HC Deb 03 May 1848 vol 98 cc595-6

MR. B. COCHRANE, in moving the Second Reading of this Bill, said he hoped the Government would not object to the alterations he proposed to make in the 9th and 10th of Victoria, subject to such revision as might be made in Committee. The principal object of this Bill was to prevent any party from being imprisoned for debt in any part of a gaol except on the debtor's side, or in any gaol where there was not a debtor's side. If it should be answered there was already an Act, the 2nd and 3rd Victoria, directing that prisoners should be classified, and that debtors should be separated from other prisoners, he would reply that this could be no objection to his Bill, which did but make that more clear. But he had good reason to believe, that the judges of the Small Debts Courts had assumed the power of committing debtors to the felons' side of the prisons: if this were doubted, he could state a dozen or fifteen instances which had been reported to him. Of Mr. Pollett's case he had ample confirmation; so that a debtor could be consigned to a felon's cell, and be compelled to have his hair cut off—for this appeared to be the custom of the prisons in that case. By the 99th Clause of the Small Debts Act, the judge of the court had the power to imprison for forty days a debtor whom he believed to have had since the judgment the power of paying, and who had not paid, a debt ordered to be paid; and this could be repeated on non-payment of each instalment, the judge having the right to divide the payment into as many instalments as he thought fit. In fact, a debtor who owed a sum under 20l. was much worse off than one who owed more; and, as the small debtor was not entitled to demand a jury where the debt did not exceed 5l., he was in such a case entirely at the mercy or caprice of the judge. Moreover, by Section 103, imprisonment under this Act did not operate as a satisfaction or extinguishment of the debt. He (Mr. Cochrane) should prefer seeing imprisonment for debt abolished altogether, except in cases of positive fraud or false representation.

The ATTORNEY GENERAL could not, consistently with his duty, consent to the second reading of this Bill. The House had far better at once repeal the late Act for the more easy recovery of small debts, than attempt so to alter it as to suit the views indicated by the hon. Member. The hon. Gentleman seemed to think that the provisions he complained of were introduced for the first time in the 9th and 10th of Victoria; but how stood the fact? By the 7th and 8th of Victoria, c. 96, imprisonment on final process, or in execution, was abolished where the debt was under 20l., except in cases where it should appear to the judge that the debt had been contracted under false pretences, or with a fraudulent intent, or without reasonable assurance of being able to pay it, or where the debtor had fraudulently concealed or made away with his property. This Act was found to operate so prejudicially upon the lower class of tradesmen that they were all in arms against it; and then the 8th and 9th of Victoria, c. 127, was passed, giving power to a creditor who had a judgment for a sum under 20l. to summon the debtor before a Bankruptcy Commissioner or a judge of a Small debts court; and if the debtor should appear to the court to have been guilty of any of the frauds mentioned in the former Act, or to have the means of paying the debt which he neglected to pay, he might be committed for forty days to any gaol or debtor's prison in the county, and the imprisonment was not to extinguish the debt. This Act restored to the local courts the business which under the previous Act they had lost; and it was found absolutely necessary, therefore, to retain that clause in the present Small Debts Act. Accordingly, that Act gave power to commit in such cases, not for misfortune, but for fraud, to the prison of the court, or the common gaol or house of correction of the district; and if it were to the debtor's side, to live in idleness, these local courts might as well be shut up at once. He felt bound to move that this Bill be read a second time that day six months.

Bill put off for six months.