§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (The Earl of DALHOUSIE), in moving that the Bill be read the second time, said, it was intended to remedy certain manifest defects in the working of the Companies Acts in Scotland. Several cases of great injustice had occurred. Speaking generally, the Bill would assimilate the Law 1272 of Liquidation in the Companies Act with the Scottish Bankruptcy Law. In England a similar uniformity was brought about at the passing of the Judicature Act in 1875, and this Bill was intended to do for Scotland what that Act had done for England. The measure had been considered by the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh and by the highest legal authorities in Scotland, including the Solicitors of the Supreme Court. By all those eminent authorities it had been approved most heartily and unanimously.
§ Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Earl of Dalhousie.)
§ LORD WATSONsaid, the Bill was urgently required; and he asked the noble Earl to set it down for Committee on an early day, as the few Amendments which he had to propose were already prepared.
§ Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Thursday next.