Lords Sitting of 9 February 1865

MINUTES.
Took the Oath—The Bishop of Kilmore, amp;c.
COURT OF BANKRUPTCY.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR, having laid on the table (pursuant to Act) a "General Return from the Chief Registrar of the Court of Bankruptcy for the year ending the 11th October last," said, he did not desire to provoke a discussion upon the subject of the Law of Bankruptcy or the procedure of the Bankruptcy Court at this time, because it must be fully considered when the Committee of the House of Commons had made its Report; but he would beg their Lordships' attention to a few results as exhibited in this Return, in order that, during the interval that would elapse before that Report was presented, their Lordships might have the opportunity of considering what was necessary and proper to be done in the matter. There took place during the last year 7,224 adjudications in bankruptcy. Of these, 5,260 were made on the petition of the debtor himself; 1,360 were made on the petition of debtors in prison; and only 604 on the application of the creditor. The number of cases in which dividends had been made was 1,586. The property collected and realized was only £677,536. Of that, only £533,664 were divided among the creditors; the difference, £143,872, was absorbed in the costs of collecting and dividing the £677,536. But that was not
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  all; for to this £143,872 must be added £140,000 for the expenses of the tribunal, making a total of £283,872, expended for the purpose of dividing £533,664. He appealed to their Lordships whether this monstrous state of things should continue. There were two main features in the Bill of 1861; one of them was the establishment of trust deeds, and that had quite answered his anticipations, for during the past year the property divided under trust deeds had amounted to £3,802,000. The trust deed was a voluntary arrangement made with the creditors; and if they contrasted the amount divided under trust deeds with that divided through the instrumentality of the Court the disparity would be evident—it would be found that more than six times the amount was distributed under trust deeds than was distributed by the Court. The other object of the Bill of 1861 was the establishment of a Chief Judge, with a view to the most careful regulation and supervision of the existing subordinate tribunals. Their Lordships would judge for themselves, from this further Return, of the necessity for such a Chief Judge. It was the duty of the official assignees, who were now paid by salary, to collect and return to the Court of Bankruptcy the fees which they still received in bankruptcy. In the year 1862, the first year after the new Act came into operation, he was very much surprised to find that only £1,390 was returned. In 1863, in consequence of some inquiries which he (the Lord Chancellor) directed, the sum returned by the official assignees and messengers was £13,620; but in the year 1864, having directed a more searching inquiry, the sum that had been paid in by the assignees and messengers amounted to no less than £45,158. Of the necessity of the investigation their Lordships would judge when he stated that, with regard to one official assignee, now retired, who had become a defaulter to the amount of several thou-sands of pounds, he had ascertained that his account, which it was the duty of the Commissioner to audit, had been audited for years by the Usher of the Court under the direction of the Commissioner. This was a very hopeless picture of the state of the Bankruptcy Court; and when the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons was made, he trusted that he should be able to present to their Lordships a Bill that would provide some remedy for this monstrous state of things.

LIABILITIES OF SHAREHOLDERS IN IRISH RAILWAYS.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  THE EARL OF BELMOREcalled attention to a recent judgment in the Court of Chancery Appeal in Ireland, respecting the liability of shareholders in railways. He said it would not be necessary to mention the particulars of the case which was the subject of this judgment. The point to which he wished to direct attention was one which affected every railway company in Ireland. A local company, whose line it appeared had always been worked by a neighbouring company, having got into difficulties, was brought by the creditors last year into the Bankruptcy Court. Now, in England there was no question that a railway company could not be made bankrupt; and in the Report of a Select Committee, which sat last year, and of which his noble Friend below him (the Earl of Donoughmore) was Chairman, a recommendation was inserted that the law should be so altered as to allow the affairs of a railway company to be wound up in bankruptcy. The case having been heard in the Bankruptcy Court, the company was adjudicated bankrupt, and from this decision an appeal was brought into the Court of Appeal in Chancery. The Lord Chancellor of Ireland, in delivering judgment, confirming the decision of the Court below, said that Judge Berwick had held that a railway company was a commercial company for trading purposes under 20 amp; 21 Vict. c. 60, sees. 4 and 156, and he (the Lord Chancellor) continued—
  "They were public carriers, and by the 99th section of the Bankrupt Act, carriers by name were expressly made subject to the bankrupt laws. It had been argued that no calls could be made beyond the amount of shares, &c."
  After some further observations, he went on to say—
  "As to making calls beyond the specified amount of the shares, that question was not before the court; and if the Bankrupt Court decided that those who paid their shares in full should still be made contributors, and it came back to them on appeal, they would give the best decision they could on the subject. But it appeared to him as if legislation on that point inferred that no shareholder in a railway should be liable for a single shilling above the amount of his unpaid calls. However, the case was not before them, and it was not necessary he should give an opinion."
  Now it seemed to him (the Earl of Belmore) that this mere "inference of
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  legislation" was very unsatisfactory to shareholders, and there should be no doubt on the subject. Many landowners and others had taken shares on the implied understanding with Parliament that they were not to be liable beyond the amount of those shares, and they were willing to risk the almost certainty of receiving no dividends for many years for the sake of improving the country, and it seemed very hard that they should suffer by a lapsus in legislation. Besides, this uncertainty tended to reduce the value of railway property; for, as was remarked to him by the person who brought this case to his notice, "how will you ever get another railway made, or get any person to take shares?" Shareholders were a very helpless body, and he had therefore thought it to be his duty to call attention to this matter in as few words as possible, and without saying anything that could effect one way or the other the particular case to which he had alluded.

