The Bankruptcy Act.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 5013, 22 May 1889, Page 3

The Bankruptcy Act.

The Bankruptcy Act, says a contemporary, is to be patched again, according to a common report and our news from Wellington. No Act requires more delicate handling if the fundamental maxim of sound legislation is not to be disregarded. The maxim is that law and natural justice must not bo brought into conflict or law will fall into contempt. In bankruptcy cases the debtor is put, in the nature of things, on his trial, but occasionally the creditor should also be examined as to his dealings with the bankrupt, and show that he has taken no advantage, if the ends of pure justice are to be served. Offences arc declared criminal under the bankruptcy Act, such for example as not keeping books, which are only criminal when found out by the bankruptcy of the trader so offending. If he does trot become bankrupt he may go on without keeping books till the end of time, and there is no criminality in it. To punish a man for not keeping hooks when he enters into business is right enough, but to punish him by imprisonment as a criminal is a point on which the untrained and non-legal science of the common mass of mankind will raise an issue. His offence is not really in the act itself, but in circumstances causing him to be found out. Bankruptcy Acts are full of such weaknesses everywhere, and wo are not at all clear that the best amendment would not be to abolish the Act altogether. A man incurring debt would not then be able to clear himself till he had paid, and as imprisonment for debt is abolished no undue oppression could be practised by a creditor. Experience teaches also that creditors, as a rule, are generally considerate where no deception or unfairness has been practised upon them. The question is one of great delicacy, for no worse calamity can happen to a people than to bring law and their sense of natural justice into conflict. The law falls into contempt, as the history of legislation shows —in smuggling for example when the laws respecting it were evaded in in the old country by people of oil kinds, and the smuggler became a small hero. Wo trust that in any alteration of the Bankruptcy Act this great principle of legislation will be duly regarded. The injury done by its neglect is far-reaching and permanent.