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Marck 24, I860.J The Leader and'Saturday...
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NEW BANKRUPTCY CODE. H EAltTl-LT as the ...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Wall With China. "Itm-Ien My. Gladstone,...
ever the eomin ^ war may cost , we must have the honour of paying for it ourselves . Unofficial calculations set down the probable ' cost at nine or ten millions sterling ; and among official men it is confidently admitted that we shall be very lucky if we get off with five millions . The Secretary Tor Waives a step further , and tells us that in his opinion we have got oh the wrong road , but that he is afraid to propose retracing our steps at present . He . honestly confesses that he . sees anything but advantage in certain stipulations of the Ireaty ot Tien-tsin , the irksome character of which to the Chmese caused , as we all know , the delay in its ratification : nevertheless Mr . Sidney Heubeht is prepared to back our diplomatic blunders ¦ oy an expedition in which we hazard the lives of say five-nnd-twenty ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦¦
till VA , l ^ u \ AlWll A A * » ' * . v »» -- * - — : . — . . . . Ml * ' L thousand men , and incur the financial waste of many millions ot money . Nobody can point out any tangible benefit to be derived in any event from the proceeding . A good deal is said about the necessity of vindicating our insulted honour by the capture and demolition of the Taku forts ; and if that were nil , we own we should give ourselves little trouble about the matter . But this is a mere preliminary , on which small stress is laid . It cannot be for this that an " army is to be transported four or five thousand miles , with all its huge and cumbrous traiu of baggage and camp following . Neither is it conceivable that , for the sake of extorting a mere apology from the Chinese G overnment , hazard and cost on a scale so enormous would be incurred . The talk about
an apology " for the collision at the mouth of the Peilio , and about the necessity of demolishing the Taku forts , is mere empty sound-signifying " nothing . A greater and guiltier purpose will be inevitably imputed to those who have plauned the expedition in concert with our annexing ally , the Emperor of the French . The shifty and colourless Lord Exgin is to be sent out once more with sealed orders , to : ¦ direct operations in the Yellow Sea ; and if any one can cover over the violent and rapacious policy of which he is content to be the' instrument ,, with plausible semblances and fair words , the noble lord .. wiit dp it . 'But . let Lord . Elgin understand distinctly that no amount of famil y connection or Court interest will be able to hold him harmless , if , under his authority , the great resources-of a great empire should be lavished on an unworthy or abortive scheme . . 'Parliament
mav not . insist upon knowing beforehand . whatIns instructions are * but it will assuredly exact a stern account-from-him ere the year comes round of all that is done under his direction in China . He has himself admitted over ; and over ngaiii that it would be alike impolitic-and wrong to attempt to exact from the Chinese Government any conditions of peace that would tend to humiliate it in' the eyes of its subjects , and thereby to disori > - ; iiiise its power . From the-day the Mantchou Empire begins to crumble under the shock of European violence , a ruinous conflict of .
European races for the division of its spoil will infallibly commence ; and once commenced , who shall foretell its ending ? Russia cannot , and France will not ; remain passive spectators ,-while England plays the same reckless ¦ ' game of territorial aggrandisement in the Flowery Kingdom that . she has for Upwards of a century been playing in . Hindostali . Our net gains in the latter are certainly not so clear as to beguile us easily into a repetition of the policy that has saddled us with the eare . of . Southern . Asia , and laden us with the cost of its forcible acquisition .
Marck 24, I860.J The Leader And'saturday...
Marck 24 , I 860 . J The Leader and ' Saturday Analyst . 273
New Bankruptcy Code. H Ealttl-Lt As The ...
