BANKRUPTCY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIX, Issue 6695, 2 October 1882, Page 3

BANKRUPTCY.

Mr Samuel Morley, M.P., in a letter to the “Daily News,” states : 1. Trustees must be compelled to give security. 2. The Court must have power to reject unfit persons appointed to act as trustees. J. Trustees must be prevented employing solicitors to do work they ought to do themselves. 4. The accounts of all trustees should be placed under the supervision of the Comptroller, and all their charges should be taxed. 5. The valuation of securities in the hands of partly-secured creditors should be placed upon a more equitable basis. 6, The use of proxies should be restrained, and only available for the meeting named in the proxy paper. 7. And trustees should be made to account for the unclaimed dividends and undistributed assets in their possession. I am informed that, with such a Bill as I have described and the rules amended as above suggested, at least nine-tenths of the existing abuses would be at once removed. It appears to have been understood, when the present Bankruptcy Act was being discussed in the House of Lords, that defects found in the working of the measure could be rectified by general rules. Lord Caima said : “ I agree with my noble and learned friend that it is a pleasant thing to hear of a Bankruptcy Bill of only 180 clauses. But wa should deceive ourselves if we judged the measure merely by the number of its clauses. This is, no doubt, shorter than other Bankruptcy Bills ; but the reason of that is, that it is not a Bankruptcy Bill in the sense of containing within itself the. law of bankruptcy. It is rather one to empower the Lord Chancellor and the Chief Judge to make a Bankruptcy Bill,” and Lord Romilly said : “I rise merely to express my general concurrence in what has fallen from the noble and learned Lord on the woolsack, and the noble and learned Lord opposite. I may, howc er, point out that the orders to be issued by the Lord Chancellor under this Bill, if not found to work satisfactorily, can be varied with greater facility than the provisions of an Act of Parliament could be.”