§ MR. HOWARD VINCENT (Sheffield, Central)asked the President of the Board of Trade, If his attention has been directed to the statistics of bankruptcies, recently published by Mr. Richard Seyd, whereby it appears that during the past six months there have been 4,628 business failures in the United Kingdom against 2,913 in the corresponding period of last year, or an increase of 228 failures in wholesale and manufacturing trades, and of 1,387 among farmers, builders, retail traders, &c.; and, if the information in the possession of the Board of Trade corroborates this statement of the condition of the home trade?
§ THE PRESIDENT (Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH) (Bristol, W.)The statement of statistics referred to purports to include all the failures registered under the Bankruptcy Acts and Deeds of Arrangement Acts in the United Kingdom, while the Official Statistics of the Board of Trade relate only to failures coming under the Bankruptcy Act in England and Wales. Mr. Seyd's statement of failures for the first six months of the present year includes 1,606 deeds of arrangement, outside of the Bankruptcy Act, registered under the Deeds of Arrangement Act passed last Session; while his statistics for 1887 contain no information with regard to such deeds of arrangement, such information not being then obtainable. The actual number of failures in England and Wales under the Bankruptcy Act gazetted during the first half of the present year is 2,495, while the number for the corresponding period in 1887 was 2,411.