COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 9 July 1860)

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
proposed to omit that clause, and to bring up a new one instead, the object of which would be to give to certain of the County Court Judges an addition of £300 a year to some, 1625 and of £150 to others, with a view to giving them all £1,500 a year.

§ MR. MALINS
Then we are to understand that the salaries of the County Court Judges are all to be uniform?

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
Yes; uniform throughout.

§ MR. BAINES
said, there was a certain class of County Court Judges that had already £1,500 a year, on account of the great amount of business they had to discharge. In Yorkshire, for example, he knew that the Judges had an enormous amount of business cast upon them. Now, by the present Bill an additional burden would be cast upon them. He thought it hardly fair that such an increase of business should be put upon them without giving them additional compensation.

§ MR. W. WILLIAMS
said, he would remind the hon. and learned Gentleman that some time ago the Government had given a distinct assurance that the successors of those Judges now receiving £1,500 a year should only be paid £1,200. As regarded the County Court Judges generally, he believed that not half of their time was occupied. In all probability the additional business that would be cast upon them by this Bill would be very little.

§ MR. FRANK CROSSLEY
said, he did not think that the County Court Judges were at all overpaid for the duties they were expected to discharge. In Yorkshire he knew that the time of the Judges there was fully employed.

§ MR. AUGUSTUS SMITH
said, the 25th Clause gave the Government the power to create additional districts where the duties were more than one Judge could fairly perform. From Returns which had been submitted to the House he gathered that whilst some of the Judges were occupied from 150 to 200 days in the year, others were only engaged from 100 to 150 days; whilst one was occupied only 94 days per annum in the duties of his post. Under these circumstances he thought it could hardly be said that the Judges were overworked. The Metropolitan Magistrates had more disagreeable duties to perform, and had only £1,200 a year, whereas it was proposed that all the County Court Judges should have £1,500.

MR. HENLEY
said, he hoped the hon. and learned Gentleman would be kind enough to explain what in his judgment would be the additional charge placed upon the Consolidated Fund by the new clause lie intended to bring up. He concurred 1626 in the opinion that the salaries of the County Court Judges should be placed on a uniform footing. He hoped, however, that the Bankruptcy Bill would not be like the French Treaty—the more they knew of it the worse they would like it.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
said, the whole charge thrown on the consolidated fund would be £11,700. There were at present eighteen County Court Judges in receipt of £1,500 a year; four who were receiving £1,350; and thirty-seven who were paid £1,200. If the clause he intended to bring up were adopted, these thirty-seven gentlemen, together with the four who stood between the favoured and the degraded class, would all receive £1,500. The County Court Judges were of great public utility, and he should be glad to make their salaries commensurate with their utility. A man might be a grocer or a cheesemonger without education, but he required considerable education and considerable experience to become a County Court Judge. In his opinion, no money was better spent than that paid in performing the first duty of a Government—the administration of justice; and, although it might be stigmatized as a lawyer's job, he should call economy there a most miserable economy. The reason why the salaries of the County Court Judges had been fixed at a uniform rate of £1,500 a year was because it was desirable that no distinction should be made between those who at present received that rate of remuneration, and the County Court Judges who were paid only £1,200 a year, and who, being located in purely country districts, would have a greater amount of labour thrown upon them under the operation of the Bill than would be the case with their brethren whose courts were situated in populous town districts, where there were Commissioners in Bankruptcy fully competent to discharge the duties of their office.

§ MR. MALINS
said, that on a former occasion he had expressed a doubt as to the propriety of extending the jurisdiction of the County Courts. Having considered the subject further, however, and communicated with many persons of experience, he was compelled to admit it was a matter of the greatest importance that the business should be brought home to the doors of the suitors: that in many cases the present system amounted to a denial of justice; and, therefore, in order to effect that object, it was absolutely necessary to extend 1627 the jurisdiction of the Bill to the County Court Judges. In regard to the salaries of those Judges, he was glad to find the hon. and learned Gentleman about to give effect to a proposition which he (Mr. Malins) had supported some years ago—namely, uniform salaries to the County Court Judges. He differed altogether in opinion from the hon. Member for Lambeth as to the standard of compensation for those Judges. A gentleman who was obliged to travel frequently long distances from his wife and family in order to act as Judge of some of those courts, was really as much entitled to the highest salary as one who was compelled to sit so many hours each day in a court situated in populous districts. If it were desirable to have competent and educated men as Judges of those Courts nothing could be more short-sighted than to cut down their salaries to an amount that would prevent them maintaining that position which they ought to occupy in society.

