THE EARL OF AIRLIEasked, Whether Her Majesty's Government intend to propose any measure for the amendment of the law in respect of the admission to bail of persons who may be committed for trial on charges of fraud? He thought there was some occasion to 1597 consider this subject, as within the last few years frauds on a great scale had been brought under the notice of a Committee of the other House of Parliament, which was appointed to inquire into the subject of foreign loans. The Question which stood in his name did not refer to steps that should be taken to prevent frauds, but only to the mode of dealing with persons accused of fraudulent practices. In the great majority of cases the law with regard to bail worked satisfactorily; but in cases of persons charged with great commercial frauds there was this anomaly—that if the person who was charged with the offence was really guilty, the greater the scale on which operations were conducted, the easier it was for him to escape trial. If a poison had succeeded in fraudulently transferring hundreds of thousands of pounds from other people's pockets into his own, it was a matter of very little moment to him that he should forfeit a few thousands by way of bail. A case occurred some two years since which excited a great deal of attention—that of Alexander Collie, who failed for some millions of money. He was arrested on a charge of fraud, and was admitted to bail. He, however, disappeared, and has never been heard of since. It would not be right to say that Alexander Collie was a fraudulent bankrupt, for, as he was never tried, he was never convicted; but his escape from trial involved a very serious miscarriage of justice. But if the law in England was unsatisfactory, in Scotland it was a great deal worse. There, everyone who was committed for trial, except for a capital offence, might demand to be admitted to bail on giving security to the amount of £300. As an illustration, he would allude to the trial of the City of Glasgow Bank directors. The bank failed about the beginning of October. The Crown acted with great promptitude. The directors were arrested immediately, and they were tried and convicted during the last month. He desired to guard himself against being supposed to criticize the conduct of anyone engaged in conducting that trial. He wished only to point out what appeared to him to be an unsatisfactory state of the law. The indictment against the directors was a very long one; but the only charge which made it possible to refuse bail to the directors was the 1598 charge of theft. They claimed, except Mr. Inglis, to be liberated on bail; but the Crown refused. The case was brought before the Court of Session, which held that the offence with which the directors were charged was an offence within the meaning of the statute for which bail might be refused. The Court was not unanimous. Lord Young, a very eminent authority, dissented on the ground that the offence with which the directors were charged could not be looked upon as theft, the offence charged being that bills intrusted to them for collection were discounted by them before they arrived at maturity. The directors were kept in prison for about throe months till the trial came on. The Lord Advocate opened the case; witnesses were examined for the prosecution, and, on the second or third day, no witness having been called to speak to the charge of theft, the Lord Advocate said he withdrew the charge, as it was one he should have great difficulty in establishing. Great use—and he thought very legitimately—was made of that by the counsel for the defence. Suppose the directors had been innocent, and had been acquitted of the other charges, they would have had great reason to complain that they had been imprisoned on a charge of which they were not only innocent, but which had never been pressed against them. Although they were convicted of a most grave offence, still it was not a satisfactory state of things that in order to make sure of having men put on trial for a crime, however serious it might be, it should be necessary to commit them on a charge which no attempt was made to sustain. On the other hand, it could not be right that men charged with such frauds as those of which the Glasgow Bank directors had been convicted should be entitled to bail in finding security for the extremely small sum of £300 each.
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, the Question of the noble Earl as it now appeared upon the Paper had assumed a different shape to that which it presented when he gave Notice of it. The Question brought to his notice a few days ago was, Whether Her Majesty's Government intend to propose any measure for the amendment of the Criminal Law in respect of persons who may be charged with or convicted of fraudulent 1599 offences? —and in answer to that Question he was prepared to say that a general measure had been introduced proposing the codification of the Criminal Law, making considerable changes in the distinctions which had hitherto prevailed between felonies and misdemeanours. That measure would, he hoped, in process of time, come before their Lordships, and any question which the noble Earl might wish to raise on it could be raised then. But since he came into the House, he found that the Question had been changed. The noble Earl called attention to the subject of the recent criminal trials in the Courts of Scotland, and now asked the Question in its present form. It would appear from the noble Earl's speech that his Question had reference to that recent criminal trial in the Courts of Scotland, and he (the Lord Chancellor) was not prepared to answer that Question as it was then put. He was not acquainted with the particulars of the case to which the noble Earl referred, except from general information; but he would make inquiry as to whether the law of Scotland with regard to bail was unsatisfactory in its working. He must, however, take leave to say one thing. He could not admit the suggestion of the noble Earl that the Lord Advocate of Scotland introduced into the indictment a charge of theft against the persons arrested, in order that they might be unable to obtain bail. He felt perfectly convinced that when that charge was introduced the Law Officers considered that they had evidence, or would have evidence, to substantiate that charge. It was introduced for that purpose, and in no wise with the view of debarring from the right of having bail. He did not know whether the noble Earl considered that any undue measure of justice had been meted out to them—he could only say that the general impression seemed to be that it was not so.
THE EARL OF AIRLIEsaid, the noble and learned Earl had misunderstood what he said. He said that he did not wish to criticize the conduct of anyone who was engaged in the conduct of that trial, and that, no doubt, when the Lord Advocate put that charge in the indictment, he believed that there was a reasonable probability of his being able to prove it; but he said, notwithstanding that, but for the circumstance of the in- 1600 clusion of the charge of theft in the indictment, the accused men would not have been committed to prison.