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PRINCIPLE OR PRESUMPTION ?
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274 The Leader and Saturday Analyst . | March 24 , I 860 .
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elusive of schedules , consists of five hundred and thirty-three distinct clauses , and exclusive of the index fills one hundred and £ fty pages . We doubt whether the Attorney-General himself is ' quite prepared to say what will be even the probable Operation of this immense mass of legislation . We must content ourselves with saying that the Bill is plainly and carefully drawn , but is much too * voluminous , complicated , and detailed to be readily analyzed and easily comprehended . " We are glad to see , though the Act does not extend to Scotland and Ireland , that the courts and authorities there are required to act as auxiliaries in giving effect to the decisions and processes of the English Court of Bankrupt cy . A provision , too , is expressly introduced to prevent English bankrupts who have , within three months , ordinarily resided and traded in England , from having recourse to the bankrupt laws of Scotland , ancf to empower the English Bankruptcy Court to summon such bankrupts to show cause why the petition against them should not be prosecuted in the Ensrlish courts . We see , too , with satisfaction , while many facilities are given for carrying cases into the Bankruptcy Courts , that no obstacles are thrown m the way of those arrangements between debtors and creditors -which have latterly become so common . On the contrary , care is taken to prescribe measures by which they are legalised . As the new court will be empowered and required to prosecute for all misdemeanours it discovers in the conduct of bankrupts , and such misdemeanours are .. to be punished with riot more than two years' imprisonment , the criminal jurisdiction of the court , which consisted in withholding certificates or g iving certificates of different descriptions , is done away . It is made imperative on the court to appoint , within a limited time , a day for the final examination of the bankrupt , when , if his accounts be filed ) , and the court do not , for good reasons , otherwise determine , his complete discharge , with his exoneration from all his previous pecuniary obligations , follows . This is an . improvement on the old practice . Care , too , is taken to provide that the courts shall sit every day in the year , except Sundays and the usual holidays . In order that-th-is may be done without inconvenience , the Lord Chanceli ^ ok is authorized at vacation time to appoint temporary judges to administer the Bankruptcy law . The professed desire to unite humanity with diligence , to inflict the least possible suffering , and cause * the least ' possible delay in satisfying the creditors and relieving the debtors , is extremely creditable to the Attorney-Ctenerai ., and we should gladly believe that it may be successful . We miss , however , in this great measure that deference to the mercantile classes which on this-subject they claim and is their due , and the Bill is founded on that supreme confidence in the legal classes of which they have long . complained . The Bankruptcy Court is to do for them very minutely what they require legal authority to do for themselves . At the same time , the Bill does not distinguish with accuracy between the laws required for their guidance and the mode of administering them . It establishes at once a new code and a new court . It is much more a detailed means of administering the surrendered property of . debtors for the behoof of creditors , than a measure to check undue confidence , extravagance , and resulting ' insolvency . If any improvement be expected in trade morality from an altered method of distributing "debtors' property , there will be disappointment . Even as a mere ' measure of administering property it is defective , by the large extent of each bankruptcy district , which will cause waste of time and money . It leaves the English system in this respect much less convenient than the . Scotch . By continuing Sheriffs' Courts , formerly common to both countries * the northern part of the empire has a civil as well as a criminal tribunal in every county . Under its direction , bankrupt property is appropriated , sequestrated , and distributed amongst creditors at a cost of 12 or IS per cent . That we lack such a civil tribunal , and were obliged not long ago to establish county courts , while we retained very numerous local criminal tribunals in bur Justices , was one of the consequences of our having left an old feudal jurisdiction in the liands of the landed gentry . They clung to it to punish poacher ' s , but they declined to be the unpaid instruments for settling contentions between debtors anil creditors . This is one of the disadvantages of our peculiar squiredom , to which , according to Mr . Disraeli's lately acquired wisdom , the nation is indebted for its liberties . Till he stated this on Monday we hod no doubt , whatever may be the vices of towii folk and traders , that to their seal in the cause of freedom and their enlightenment , all modern political improvement is due . We think so atill ; and therefore we think also that the Attorn ey-Geheral would have done the , wprk expected of him better had ho simplified the Bankruptcy cpde , and placed the power of administering it in the hands of men chosen by the mercantile body , instead of oreating a grand new court to administer the property of insolvents .