§ MR. ROEBUCK
said, that the County Court Judges who were now in the receipt of £1,500 a year, were men who had their time fully occupied, and who had to administer every description of law. That being so, he should like to know how it could be considered expedient to add to their labours unless they were accorded increased remuneration. If such a course were persevered in, the result would be that the business would not be done, and that these Gentlemen would very properly say that they had not engaged to discharge the duties which under the operation of the Bill would be cast upon them. When the hon. Member for Lambeth made himself the judge of intellectual excellence he appealed to a different standard from that adopted by other men. In regard to the qualities necessary for the efficient discharges of the duties of a County Court judge they were of a peculiar and superior order. The County Court Judges administered chancery law, common law, admiralty law, and every other species of law common to this country, and they had not the aid of a Bar, which was often of the greatest importance and assistance to the Bench. For his own part, he could not understand why the administrators of justice in Westminster Hall were not chosen from their body rather than from among the Members of that House belonging to the legal profession.

MR. HENLEY
said, he thought the remark of the hon. and learned Gentleman 1628 the Member for Sheffield (Mr. Roebuck) to the effect that the County Court Judges would be disposed to strike if required to do increased work, tended to place the Committee in a position of some difficulty in dealing with the clause. He might add that the Attorney General appeared to him to have used an awkward phrase when he spoke of one class of those Gentlemen—those who received only £1,200 a year—as "degraded." Holding that opinion, the hon. and learned Gentleman must be prepared to use similar language in the case of the County Court Judges who received £1,500 a year, as compared with the district Bankruptcy Commissioners, whose salary was £1,800 per annum.

§ MR. ROEBUCK
repeated that they could not impose further work on the County Court Judges without their either refusing to do it, or doing it inefficiently.

§ SIR HUGH CAIRNS
said, he understood the observations of the hon. and learned Gentleman to come to this: that it was improper to put any bankruptcy business on the County Court Judges at all. But the Bill provided a way to meet the difficulty. He quite agreed that in many districts the County Court Judges were fully employed, perfectly competent to do their work, and did their work extremely well. His hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General, in proposing to transfer the bankruptcy business to the County Courts, made the best choice he could. On a vacancy occurring in the office of district Commissioner the executive would have the power of transferring the bankruptcy business to the County Courts, and making a new arrangement of the County Court district, and appointing a new County Court Judge. At present they were enabled, with a salary of £1,500 a year, to command the services of some of the most superior men at the Bar; it was a competent and sufficient salary; the only demur he should make was as to the salary of the district Commissioners who received £1,800 a year. He thought it desirable to have a uniformity of salary. He hoped his hon. and learned Friend would consider that point. As he read the Bill it was not proposed at once to equalize the salaries of all County Court Judges, and to transfer bankruptcy business to them, but only as vacancies in the office of district Commissioner occurred. It was the more necessary that as the process came into operation only gradually there should be a uniformity of salary.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
said, with regard to the equalization of the salaries of the district Commissioners, he undoubtedly hoped that whenever a vacancy occurred, it would not be filled up, but the business allotted either to the County Court Judge or to another Commissioner. But if that were not the case, no doubt the new district Commissioners ought to be put upon an equality with the County Court Judges. In reply to the observation of his hon. and learned Friend he wished to observe that by the present state of things jurisdiction in insolvency was vested in the Court Court Judge. The Bill took away the distinction between bankruptcy and insolvency, and all that description of business which was now administered under the description of insolvency, and which, in future, would be known by the name of bankruptcy, must, of course, at once pass to the County Court Judge. In all cases where the property to be administered was less than £300, it would be competent for the district. Commissioners to transfer the case to the County Court Judge, and in all cases where the debtor was in prison the petition was to be presented in the County Court. By the 30th Clause the Judge of the County Court was to have like jurisdiction, and to perform the same duties as were now fulfilled by the district Commissioners.

§ MR. E. P. BOUVERIE
said, he objected to the business of the County Courts being delegated to deputies. It was proposed by this clause to allow registrars of County Courts to sit and dispose of cases under 40s., or where the debts were admitted. It was not the amount in issue that regulated the importance of a case, as instanced in the case of shipmoney. If the business increased beyond what it was possible for the Judge to dispose of, the districts should be subdivided, and new Judges appointed under the 25th Clause.

MR. MONTAGUE SMITH
said, the clause involved a very serious innovation. Four-fifths of the business in the County Courts arose out of eases where the amount in dispute was under 40s. It was proposed that the decisions of the registrar should be subject to appeal to the Judge—a provision which was a satire upon the clause. Cases under 40s. often involved 1630 as important and difficult questions as cases of higher amount; and the judgments of the registrars, who were not judicial officers, would create dissatisfaction among the poor, who were, on the other hand, quite content with the ruling of the Judges.

§ SIR FRANCIS GOLDSMID
thought the clause opposed to the very principle of the County Court jurisdiction,—namely, that of deciding questions of small amount without disproportionate expense. The more unlikely litigants were to have the assistance of advocates possessing competent skill, the more indispensable it was that the Judge himself should have that qualification. It would be better to create additional County Court Judges, as provided by the 25th clause.

§ MR. ROEBUCK
said, the whole tenor of the Bill was that the poor man was to be satisfied with an inferior Judge.

