HL Deb 19 October 1831 vol 8 cc906-7
The Lord Chancellor

, in moving their Lordships to agree to the Amendments which the Bankruptcy Court Bill had received in the other House, felt it his duty to state to their Lordships what those Amendments were. The first was, the disqualifying of the Judges of the Court from sitting in Parliament, and this he should say was merely supplying what had been an inadvertence in their Lordships' House. There were one or two alterations in the Bill which were of little consequence, but he should open to their Lordships what were the main alterations which had been made in the Bill. The machinery for compensating persons who were to lose by the Bill, was perfectly satisfactory to those who, like Lord Thurlow, were concerned in it, and their Lordships could have no objection to this clause as it now stood. He would merely observe, that no compensation was in any case to be given in the lump, but only according to the claims of each individual. The only material alteration which the Bill had undergone, he would now explain to the House. He had stated in the first instance, that the Judges of the Court were to have retiring pensions after twenty years' service. They were now to have no pensions, and it was in his opinion that it was not necessary to give learned persons in such places retiring pensions. If a man at the Bar received his employment by the year, he had a precarious income, and was subject to various accidents. He might lose his health, become old, or might lose his business, without any fault of his, and he must be exposed to every accident, physical and moral, and to all the changes which those who followed the profession of the law so well knew themselves to be liable to. For these reasons every man of prudence made provision for his family, and when he came upon the Bench he was generally possessed of a considerable fortune. He would ask, why should not the Judges make provision for their families, either by laying up money, or by means of that most excellent invention of life-assurance? Why should not a man with a fixed income insure his life as well as a man who possessed a precarious income? In the case of a Judge, he could not see that there was any necessity for a retiring pension. If it should be found that the effect of this doctrine would be to prevent the getting of the assistance of men of sufficient ability and experience from the Bar, or if it should make men adhere pertinaciously to the gains of office after they were unfit for the adequate performance of their duties, then it would be fit that their Lordships should again send the Bill to the other House of Parliament; or rather, as this was a money clause, it would be fit that the other House should of itself revise this clause. He had to move that the Amendments be agreed to.—Ordered accordingly.