§ MR. PAUL (Edinburgh, S.)I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether, although Section 13 of "The Judicial Factors (Scotland) Act, 1889"(52 and 53 Vic, c. 39), provides that the official extract of the Scottish Court appointing a judicial factor shall have throughout the British Dominions, as well out of Scotland as in Scotland, full force and effect, the Bank of England declines to recognise the official extracts of the appointments of judicial factors in Scotland as sufficient warrant to pay over, assign, or transfer Bank of England Stock, Consols, and the subscribed Stocks of Colonial Governments for which it acts as agent, standing in the books of the Bank of England, from the name of the ward to that of any purchaser; whether the Bank declines to allow judicial factors to uplift the revenue from such funds without an order from an English Court; whether English Railway Companies enjoying statutory privileges similarly refuse to recognise the Act of 1889; and what steps he contemplates taking to enforce the statutory provision referred to?
§ *THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR, Clackmannan, &c.)it is the fact that the Bank of England and 456 the London and North Western Railway Company decline to give effect to Section 13 of the Judicial Factors Act, 1889, as stated in the question, founding, in the case where the funds belong to minors, upon the 22nd section of the National Debt Act of 1870, and where they belong to lunatics, upon the 131st section of the English Lunacy Act of 1890. I consider that the position thus taken up is not well-founded in law, and I may mention that the Great Western Railway Company, and I believe other Companies, have transferred and paid upon production of the official extract. The only mode in which apparently the matter could be brought to a point would be by some judicial factor obtaining a Judgment from a Court of Law; but the holders of such an office, frequently administering small estates, are naturally averse to adopting such a costly proceeding.
§ MR. PAULDo I understand that neither the Bank of England nor the English railways have any judgment in an English Court of Law on which they can rely?
§ MR. J. B. BALFOURI have never heard of any such Judgment.