§ MR. COLLIER
recommended the serious reconsideration of this clause. He concurred in the transfer of the business in bankruptcy to the County Courts, but he thought that advantage would be bought at too high a price if it was essentially necessary to alter the principle of the County Courts Act. He hoped the clause would not be pressed.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
said, the clause did not propose to make this transfer to a deputy without the intervention of some authority. He never would have proposed such a clause. A deputy was only to be called in where the Lord Chancellor thought it absolutely necessary. Nine-tenths of the cases consisted in the Judges sitting in court and using such a stereotype phrase as "You must pay 2s. 6d. a month." Nevertheles he recognized the force of the objections which had been raised, and he would consent to the omission of the clause.

§ MR. MURRAY
proposed the omission of the word "creditors," which, if retained, would have the effect of making all creditors, whether they chose to come in under the bankruptcy or not, subject to and bound by the jurisdiction of the Court.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
said, the object of the clause was to give jurisdiction to the Court of Bankruptcy in favour of strangers; that was to say, that any individual having a question with the assignees of the bankrupt, or the creditors of the bankrupt, might come into the Bank- 1631 ruptcy Court, and have the question tried. The omission of the words would cramp the jurisdiction of the Court, and its retention would extend it. The retention of the word could not do harm, and might be useful in many cases.

§ SIR HUGH CAIRNS
said, he was disposed to think that the retention of the word would effect an alteration of the law of bankruptcy; and trusted that the Attorney General would not introduce any such alteration of the law.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
said, he did not think his hon. and learned Friend fully appreciated the clause, which was intended to facilitate the proceedings of parties claiming against the assignee, against the creditors, and against the bankrupt. However, if there was any difficulty about the retention of the word in the minds of hon. Members, he would defer to that objection, and consent to its omission.

§ MR. ROEBUCK
said, that by the clause provision was made for a vacation for the Commissioners. The salary of the Commissioner was £1,800 a year, £200 a year for a substitute during his vacation. Now the County Court Judges, who did a great deal more work than the Bankruptcy Commissioners, had no vacation unless they paid for it. Why should there be any difference made?

MR. HENLEY
observed, that the district Commissioner of Bankruptcy was to have £1,800 a year; and, when he took his holiday, £200 were to be paid to his deputy; so that his salary became £2,000 a year. He thought that if the Commissioner of Bankruptcy wanted a deputy, he should pay for one out of his salary.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
said, he would be glad to assist the hon. and learned Member, when he should bring forward a Bill to emancipate the County Court Judges from the sad position in which they were represented to be. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Henley) expressed his opinion that the Commissioner of Bankruptcy should pay his deputy; but it would not do to allow any one to be chosen as deputy by the Commissioner. The deputy must be a person in whom confidence could be placed.

MR. HENLEY
replied, that he had said nothing about the Commissioner appointing his deputy. What he said was, that if the Commissioner wanted a vacation, he might pay for a deputy; and the appoint- 1632 ment of the deputy might be in the hands of the Lord Chancellor.

§ MR. MALINS
said, the Bankruptcy Commissioners, if they had to pay for their deputies, would, in fact, receive only £1,600 a year. They were appointed at a salary of £1,800 a year, and he thought that amount ought not to be diminished. The country ought to give them some rest without making them pay for that rest out of their salaries.

§ MR. ROEBUCK
said, the County Court Judges had to administer laws of the greatest importance, and replete with questions quite as difficult as any which came before the Commissioners of Bankruptcy. What was sauce for the gander was sauce for the goose, and it was unjust for the Attorney General to favour one class of functionaries, and turn his back on another.

§ SIR FITZROY KELLY
thought it was premature to raise on this clause a discussion as to the emoluments and labours of the County Court Judges. The Bankruptcy Commissioners, by virtue of several Acts of Parliament, received £1,800 a year, and he did not think it would be just to diminish that amount by making them pay for the services of deputies during the vacation. If the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield would at a future stage propose a clause to afford some rest each year to the County Court Judges, who were overburdened with work, by enabling them to appoint deputies whose services should be paid for by the country, that clause should have his cordial support. The County Court Judges had performed their work in a manner so satisfactory that he was certain a clause of that nature would receive the general snpport of the two Houses.

§ MR. BARROW
contended that a Commissioner's salary was intended to pay him for the whole of his time, and if he wished for a vacation he ought to pay for a deputy. It was desirable that every man should have a holiday from time to time, but it was not right to call on the State to pay for it. That was the principle adopted in the cases of the County Court Judges and of coroners.

§ MR. VANCE
observed, that it was only by the casting vote of the Chairman a majority of the Select Committee which had inquired into that subject had decided that the Commissioners should receive a higher salary than the County Court Judges; and he thought it would be great 1633 extravagance to augment further the advantages of the Commissioners by providing them with deputies at a cost to the public of £200 a year.