NEW BANKRUPTCY CODE . H EAltTl-LT as the mercantile classes hnvo reprobated the existence of the Bankruptcy law , it was never more severely mid more justly condemned than by the Attorney-GeniuIal . No country in Europe , he said , had so bad a low . It had been denounced over ami over again . It had been radically elinnged ; it had been continually altered and amended . ; but it was still more complained of tlinu ever , and the last days of the lanr were wprse than the first . To collect debts the cost is about five per cent . ; using the instrumentality of tho Court of i . Vnn . kruptcy the cost is thirty-tlireo per cent . Bankruptcy business is , in consequences done out of couW ; and this expensive apparatus
is nearly as useless as it is costly . In 1858 tho number of adjudications in Bankruptcy was , according to the Attoiinkv-Gbnekal , six hundred and sixty , while the number of compositions and arrangements , tantamount to withdrawing bankruptcy cases from ^ Bankruptcy courts , was computed to bo eight thousand . ' Tho stringent provisions of tho Bankruptcy law , founded on inhumanity rather thnn justice , and the cost of the prooessj induce tho creditor to forego its supposed advantages , and save as much of his property as ]\ q cnn . without having recourse to it . Can anything bo more useless than an oxpensivo court , which keeps away suitors P It is a mockery of justice . How to remedy the accumulated evil has been the diligent study
of the Attorney-General , and he declares that his greatest difficulty arises from previous legislation . It stands in the way of improvement . Such are the ascertained results of the legislative , labour which at the beginning of every session we hopefully require shall be renewed and extended . The Attorney-General proposes a great alteration in the law of Bankruptcy , and in the Court to administer it ; will he be more successful than his distinguished predecessors ? When "Lord Brougham , in 1832 , made a sweeping alteration , reducing thirty commissioners to five , appointing official assignees , & c , the brightest hopes were entertained of his success , Soon , however ,
numerous evils sprang out of his measures ; new laws , which excited new hopes , were passed to rectify them , and the result is an accumulation of bad laws . The charmer who gilds our lives seems to have no natural place in legislation , and only leads us to "believe in its promises to deceive and betray . The hope how expressed , therefore , by all the mercantile authorities who have spoken on the -subject / that the Attorney-General has hit the ri « -lit nail on the head , is probably unfounded . Some ten or twenty years hence some other Attorney-General will do for him what he is-doing for Lord Brougham , and sweep away with contempt the legislation with which , lie is now encumbering the
ground . ' Following the course which lias at kngth bogged us , the ATTOiiNEYr-GENE . KAL ' proposes to extinguish the live Commissioners , and appoint , one Bankruptcy Court , to be . presided over by one Judge . The live Commissioners arc occupied by judicial business only fifteen hours a week—three hours a day each for five days . They- give contradictory decisions , award or . withhold certificates capriciously , are amenable to no . superior authority , and ratheriinpedo thnn promote the administration of justice . * Subject to the one coiijd | tion \ that they may . be called on have their full
to . assist incarrying out tire Aict , .. they are to salaries for . life . * Even this condition they may -escape-from by accepting two-thirds of their present income . ^ The administrative portion of the bankruptcy business , as contradistinguished from the judicial , Avill be -confided :- to the . Registrars of the Courts , to the official and creditors' assigiiees . The , former are to take charge of the bankrupt ' s estate in the first instance , . and are afterwards to ham | it over to the creditors' assignee . 'They arc , however , to audit the accounts of the Intteivnn ' d it is hoped that both , may be kept vigilant and honest by watc . hin . sr .. each other . The messeuaers , too , who receive from . £ 1200 to £ 1700
a year each , and employ deputies at 3 * . ( id . per day to perform their duties , are to be swept away . Tho Court is to be simplified , and the one ; Judge wjio is to presido over it , and have the entire administration of the Bankrupt'laws , is to lie placed on a par with the Judges , of the Courts of Equity juul Common Law . lie is to have ioOOO a year . To him will be made all appeals from . district courts , ' lie will ' sit and . decide , all cases of contention in public , lie avill transact administrative business at Chambers , and will be the supreme Judge for Bankruptcy as the Loud Chancellor is" for Equity . His ' tribunal will be limited to the one species of law , and in that lie may come to be very expert .
The seat of this general Bankruptcy Court is to be at Bnsing' - hall Street ; but there is also to be ' a London ^ district Court , ot Bankruptcy , presided over by another and lesser judge , and holding its ' settings in Portugal Street . Middlesex , Herts , Kent , Surrey ?' Sussex , Hampshire , mid Essex art ; - . embraced by tho London district . TJiero are to be seven other . districts , each having a court with one Judge . Birmingham , Bristol , Exeter , Leeds ' , Liverpool , Mimohoster , and > Ic \ vc ! ustle-on-. Tyue . The to be continued
Commissioners who arc now in these districts ure ; but a power is given to Her Majesty in council to alter the districts , and it is hoped that ultimately the county courts , which are immediately to lmve jurisdiction in bankruptcy , may absorb the whole of the dint-riot business . Wo have had in modern times n great number of new courts established , and it would be highly satisfactory to reducu them without departing from the great ' principle ) of onrrying justice to every man ' s door . to
liesidos providing for tho formation of respectable courts adtniuistortho law bothin tho metropolis and in I he county districts , the ArfoitNEY-ftuNioitAL alters very considerably tho Imy to be administered , lie abolishes the distinction between triidor and noii-trnder , and subjects nil insolvents tiliko to the provisions ot 10 j © Bankruptcy ' Code . This carries with it n necessity for tiofinin" and altering the stringent regulations for determining " what is m \ net of bankruptcy . It would novov do , as Sir FrrauoY Kblly pointed out , to hnve simple debtors declared insolvent tor nets which mflko trndora bankrupts ) . Accordingly tho note whiqh
constitute bankruptcy nro defined , and riubtora have in many oases optionnl courses left opwn to thorn , To form n corroot opinion of nil tho altorationa tho now mensuro niakofl in tho . uunlcruptcy code would ro < MiirG a considornblo study . Hie mil , ox-
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), March 24, 1860, page 5, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_24031860/page/5/
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