§ SIR FITZROY KELLYwished to put a question to his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General relative to a Bill, of which they had heard something, for winding up the affairs of the Royal British Bank, and which was to have been introduced during the present Session. Of course it was now too late to pass any Bill of the kind this Session, but he thought it would be a comfort to all concerned to be assured that as early as possible after the assembling of the new Parliament the Bill would be introduced.
THE ATTORNEY GENERALvery much regretted that the sudden termination of the present Parliament had prevented him bringing in two Bills—one with regard to fraudulent breaches of trust, which he hoped would be a means of punishing such delinquencies as had been exhibited in the case of the British Bank; and the other to remedy in some degree the distress which had been occasioned to the shareholders in the process of winding up that bank. The whole case of the British Bank was an opprobrium to British jurisprudence, inasmuch as it had exhibited the inability of the law to punish this class of offenders, and the utter incompetence of the tribunal which had attempted to wind up the affairs of the Bank. In the next Parliament it would be his desire to bring these two measures forward at the earliest possible period.