§ SIR FITZROY KELLY
suggested for the consideration of the Attorney General whether it was expedient to adopt the amount of assets as the sole criterion of the importance of the case. Perhaps in the majority of cases the amount of assets was the best test, but it might happen that a bankrupt with little or no assets had incurred enormous liabilities, and there were clauses in the Bill rendering a bankrupt liable to prosecution, or to the summary jurisdiction of the Court for contracting large debts without the means of payment.

§ MR. ROEBUCK
said, that the provision looked very like an experiment in corpore vili. Great questions of law had been determined upon cases involving £5 or £6. It was a mistake to suppose that people having small sums in litigation ought to have an inferior tribunal to decide their rights. The sum of £100 to one man was of the same value as £100,000 to another, and justice ought to he done indifferently. There ought to be a Court to deal with all cases of bankruptcy without regard to the amount of assets.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
would move the omission of the words "in any case" in the 13th line of the clause.

§ MR. ROEBUCK
said, he must press for an answer to the objection that there should be any limit, and that small cases, which might involve great questions of law should be disposed of in an inferior court.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
said, that he did not consider the County Court Judges to be less capable of administering justice than the Commissioners; and the County Courts were tribunals which possessed the great advantage of dispensing justice in the cheapest and the most expeditious manner.

§ MR. W. WILLIAMS
said, he thought it ought to be made imperative that all cases under three hundred pounds assets should he tried by the County Court Judges.

§ MR. VANCE
remarked, that it would 1634 be impossible to make the amount of liabilities the criterion. The assets could be very easily ascertained, but it was clearly impossible to find out the liabilities until the bankruptcy had proceeded a considerable length. The proof of debt was left to the registrar in bankruptcy, subject to the control of the Court; but where a right was to be maintained with regard to property, of course, the question would come before a Court of a superior description.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
said, he wished to make a few observations on the policy of the clause in answer to the remarks of the hon. and learned Member for East Suffolk (Sir FitzRoy Kelly) and Sheffield (Mr. Roebuck). There was undoubtedly great difficulty in determining what should be the criterion of cases to be transferred to the County Court. But as a general principle it might be held that wherever there was a small estate there was very little judicial business to be done. It was true that the smallness of the estate was no criterion of the questions which might arise with regard to liabilities, but the smallness of the estate would probably render questions about the debts and liabilities of very little importance, and very unlikely to be struggled for. He did not find, therefore, any better rule which could be laid down as to what cases should or should not be transferred to the County Courts than the rule which was expressed in this clause. As to the objection of the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield, there was something in the nature of that hon. and learned Gentleman which led him to follow his disposition to find fault, even at the expense of consistency. He could not understand how the hon. and learned Member, who had constituted himself the advocate of the County Courts, could prove that to send a bankrupt whose assets were under £300 before one of the Courts, was giving him an inferior measure of justice. The great qualification of justice was that it should be freely and easily obtained; and if there was one feature in this Bill which above all others had called forth the marked approbation of the public, it had been the disposition to give every facility to creditors to transfer these cases to the administration of the County Courts. He had himself said again and again that he hoped the day would come when the whole provincial or country administration of justice 1635 would be centred in these courts. Any points of difficulty, in a case where the assets were under three hundred pounds, would, no doubt, be discovered before the chief Court was called on to make the transfer; and, as the authorities had a discretionary power, their decision would be influenced thereby.

§ MR. ROEBUCK
said, he could not pretend to cope with the hon. and learned Gentleman in sarcasm; but he must express his inability to discover why there should be two jurisdictions—one inferior, and the other superior. If the hon. and learned Gentleman thought the County Court Judge the superior jurisdiction, then he conferred a benefit on the poor, and a hardship on the rich.

MR. HENLEY
asked if there was to be no limit to the power of appeal? However small the matter might be, as the Bill stood parties disposed to litigate might take it to the superior Courts, and he wished to know whether that power was to he guarded in any way?

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
said, that was a very important question. It was extremely difficult in bankruptcy to put any limit to the right of appeal. Questions of very great importance might frequently arise on a proof of debt of £20. Anxious as he was not to give any encouragement to litigation, or to open the door to mere vexatious proceedings, he was quite unable to lay down any rule for fixing the limit.

§ MR. MALINS
said, he agreed that it would be undesirable to place any restriction on the right of appeal.

§ MR. ROEBUCK
said, he thought the poor man ought, in some way or other, to be protected from the unreasonable appeals of the rich.

§ SIR FITZROY KELLY
said, he wished to introduce an Amendment by the insertion of the words in line 26, "That the Chief Judge in Bankruptcy may, if he think fit, request the assistance of one or more of the Judges of the superior Courts of common law." The new Judge in Bankruptcy would be placed on the same footing as regarded rank, jurisdiction, and salary, as the ordinary Judges of the Courts of common law and the Vice-Chancellors, and looking at the importance of many of 1636 the cases that would come before him, and the difficulty of the questions which he must decide, he did not see why he should not be allowed the same assistance as was given to the Vice-Chancellors and to the Judge of the Court of Probate. That would secure speedy, as well as cheap and satisfactory justice.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
said, he was sensible of the value of the aid such a provision would give to the Judge in Bankruptcy; but as complaints had been made of the excessive occupation thrown on the Judges of the common law Courts, and of their being required to assist in the Divorce Court, he shrank from asking them to incur this additional task. As they would probably on that very account be relieved, this Session, from attending in the Divorce Court, it would be inconsistent to cast upon them the duty of attending in the Court of the Chief Judge in Bankruptcy.

