§ House in Committee (according to Order).
§ LORD WENSLEYDALE moved the insertion of a clause to the effect that judgment creditors should not be deprived, as the Bill proposed, of that priority of claim which the fact of having obtained a judgment under the operation of the existing law conferred. His Lordship added that the creditors of the Newcastle Bank complained of the measure in that respect, and 1547 were the advocates of the Amendment which he suggested.
THE LORD CHANCELLORopposed the clause. The Bill had received the approval of the other House, and was intended to remedy a defect in the existing law which enabled every creditor of a bank to bring an action against the company, and then to take out execution against each of the shareholders, thus multiplying the proceedings to an unlimited extent. This Bill now adopted the provision in the late Bankruptcy Act, by which five-sixths of the creditors could make an arrangement which would bind the other sixth, with a view to a settlement of their claims, and in such a case the whole assets would be placed in one common fund and distributed rateably among the creditors. He thought that the proposition made by the noble and learned Lord came somewhat ungraciously from the creditors of the Newcastle Bank, who had already received 2s. in the pound upon their debts, and he therefore trusted that their Lordships would not listen to it.
§ Amendment negatived.
§ Bill reported, without Amendment.
§ Amendment made; and Bill to be read 3a To-morrow.