THIRD READING. (Hansard, 29 July 1869)

§ LORD ROMILLY

said, that before the Bill was read the third time he desired to point out that, as the Bill now stood, a person who drew a bill payable at any future day and who thereupon sold all his property and absconded from the country before the Bill became due, could not henceforth be made bankrupt until after the bill had arrived at maturity, and after all the property had been abstracted. This was an entire change in the law as it now existed, and one which would give rise to great frauds. The Select Committee, however, having been divided on this point, he should not revive it. He believed it also to be a great mistake to make the amount of dividend the criterion of a bankrupt's honesty. The effect of it was to induce persons to obtain a large amount of goods on the eve of bankruptcy, which they knew they could not pay for, in order to raise the dividend to 10s. in the pound, and he feared this would give rise to frauds which the penal clauses would not sufficiently check. The valuation of the assets—if this principle were adopted— ought to be made at the time of the adjudication. This would be less objectionable, and the bankrupt ought not to be punished on account of difficulty or neglect in realizing those assets, being a matter over which he had no control.