§ SIR FITZROY KELLY
remarked that the inconvenience in the Divorce Court arose from the fact that a particular class of cases were by the Act necessarily to be heard by the Judge ordinary, and a Chief Justice, and a Puisne Judge, while many of those cases were of a nature that the Chief Judge alone could decide.

§ MR. MALINS
said, he thought it was advisable that the new Judge should have the power of calling in a common law Judge to assist in hearing a particular case argued.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
said, he would agree to the Amendment.

§ MR. MALINS
said, he had to object to another point in the clause. It proposed that when an appeal was to be carried from the Court of Bankruptcy to the Lords Justices, the appeal should be made on a special case prepared by the Chief Judge. Now he contended that the Judge whose decision was appealed from ought to have no voice in framing the appeal. The right of appeal ought to be free and unrestricted. Besides, the preparation of the special case involved much inconvenience, and he had known instances in which more time was occupied in framing the case than in arguing it.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
said, that while admitting that obstacles lay in the way of getting up special cases, he was at the same time of opinion that they acted as powerful auxiliaries in the promotion of economy. The point was here however, he was ready to admit, well worthy of consideration; and he would 1637 cheerfully abide by the decision of the Committee. It would be derogatory, however, to the Court of Bankruptcy to suppose that the Judge, whose decision was appealed from, would state the case in any other than an impartial manner.

§ SIR HUGH CAIRNS
said, he hoped the Attorney General would reconsider the question. There were considerable objections to that part of the clause. In the first place, it changed the present practice of the law, which undoubtedly allowed of an appeal to the Lords Justices without the preparation of any special case. He could understand the latter portion of the clause which required the preparation of a special case in making an appeal from the Lords Justices to the House of Lords, because the appeal in that case would be on a point of law or equity, and they might be very properly called on to state a case for the consideration of the House of Lords. But an appeal to the Lords Justices would be an appeal not on the law of the case but on the facts, and if the appeal were on the facts a special case could not be settled. In settling the facts they would settle the case. There was another consideration. They allowed an appeal from the country Judges to the London Judge without any special case, and he could not understand why they should make any difference in an appeal from the London Judge to the Court of Chancery.

§ SIR FRANCIS GOLDSMID
said, he was in favour of the clause as it stood.

§ MR. COLLIER
said, he should oppose the preparation of a special case being rendered necessary, as he knew how inconveniently it worked in the common law Courts.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
said, he would assent to the Amendment.

§ MR. MALINS
said, he would then move the omission of all the words after "order." The Attorney General, according to the previous Amendment, had given up the principle of the clause, which was to restrict the right of appeal; and he did not see, if there was to be an open appeal to the Lords Justices, why there should not also be an appeal to the House of Lords.

§ MR. MELLOR
said, he trusted the hon. and learned Attorney General would not consent to the Amendment. In matters of this sort it was really essential that there should not be a multiplicity of appeals. In bankruptcy it was specially requisite that there should be a speedy and final deter- 1638 mination; and one appeal was quite sufficient.

§ MR. EDWIN JAMES
said, he thought in mercy to suitors, there should be some end of litigation, and the Lords Justices, with all the facts before them, were perfectly competent to pronounce a final decision without any appeal to the House of Lords.

§ MR. MALINS
said, the Irish Bankruptcy Act gave an appeal in the manner proposed by his Amendment.

MR. MONTAGUE SMITH
said, as the Bill stood there was an appeal in a country case, first to the Metropolitan Commissioners, then to the Chief Justice, then to the Lords Justices, and, finally, to the House of Lords. He thought that there ought to be some restriction put upon the power of appeal.

§ SIR HUGH CAIRNS
said, he could not support the present Amendment. There was no analogy betwen the cases contemplated by the Bill and ordinary questions arising at law or equity between one man and another, where there might be little harm in the litigants fighting as long as it suited them. But it must be remembered that the winding-up of a bankrupt's estate was suspended by an appeal, and that until the rights of the parties were determined, hundreds, or it might be thousands, of creditors, could not get a shilling of dividend. In a case of bankruptcy, it was necessary to cut the knot and divide the estate; and he thought it would be quite sufficient if the right of appeal was given within the limits contained in the clause.

§ MR. MALINS
said, that as the opinion of the Committee was against him, he would withdraw his Amendment.

§ SIR FITZROY KELLY
moved, in line 5, after "oath," to insert the words "in open Court."

