[BILL 71.] SECOND READING. (Hansard, 22 June 1870)

§ MR. W. FOWLER
, in rising to move that the Bill be now read a second time, said, there was no other place in the country besides London in which brokers were required, as they were in the City, to give bonds of £1000 to a municipal corporation, to find two sureties in £250 each for their good conduct, and to pay an annual fee of £5. The fees thus paid in the City of London produced between £6,000 and £7,000 a year. When a broker had been once admitted and had given a bond, there was no renewal of the bond or of the sureties, and everything went on smoothly as long as he paid his annual fee and was not complained of; so that a man might have become utterly untrustworthy, and no one would know anything about it from the action of the Court of Aldermen, who possessed this anomalous jurisdiction over the sworn brokers of the City of London. A good many brokers who were not able to get on the Stock Exchange at all were yet sworn brokers of the City of 736 London; and they were able, therefore, to advertise themselves as brokers, and to induce people to trust them who probably would not do so otherwise. He knew of a case in which a broker paid his surety 5s. a week in order to keep him from want, so that his suretyship was not of much use to the public. Owing to some disturbance having been made, the Corporation were now rather more particular about the character of the sureties than they used to be at one time, when the common crier was employed to make inquiries respecting them. He believed, however, that the Court had no power, having once admitted a broker, to inquire into his sureties. On what principle was it that the brokers of the City were subject to this peculiar jurisdiction? No doubt it was a relic of olden times, when all trades were controlled more or less by guilds, and the first legislative mention of it was in 6 Anne, c. 16, which compensated the City for the loss of income in connection with the garbling of spices, by imposing a fine upon brokers. Again, in 1817, to compensate the City for the loss of revenue from wine-guaging, in consequence of the establishment of docks outside the boundaries, the annual fee of a broker was raised from £2 to £5. In 1844 a Commission reported against this civic jurisdiction over the brokers as productive of no public benefit; in 1854 a Bill to remove it was passed by the Commons, and thrown out by the Lords because it was a private Bill, and because it provided no compensation for the fees; and in 1865 another Bill miscarried, owing to a dispute in Committee. One thousand out of the 1,300 City brokers had signed a Petition, objecting to the jurisdiction; and there was no reason why the brokers should be subject to it any more than other traders, or any more than the brokers of Liverpool, Manchester, and other towns—or, indeed, the brokers of London whose places of business were outside the City boundaries. If it was said they were trustees, he and his hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. T. Baring) were large trustees, yet they were exempt; and if they went to the other side of the water they would find the hop-factors in the Borough free from this jurisdiction, though it would be hard to distinguish their business from that of brokers. The Court of Al- 737 dermen was an unsatisfactory tribunal, there being no regular form of procedure, and no power existing to call witnesses or award costs. It was doubtful whether they had power to administer an oath, and statements were sometimes accepted and allowed to go forth to the public for which there was no foundation. At other times the proceedings were adjourned, and the question settled—a course which, according to the testimony of Alderman Finnis, was analogous to compounding a felony. If there was any tribunal at all it should be one of quite a different character, to which the whole trading community would be amenable. There were several instances in which, solely for the purpose of injuring a firm or forcing them to compound, petitions containing libellous assertions were presented, the refutation of which involved serious loss in the shape of costs to the persons accused, who had no legal remedy. Those who advocated a more enlightened system had several Aldermen on their side, amongst whom were the hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. Alderman Lusk), Mr. Alderman Finnis, and others. The true protection to a trader was the law of the land and his own good sense, which should lead him only to confide in trustworthy persons; he had no need to be nursed by the Court of Aldermen. The present system was actually dangerous, because the jurisdiction gave a man an appearance of trustworthiness which was not real. A memorial had been signed by 100 of the leading firms of the City, headed by Baring Brothers & Co., which declared that the regulations affecting sworn brokers were no security of their fitness, and did not in any way increase the confidence which led to the employment of brokers in large transactions. As to widows and orphans, the City, by its name, gave a sanction to brokers whom the Stock Exchange would not have. The Stock Exchange was a voluntary association, with machinery for looking after those under its jurisdiction; but the Court of Aldermen had no such machinery. It was derogatory to men in the high position of a large number of brokers to be treated as if they were an exceptionally dangerous class; and the City of London would do wisely to accept the offer they made, which would not meddle with the funds, and would only relieve the Court of Al- 738 dermen from a bad inheritance. Before 1865 the Court tried to regulate the trade of these people, but they had found that a failure, and had given it up; and now the bond was given virtually for good behaviour generally. The arguments used in favour of the continuance of this jurisdiction were futile, for the law of the land already made it an offence for a trustee to sell to himself, while the two sureties of £250 each would, if inquired into, be found to be shadowy in the extreme; and, even if they were not, what did the securities amount to? There were about 1,300 brokers, which would give a sum of £650,000. But the transactions of the Stock Exchange in a year could not be less than £500,000,000, while the transactions of the produce brokers he believed exceeded £120,000,000. With the thousands of pounds passing through a broker's hands in the course of 12 months, what was the security afforded by £500? It was absolutely ridiculous. Sir Sydney Waterlow had supplied a list of cases since 1835 in which sureties were brought before the Court; and, out of 25 cases, five were withdrawn, 12 dismissed, in six proceedings were directed to be taken, and in only two instances was money recovered from the sureties. In conclusion, this jurisdiction should be done away with because it did not protect the public, and because the Courts of Law afforded redress to all persons having cause of complaint. If they were not as rapid as was desirable let that be changed. It was said that petitions were sometimes signed by bankers and merchants without adequate consideration being given to their contents; but this certainly was not the case with regard to the Petition presented in support of this Bill. Its prayer was a reasonable one, and the more the system was investigated against which its prayer was directed the more this would be found to be a relic of a barbarous age, and unworthy of the times in which we lived. The hon. Member concluded by moving that the Bill be now read a second time.

