§ Upon the Order of the Day for the Third Reading of the Trustees Relief Bill,
MR. STUARTsaid, he had serious objections to this Bill, though he did not mean to divide the House upon the question. According to the present law, a legacy of money in trust for the benefit of an infant could not be summarily placed in the Court of Chancery; but by this Bill, a trustee of 500,000l, if he thought the money might be laid out beneficially in land, could summarily put the whole trust fund in Chancery, and the trustee would be acquitted of all obliga- 337 tion to account. This might be done by a majority of the trustees against the wish of others, and of the cestui que trust, and the infant might be mulcted of his benefit through a depreciation of the property in which the fund had been invested. The attention of the House had not been sufficiently called to this part of the Bill. It was going a monstrous way to say that any part of any sum of money might, without the consent of the parties beneficially interested, be suddenly thrown into Chancery, to be got out again as it could. If the Bill had been brought in at an early period of the Session, it could have been more attentively considered; but he had discharged his duty in calling attention to what he considered an insurmountable objection to this Bill. His suggestion was, that the Bill should proceed no further this Session.
§ Bill read a third time and passed.