§ MR. ROEBUCK
asked the Attorney General to consent to the omission of the words, "or by interrogatories in writing." The system of taking evidence by interrogatories was at once the most incomplete, the most confused, and the worst that could be resorted to. He hoped the hon. and learned Gentleman was not about to perpetuate it by his Bill.

§ MR. EDWIN JAMES
said, he concurred in the observations of the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield.

§ MR. MALINS
said, he thought that as 1639 a general rule vivâ voce evidence was the more satisfactory; but he would not remove from the Bill the permissive power of taking evidence by interrogatories.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL
explained that it was by no means intended to render the system of interrogatories general, but there were particular cases in which it was necessary to have the power of taking evidence in that manner. It was only proposed to put the Courts of Bankruptcy in this respect on the same footing as Courts of law.

§ SIR FITZROY KELLY
said, he thought it would be better to leave it to the Court to decide in which way evidence should be taken in each particular case.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
pointed out that for the most part proceedings before the Bankruptcy Court were analogous to those before a superior Court of common law sitting in banco, and it would therefore be wise to give the Court the power of taking evidence by affidavit.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
said, he would propose to leave out of the 3rd line the words "Registrars and Taxing Officers," and in the 4th line the words "as such," thereby transferring those officers from the Insolvent Debtors' Court to act in the London District Court of Bankruptcy, and to add "in such manner as the general order of the Court shall direct."

§ SIR FITZROY KELLY
said, he fully concurred in the propriety of transferring these officers instead of superseding them, and so avoid compensation, but he thought the question of the salaries they received, together with the extra large fees, should be considered and revised. He believed that there was no such officer, to speak technically, as a "registrar of the Insolvent Debtors' Court."

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
said, the salaries of these officers would be as before. If there was in reality no "registrar," the person so transferred under such misnomer, if it were found to be such, should be correctly described.

§ MR. VANCE
proposed to amend the clause by transferring the right of nomi- 1640 nating these officers from the Lord Chancellor, as proposed by the clause, to the Judge of the court.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
said, he had placed the power in the Lord Chancellor's hands, as he objected to giving it to the chief Judge.

§ MR. E. P. BOUVERIE
said, the registrars of the Court of Bankruptcy had large salaries and little to do. He recollected being upon a Committee which recommended that the number of these officers should be curtailed. At that time there were seven registrars, and the number had continued to be seven ever since. The next clause provided that the number of these officers might be increased if need be, and he thought that there ought to be a clause declaring that the number might be reduced if need be.

§ MR. ROEBUCK
remarked that by doing away with the official assignees they would put an end to a great improvement effected by a past Bill. In his opinion the Bill was an attorney's Bill, and that the official assignees were done away with in order to forward the interests of the attorneys.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
stated that the duties of the registrars would be considerably increased by the Bill. They would be constantly employed, and would be the means of saving a great deal of the expense and delay now attending the Bankruptcy Court. Still, while power was taken to increase their number there should also be a power to reduce it, and by another clause that power was given.

§ SIR FITZROY KELLY
said, he believed that the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock was under some misapprehension as to the existing number of registrars.

§ MR. SCHOLEFIELD
said, he should move the insertion of words providing that the amount paid to the deputy in such a case shall be deducted from the salary of the officer in whose absence he shall act.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
said, he thought the Committee had gone far enough in this direction, and that in common charity and kindness the House ought to allow the salary of the deputy in such cases as were contemplated by the clause.

§ MR. AUGUSTUS SMITH
said, they 1641 ought to be just before they were generous. The principle of the clause—that of providing substitutes for public officers, to be paid out of public money—was entirely new. If adopted it might be extended in future to the army and navy, and even to the gentleman who was known to be the Attorney General's principal aid, but whose name was described generally in terms more forcible than polite. A salary might hereafter be demanded for him.

§ MR. MURRAY
said that a provision was introduced into the Bill brought forward last Session by the noble Lord the Member for the City (Lord J. Russell) which required the payment of substitutes out of the salaries of those for whom they acted.

§ MR. E. P. BOUVERIE
said, he also believed the principle to be entirely a new one. There was no difficulty in the legal profession in finding a substitute in cases of illness. He moved the omission of all the words in the clause after the word "Act."

§ MR. COLLINS
said, he thought that the fact that the registrars would have to pay for the substitutes would greatly conduce to their health, and he therefore hoped the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock would persist in his Amendment.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
said, it was no use to expect the House of Commons to be humane and generous, when they were imbued with the spirit of economy. He had pledged himself to adopt the provisions of the noble Lord's Bill. He was sorry to find the words which had been read in the Bill, and he should reluctantly withdraw from his intention of dividing the Committee.

§ MR. WALPOLE
said, he was obliged to take the unpopular side, as he was in favour of the clause as it stood. In other parts of the Bill it was provided that the registrars should attend every day in the year, with the exception of Christmas Day, fast days, and holidays. He would, therefore, appeal to the justice of the Committee, and ask whether persons, so occupied, ought not to be provided with some relief; especially in the case of illness, or any other reasonable cause. In the case of the Commissioners, the Committee had very properly refused to pay for a substitute for them during their vacation; but where a clerk was required to attend every day, 1642 and through sickness was rendered unable to attend for a few days, he thought it hard that a substitute should be paid out of his salary.