§ MR. T. BARING
, in seconding the Motion, said, the real question for the House to consider was, whether any good or valid reason existed for maintaining a restriction imposed only upon one class of traders. He should hesitate very much to support any measure which would 739 diminish, the revenue of the Corporation of London without granting compensation, but the Bill would not take a single penny from the income of the Corporation. He was willing to admit that the judicial duties devolving upon that body in regard to brokers had been discharged not alone creditably, but equitably, and in the main judiciously. Those duties, meanwhile, were such that the Corporation themselves ought to be glad to get rid of them; and though they might not originate such a proposal, they might very graciously accede to it as proceeding from the House. Why should this jurisdiction, if it had any real value, be confined to the class of brokers, and why did it apply to the City of London alone? Were the brokers, as a class, so dishonest that they and they only need be subjected to this special control? If not, why was this stigma imposed upon them? He challenged the supporters of the present system to state who were the persons and the interests that favoured its continuance. The system might have been well suited to a time when the trade of the City of London was carried on by companies and guilds; but in the present day all traders ought to come under the common law of the land. There was a general feeling in the City that this was an interference with the trade of London which ought not to be continued, and its removal without injuring the Corporation in any way would benefit a respectable body of men who had long expected this measure of justice at the hands of the Legislature.

§ MR. GOLDNEY
said, he wished to ask, as a matter of regularity, whether the measure was one that ought to be proceeded with as a public or as a private Bill. Reference was made in its provisions to a public Act of Queen Anne's reign, and also to a local and personal Act, by which, he believed, the existing legislation was controlled. In 1864 a Bill very similar in character to the present was introduced as a general measure, but the matter dropped, and there was no record of the proceedings. In the same year, however, a private Bill, having identically the same objects as the present Bill, was introduced, read a second time, and referred to a Select 740 Committee, but was defeated, as the report of that Committee was against it.

§ SIR DAVID SALOMONS
said, the reason was because the former Bill also dealt with the money part of the question.

§ MR. W. FOWLER
explained that the opinion of the Examiner had been taken on the point, and that he held this Bill to be properly a public Bill. In 1864 it had been brought forward as a private Bill, and had then been withdrawn because it was considered that it ought to be a public measure.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER
I understand that the matter has been before the Examiner, who has pronounced that there are no Standing Orders applicable to the point which is now raised.