DESTITUTE POOR (METROPOLIS).

  RETHELS MOVED FOR.
  LORD HOUGHTON, in rising to move for—
  "Return of the Number of Unions or Parishes that have availed themselves of the Act of 29th July, 186i, enabling them to receive from the Metropolitan Board of Works the Sums of Money expended in the Relief of the casual Poor; of the Amount of Money hitherto so expended; and of the Unions where the Guardians have provided new Wards or other Places of Reception for this Class of Poor since the passing of the above mentioned Act"—
  said, his object in moving for this Return was to obtain information as to the operation of an Act which had been passed at the end of last Session, called the Poor Relief (Metropolis) Act. That Act had been passed with the most benevolent intentions. Its object was to enable the London parishes to provide fuller accommodation for the large mass of destitute persons to be found in this populous city. That Act gave to the London parishes new and considerable advantages. It enabled them to make the police act as relieving officers, so as, in some degree, to distinguish the really destitute from the fraudulent vagrants; and it also gave the parishes power to reimburse themselves for money spent under that Act by the action of the Metropolitan Board of Works, the effect of which action would be that the burden of providing for the destitute poor would not fall wholly upon individual parishes, but

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  would be distributed over the whole metropolis. By that provision parishes had been encouraged to make liberal provision for the relief of the houseless poor. The present winter had certainly not been a very severe one, and, therefore, there was no reason to suppose that there were more destitute persons than in other winters; but their Lordships must be aware that there never had been a winter in which the destitution of the poor of London had been made so large a subject of comment and inquiry. Most of their Lordships must have received repeated communications, not only from public personages, but also from ladies of high station, who had devoted themselves to the object of establishing night refuges for the houseless poor. A large number of refuges had been established, and, as the columns of The Times had shown, an immense sum of money had been subscribed. Therefore, there was this curious fact—that there had been larger demands than usual upon public charity at the very time when Parliament had just passed an Act, the effect of which should have been to have provided for the wants of the destitute poor without the necessity of any appeal to private benevolence. There could be no doubt that the relief of the really destitute poor could be best administered through the legal means of the Poor Law, and for this reason—that if the destitute poor were once encouraged to depend upon private charity a great deal would be done towards preventing those persons from aspiring to the position of the labouring men, and from seeking an honest living for themselves. He hoped that the Returns he moved for would show what had been done under the Act of last Session. He was informed that it would be shown that the Act had been largely applied; that many wards had been provided for the reception of the houseless poor, but that the effect of the refuges established by private charity had been to prevent the destitute poor from availing themselves of the parochial wards. If such a state of things was allowed to continue, the effect would be to draw to the metropolis a large portion of the vagrant population of the entire country. Those persons would know that in hard times they could always obtain food and shelter in the refuges of London, and thus the effect of charitable efforts would be to increase to a large extent the pauperism of the land. He could not, of course, state what the Returns would absolutely prove,
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  but he was quite sure that the subject was one of great importance and well deserving the attention of the Poor Law Board.
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, the subject was no doubt highly important, but it was not a matter to be easily disposed of, although it would certainly receive due attention. There was no objection to the production of the Returns.
  THE EARL OF LONGFORDremarked, that the metropolitan railway improvements, for which Bills would come before Parliament in the present year, would drive from 12,000 to 14,000 people out of their dwellings.

  PRIVATE BILLS.
  Ordered, That this House will not receive any Petition for a Private Bill after Thursday the 23rd Day of March next, unless such Private Bill shall have been approved by the Court of Chancery; nor any Petition for a Private Bill approved by the Court of Chancery after Friday the 12th Day of May next:
  Ordered, That this House will not receive any Report from the Judges, upon Petitions presented to this House for Private Bills, after Friday the 12th Day of May next:
  Ordered, That the said Orders be printed and published, and affixed on the Doors of this House and Westminster Hall (No. 2).
  House adjourned at half past Five o'clock, till To-morrow, half past Ten o'clock.