§ SIR HUGH CAIRNS
said, it was the first time he had ever heard of stopping the salary of a Judge in the event of illness, and a higher power appointing another person to receive the amount so confiscated.

§ MR. EDWIN JAMES
said, he should support the Amendment. If a clergyman were ill, he had to pay for a substitute out of his small stipend. If a recorder were ill, he had no substitute provided by the State; and as a recorder himself, he should be ashamed to ask the Government to pay for his deputy. If for illness, or other reasonable cause, another Commissioner or Registrar could be appointed at the public expense, it would lead to great abuse.

§ MR. CLAY
said, he should take the sense of the Committee on the Question, with a view to negative the Clause. The registrars would then stand in the same position as recorders and others.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
said, he would not have introduced this provision, had it not been to secure the constant administration of justice, and to prevent any of the courts being shut up in the absence of a Commissioner or Registrar, on account of illness, or other urgent reason. He believed that the provision met that exigency in a satisfactory manner; but he could not consent to its adoption, except in its original form. He trusted that the Committee, having struck out the provision for the payment of a substitute, would omit the clause altogether. He should certainly take the sense of the House on that question.

§ MR. WHITESIDE
remarked that, under the Irish Bankruptcy Law, the Lord Chancellor had power, if an official was not able to attend the court, to appoint a deputy, and assign the sum which he was to receive out of the salary of the gentleman whose place he filled. Such was the actual state of the case; although the hon. and learned Member for Belfast (Sir Hugh Cairns) had shown good reasons why it ought not to be so.

§ MR. EDWIN JAMES
said, it was very 1643 easy for the hon. and learned Attorney General to speak of the House of Commons being seized with a fit of economy, and to be generous at the expense of the public. But he should remember that it was a common thing at present for a Commissioner of Bankruptcy or a Police Magistrate to sit for a brother official; and there was no reason why the same custom should not prevail under this Act. He feared the payment of deputies would lead to great abuses.

§ MR. E. P. BOUVERIE
said, that the hon. and learned Attorney General had just shown something of the same temper in giving up this clause that he had displayed the other day, when defeated on another part of the Bill. The hon. and learned Gentleman really must not expect that 150 or 160 Gentlemen, however great the deference and respect they might be disposed to pay to his opinion, were to be absolutely guided by his judgment on every minute point of the Bill. They would form opinions for themselves and would act on those opinions, even in opposition to him. His hon. and learned Friend possessed greater experience than he did—probably on all subjects but one, and that was the difficulty of working a very long Bill through the House. Perhaps he would allow him, therefore, to warn him that he would not accomplish that operation unless he endeavoured to consult and conciliate those who were opposed to him. The provision now in question was merely the re-enactment of a clause in an existing Act, with the addition of the "tailpiece," which the Committee had just struck out. It was only an enabling clause to authorize the Lord Chancellor to appoint a deputy for a Commissioner or Registrar; and it was very unreasonable for the hon. and learned Attorney General to ask the Committee to take altogether from the Lord Chancellor the power of appointing a deputy, because the Amendment had been carried. He hoped the hon. and learned Gentleman would reconsider the matter.

§ VISCOUNT PALMERSTON
said, he had never heard a more unreasonable or unjust attack than that of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Bouverie), and he was sure he could not have been in the House in the early part of the evening. The right hon. Gentleman had, from one circumstance, pronounced an opinion which those hon. Members who had been in attendance the whole evening knew to be un- 1644 sound. He could himself bear witness to the fact that his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General, five or six times in the course of the evening, had, in the most conciliatory manner, yielded to representations and adopted suggestions coming from both sides of the House.

§ MR. COLLINS
said, he thought it would be better to pass the clause than expunge it. If one of the Judges wanted a fortnight's holiday, or wished to be married, it was only reasonable he should apply to the Lord Chancellor and obtain the appointment of a deputy for the brief interval.

§ MR. CRAUFURD
said, he held that, as the money part of the clause was struck out, it would be right to strike out the clause itself.

§ MR. PULLER
said, he should like to know for whose benefit this clause was to be struck out. He thought it not desirable to bind men to the wheel so tightly, and he should oppose the striking out of the clause.

