LORD BROUGHAMsaid, he was about to present a Bill to which he begged the attention of their Lordships. They were aware that last Session there was a Bill of his before them on the same subject, in which some progress was made, but which was postponed in order that its important provisions might be fully considered during the interval between that and the present Session, and especially by those persons who were occupied in the administration of the law of bankruptcy and insolvency in various parts of the country. By the County Courts system—improved as it would be, should the Bill pass which their Lordships had sent down to the other House of Parliament, and still further improved as it was sure to be afterwards by new legislative enactments resulting from greater expe- 54 rience of its working—by this system of local jurisdiction inestimable benefits had been secured by bringing causes of small, he should rather say of moderate, amount within the means of suitors, without the expense and delay of having recourse to the superior courts. But this improvement applied only to cases of claims on solvent parties, or assumed to be solvent at the time of being sued. Where questions arose on an insolvent estate, in the cases of insolvent traders, there continued to be at this moment the same denial of justice as there had been in all others prior to the establishment of courts of local judicature. That was the necessary result of our having extended bankruptcy jurisdiction from the metropolis, where it had succeeded so well, to various parts of the country, by a measure introduced by his noble and learned Friend (Lord Lyndhurst), and passed in the year 1842, which undoubtedly had conferred advantages upon all creditors of insolvent traders. It happened, however, that that measure was extended to the country before the establishment of local courts. It was originally intended in his (Lord Brougham's) Bill of 1833, which never passed into law, that the local courts should have taken bankruptcy and insolvency, as well as ordinary debts; but as the Bill of 1842 for extending the new bankrupt system of 1832 to the country, was introduced some years before local courts were in existence, it was absolutely necessary to appoint local commissioners in bankruptcy in the different provinces. But the consequence was, that when in 1846 County Courts were established, there came to be two systems working at the same time, and both by local courts—the Bankruptcy Courts and the County Courts; and it was to see how far it was possible to amalgamate these two systems, that he introduced the Bill last Session to which he had referred. The difficulties he had never concealed—he was quite sensible of those difficulties—but he did not despair until the attempt had been tried and failed. One of the evils which had been pointed out by Lord Cottenham and others, was the great distance creditors had to travel to make proof of debts. Even in the London district the disadvantage was felt, and his proposed plan was then, and now by the Bill he was about to introduce, to greatly narrow that district. The grievance was yet greater in the provinces, where the distance was often a hundred miles from the creditor's residence to the court. The 55 effect had been to render it impossible for small creditors to prove. In one case there was an estate amounting to 700l. to be divided; only two creditors under 10l. proved, and instead of paying 2s. 6d. or 3s. to the whole body of creditors, it went to pay 20s. in the pound to the petitioning creditor and to the two others. There was another case in the county of Leicester. The distance from the place where the general body of the creditors resided, to the court, was 112 miles; there were eighteen creditors; not one proved, and the whole estate was distributed, if it could be called distribution, by paying the petitioning creditor. Thus to the small creditor there was still the same denial of justice in bankruptcy which there had been to all small creditors before the system of local judicature. The Bill which he had now to ask their Lordships to give a first reading, was intended to effect a consolidation of the two systems, so as to give the County Court Judges, in the manner proposed by his Bill of 1833, and approved by the Commissioners in 1841, for certain purposes, jurisdiction in bankruptcy and insolvency, that, going round the district from place to place, they might so work the different fiats near the residences of the different creditors. He refrained from entering further upon the subject, as it would no doubt be fully considered when the Bill reached another stage. The noble Lord then presented a Bill to limit the Jurisdiction of Her Majesty's Court of Bankruptcy, to abolish the Courts of Bankruptcy for the Country Districts, and to give to the Judges of the County Courts Jurisdiction in Matters of Arrangement and of Bankruptcy in certain Cases.
§ Bill read 1a.