§ MR. HOWELL (Bethnal Green, N.E.)asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether all depositors in the Cardiff Trustee Savings Bank, not sending in a formal claim to the official liquidator by the 20th of this month, will be excluded from sharing any sums recovered on their behalf from the Trustees and Managers; whether the only communication from the liquidator to the depositors is in the form of an occasional advertisement inserted in the local newspapers; and, whether, considering the lapse of time since the failure, that all the depositors' pass books are in the liquidator's possession, that many of the depositors are illiterate, and that many reside considerable distances from Cardiff, the Government will take steps to ensure that the liquidator shall either take the pass books as a sufficient proof of claim of the amount still due, or that he shall forward to each depositor a circular form of claim for his signature, and its return to the liquidator by the prescribed date?
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN) (St. George's, Hanover Square)The hon. Member is under a wrong impression in supposing that the Executive Government has any power to direct the liquidator as to the course he ought to take at any particular stage of the liquidation. The liquidation is conducted under the direction of the High Court, and it is from the Court that the liquidator must take his instructions. On inquiry, however, I learn that, finding that in response to the usual ad- 1374 vertisements the claims of only a small proportion of the depositors had been sent in, the liquidator had decided to apply to the Court for directions to send a Circular to each depositor who had not sent in a claim, together with a form of claim to be filled up and returned.