BANKRUPTCY BILL.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, Issue 207, 16 August 1927, Page 8

BANKRUPTCY BILL.

PROPOSED AMENDMENTS CRITICISED HASTINGS CHAMBER OF COMMERCE ACTION. At last night’s meeting of the Hastings Chamber of Commerce the Parliamentary Bills Committee reported that no action be taken with regard to all the bills submitted, except the Bankruptcy Amendment Bill. With regard to that bill, it was suggested that the secretary of the chamber should confer with Mr. E. J. W. Hallett as to the objections to the bill and as to the action to oe taken by the ehamoer.

Mr. E. J. W. Hallett, in criticising the proposed amendments, said, intei alia, that it was provided that the proceedings at a public examination of a Jpankrupt lie not published, except by the permission of the court. That would, he contended, defeat one of the principal objects of a public examination. The Napier Chamber of Commerce had suggested circularising other chambers, with the object of having chambers of com merce represented at every bank ruptcv meeting. The average bankruptcy meeting was more or less of a farce. No one turned up, or else a quorum of the bankrupt’s friends passed a resolution r.sking for his discharge, and in a couple of months the bankrupt might be whitewashed. A creditor could send a representative to a meeting but he (the representative) could not vote unless the creditor lived a distance of at least ten miles away. The whole ouestion of proxies should be gone into. The Wellington Chamber had suggested that the creditors should be empowered to applv for the appointment of private trustees in bankruptcy m order to facilitate the realisation of an estate. The Official Assignee was generally a retired business man but it wa s suggested that he should be a Government paid official with a fixed salary, or else power should be given to the creditors to appoint a private trustee. It was not suggested that the meeting should be private, hut that the creditors should appoint » trustee or leave the matter in the hands of the Assignee. In the case of debtors who had left the country, the creditors, having lost enough already, did not feel disposed to put

their hands in their pockets and pay out to bring him back only to do a “stretch”, in prison, SPECIAL MEETING NEXT WEEK. The consideration of the amendments was a big question, said Mr. Hallett, which required close investigation and he moved that a special meeting be called tor next Tuesday evening, 23rd inst., to consider the Act, and that the result be forwarded to the Bills Committee. The motion was carried.