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A LEADING journalist hasi stated very seriously and solemnly , "It will be well for this country , and well for the progress of political knowledge , when statesmen have been induced to receive as ah axiom , that measures ought to be considered , not with reference to metaphysical and abstract considerations , but to well-ascertained and practical results . " " That which we require to know , and without which we know nothing , is , what effects the proposed change will produce , beyond the establishment of an equality between county and borough voters . " This is apparently plausible ; but , used as an argument against an extension of the suffrage , by making that in counties correspond to that in towns , is plausible only , and stands refuted the instant the meaning of the proposition is clearly understood . .
Practical results are put in opposition to abstract considerations ; and the effects which a legislative measure is expected topfoduce are described as safer guides for framing it than pr inciple . But these words , " practical results , " cannot apply to any measure in progress ; they can only mean the effects of similar or analogous measures , previously enacted . The practical results of the new Reform Bill will only come into existence after the " measure" has become law : and , however well guessed at ,
cannot possibly be known beforehand . What are called practical results by this * writer are the consequences of some Other laws , or they are merely his inferences . They are presumptions , the suggestions of imagination ; and , contrasted with the " metaphysical considerations " set at nought , are the deductions of one mind , while these are the embodiment and expression of general experience . To suppose that we can infer the " practical results' * of any proposed measure , from the results of similar measures in past times , or in other countries ; is unwarranted . If it could be done , the blunders continually committed by every succession of legislators would be at once most unreasonable and unjustifiable . The . v are onlv excused , because , as circumstances change , the
meaning of the terms used in old laws and former measures change , ° and we do not perceive it . Enactments , in consequence , exactly worded like pve-enactments , or . supposed to be framed like them , a " re never followed by the same , nor-even by similar effects . Thus , the " practical results of measures "' continually disappoint legislators , and are extremely different from their presumptions . Acting with a view to " practical results , " or what the legislator presumed would be the consequences of his measures , through the greater part of the eighteenth century , he disregarded the " abstract metaphysical considerations" of the right to life , and
the moral principle which teaches us to respect it— -presumed that to hang men was sure to prevent forgery , burglary , sheepstealing , petty larceny , cutting down young trees , destroying bleaching webs , etc , etc . ; and he decreed death for these and a great number of other similar offences . The Statute book became ' crowded with bloody laws , and annual butcheries at every assize town disgraced England in the eyes of the civilized worlcL In the same manner , thinking only of the " practical results " of encouraging agriculture and promoting commerce , the legislator in tie last and in this century placed innumerable restrictions on trade . The consequence , however , was the destruction of public
welfare to a degree wholly inconceivable , till after the abolition of such legislation had enabled this old nation to start forward at n pace quite equal . to the newest-peopled countries of the world . At present , we may describe Free trade as one of the " metaphysical abstract considerations" to which legislators do homage with their tongues , and public writers with their pens , and at the same time hope for " practical results " by continually disregarding them . The Chanoejli < or of the Exchequer may be quoted as an example . He expected " practical results" or public advantage from his proposed warehousing and other newimposts ; but though he delighted the House of Commons , by his eloquence , he has lost the confidence and ; approbation of the mercantile classes . The solemn statement of our contemporary opens up the large question , whether practical men or
philosophers , whether mole-eyed workers at ledgers and calicoes , or observing inquirers into the . effects of institutions past and prcscnt- ^ whether the bureaucra cy or the democracy , a class or the whole public—the presumptions of a few , or the principles , deduced from universal experience—are most to be relied on in making laws . We think that general principles , called by our contemporary abstract metaphysical considerations , more reliable than his or any other individual ' s presumptions . The especial metaphysical and abstract consideration derided by the Timeh is , the equality of voters in towns and oovintios , " which in its turn depends on the abstract principle that every man subject to the law has a right to a voice in making it-For one man to assume that he is authorised to make law for another , is to claim inspiration , or assert masterdoin , utterly at variance with the theory of the Constitution , nnd with prin-
Principle Or Presumption ?
PRINCIPLE OK PBESUMPT 1 ON ?
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), March 24, 1860, page 274, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2339/page/6/
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