYN,
as to the papers which the Court of Directors of the East
India Company might feel disposed to produce respecting
the recall of the Governor-General of. India.
Mr. HoGn said, he was not the official organ of the
Company, and had no authority to make any statement
on the subject; but he presumed the Directors would be
governed by the course which might be pursued by her
Maj estv's Ministers.
Mr. F. MAULE moved for leave to bring in a Bill to
regulate the administration of oaths in the Universities of
Scotland. These oaths were originally intended to apply
to Episcopalians, but they bad long been allowed to fall
into desuetude, and were only now revived in order to be
enforced, not against Episcopalians but Presbyterians,
owing to the recent schism in the Church of Scotland.
As an illustration of the war in which these test oaths
were made to apply, he stated, that when he was elected
Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, an objection
was taken to him that he bad joined the Free Church, al-
though when Sir R. Peel was elected to the same honora-
ble position, although known to be an Episcopalian, no
test whatever was applied to him. His object was that
professorships might be held by qualified men without the
application of any illiberal test, with the exception of the-
ological professorships, with which he did not propose to
interfere.
Sir A. L. HAY seconded the motion.
Sir J. GRAHAM said, that the Commission of 1830, ap-
pointed to inquire into the state of the Universities in
Scotland, had reported the necessity of a wore stringent
application of the test. Episcopalians, it was true, had
occasionally filled offices in the Universities, but no Pres-
byterian Dissenter bad ever been allowed to fill any of
the professorships, a fact which he much regretted, though
he could not consent to remove any of the safeguards of
the Church of Scotland when he saw the open hostility to
it avowed by the adherents of the Free Church, and when
he rememberpd the importanCe of impintaining the com-