§ MR. LONGFIELD
said, he would recommend the Attorney General to follow the analogy of the Irish Acts. There were two sets of precedents in Ireland. By the County Judge Acts the Lord Chancellor could appoint a deputy to the Judge and assign him a portion of his salary; but by the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Acts the Lord Chancellor could give the deputy all the powers and the salary of the principal. The Attorney General would do well to adopt the latter principle in the present Bill.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
said, that in reply to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kilmarnock he wished to say that he was not aware he had ever shown any indisposition to deal with the arguments urged against the Bill. The Committee, however, had quarrelled with the Attorney General, because he would not accept their Amendments. He, on his part, did not quarrel with their opinion. If they had the power to carry their views against him that power must be enforced. But why did the Committee quarrel with him? He thought he heard no reason given for an opposition that had lost him a night, and cost him two divisions. The only cause he could give for the opposition of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Bouverie) was that he did not like to see the Attorney General have his own way. From communications received from the right hon. Gentleman that evening he thought there was peace between them. If, however, 1645 the right hon. Gentleman liked war he was ready to meet him. But, when the right hon. Gentleman boasted of his skill and experience, he (the Attorney General) needed not to be vainglorious, but he would remind the right hon. Gentleman that the House sat in 1857 until late in August to pass a Bill that was advocated by the Attorney General, So much for the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kilmarnock. To pass to a more important matter, he thought it unkind, unreasonable, and impolitic to impose upon a sick Judge the obligation to appoint a deputy, whom he would have to pay. ["No!"] That, at all events, was the object of the words, "which deputy he is to pay." He could not consent to follow the Irish precedent quoted by the hon. and learned Gentleman, and he must, therefore, give the Committee the trouble of dividing.

§ MR. ROEBUCK
said, he wished to inquire whether the interpretation put by the Attorney General upon this clause was correct? By the clause the Lord Chancellor had the power to appoint a deputy, but he had no power to pay him, or to make the registrar pay him. Therefore, if the Lord Chancellor appointed a barrister it would be without the slightest possibility of paying him.

§ SIR HUGH CAIRNS
said, he had been under the impression that it was intended to propose the omission of the last two lines of the clause, in order to propose the insertion of other words, to the effect that the Lord Chancellor, after appointing a deputy, was to have the right to pay him out of the salary of the person in whose place he was appointed. He would sooner see the clause struck out than such an insertion adopted. It was now proposed, however, to maintain the clause with the omission of the last two lines, and then the Lord Chancellor would have the power of appointing a substitute, but no power of paying him. Therefore no substitute would be appointed except by the request of the Judge, and if the Committee agreed to let the clause go in that form he saw no harm in it.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
said, he also had spoken under the same impression, that it was intended to insert other words substituting the power to pay the deputy out of the Judge's salary. If, however, it was proposed to leave the clause as it stood after the omission, he should not object to it.

§ MR. ROEBUCK
moved that the Chairman report progress.

§ MR. E. P. BOUVERIE
said, he wished to make his peace with the Attorney General. He had not intended to say anything personally offensive to the hon. and learned Gentleman, from whom he had received much personal courtesy. If the House wished to make real progress with a Bill there was no hour like that between 12 P.M. and 1 o'clock A.M.

§ MR. ROEBUCK
said, he believed that the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock had given the House the benefit of his attendance at 10 o'clock. For himself, however, he had been in the House since noon. Human nature would not bear such long and late hours, and as his (Mr. Roebuck) was a very feeble human nature, he had moved that the Chairman report progress.

§ SIR HUGH CAIRNS
said, he wished to know when the hon. and learned Attorney General proposed to go on again with the Bill. The Committee were approaching the 150th Clause, which raised a question of principle—namely, how far it was desirable to extend the bankruptcy law to persons not traders. The principle was of such general importance, that it was desirable to discuss it at an evening, and not at a morning sitting.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
said, he hoped they would proceed with the Bill on Thursday morning. The more important portions of the Bill, relating to the extension of bankruptcy, would be reserved for the evening sittings; but the ordinary clauses could be proceeded with at the morning sittings.

MR. HENLEY
said, he doubted whether anything would be gained by taking up the Bill at a morning sitting. It was straining the working powers of the House too much to have three morning sittings in the week. There were so many hon. Members engaged on Committees and in the law courts that to go on with the Bill at morning sittings would be tantamount to passing it through almost at the dictation of the Attorney General.

§ VISCOUNT PALMERSTON
said, that in a Bill of that magnitude there were necessarily matters of great importance, and others of lesser moment. The latter might with advantage he proceeded with in the mornings, and those of greater importance postponed for the consideration of the House in the evenings. He hoped, therefore, that the House would go on, on Thursday morning, with those portions of 1647 the Bill to which no great exception was taken.

§ MR. E. P. BOUVERIE
reminded the Committee that the time for again taking up the Bill could only be fixed when the Speaker was in the chair.

§ SIR WILLIAM JOLLIFFE
expressed a hope that so important a Bill would not be fixed for Thursday morning. There were clauses in it that would require the serious consideration of all the Members of the House, and many could not be present at a morning sitting.

§ VISCOUNT PALMERSTON
said, he could only repeat what he had before said, that when they came to important questions on which a difference of opinion prevailed, those questions could be reserved for the evenings.

§ MR. WHITESIDE
said, there were important questions coming before the House on Thursday evening, to which they would be expected to devote all their energies, and in these circumstances he objected to this Bill being proceeded with at a morning sitting on that day.