Upon the whole, he (Sir Henry Holland) doubted whether this point could be usefully pressed by the Colonists. Then as to the Executive Council. If the hon. Member for Glasgow wished to see elected Members on that Council, he (Sir Henry Holland) could not agree in that view. The proper constitution of Executive Councils had often been considered by the Colonial Office; but it might be taken as finally decided that, except, perhaps, in some very special case, an Executive Council should be entirely composed of officials with whom the Governor could advise confidentially. Whether the best officials were on the Executive Council at Malta, which seemed to be doubted by the hon. Member for Glasgow, he (Sir Henry Holland) did not presume to say, as he was not acquainted with the facts. But, in truth, at the bottom of the whole subject lay the great question whether the franchise should be enlarged, even at the risk of some uneducated persons becoming voters. Upon this point he concurred substantially in the view of the hon. Member for Glasgow. The elected Members had, beyond doubt, set themselves against proposed improvements; and it did seem desirable that Members should be chosen under an enlarged franchise, who were more alive to the wants of the poorer classes, and more ready to assist in social reforms. But as it appeared, from what the Under Secretary of State said, that the Government had set to work to effect this reform, and were prepared to press it on, he must again express his hope that the hon. Member would not trouble the House to go to a division.

SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFF remarked, that the difficulties of the Governorship had been increased by the fact that latterly an unfortunate choice had been made of a Civil Governor, he being either a military man, between whom and the Military Governor jealousies arose, or a civilian of extreme views. It would be impracticable to make the faculty of speaking Italian a qualification for electoral rights. The language of Malta was not Italian, but a dialect of Arabic, and not more than one man in five knew Italian.

Question put, and agreed to.

Main Question again proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

THE BANKRUPTCY ACT, 1869.

OBSERVATIONS.

MR. GREGORY, who had given Notice that he would call attention to the Bankruptcy Act of 1869, and the Rules made under it; and to move

"That, in the opinion of this House, many of the complaints with respect to the present administration of the Law might be removed by alterations of such Rules,"

said, there were many grievances which the commercial community complained of with regard to the Act of 1869, which some simple alterations of the rules would easily obviate. The first of these complaints was that the trustee in bankruptcy was not bound to give security, as he ought to do, under the Act of 1869. Secondly, no proper provision was made for the costs and charges of the trustees. Thirdly, there was no rule with regard to the collection of the sums of moneys remaining in the hands of trustees. Fourthly, there was the abuse of proxies. Now, all these things would be easily removed if the Act of 1869 were carried out in the spirit; but, unfortunately, that had not been done. With respect to the security that would be taken from the trustee, that was a most important matter. Trustees could not always be relied upon; and, therefore, a provision of this kind was absolutely necessary. It was a fact that in all cases where a receiver under the Court of Chancery was appointed security was given as a matter of course. Indeed, the Act of 1869 provided that security should be taken from trustees in all cases; but it so happened that, by the rules made under that Act, the want of security on the part of the trustee did not invalidate his appointment, so that, although the Act expressly provided for security, the rules went in a contrary direction. The consequence was that the giving of security was utterly neglected. Trustee after trustee was appointed without any compliance with the provisions of the Act. Again, with respect to the costs and charges of the trustee, there was no control so far as he knew. The Act contemplated the taxation of all costs and charges; but, as a matter of fact, the rule provided for the taxation of all parties with the exception of the trustee. As regards the case of proxies, he considered that a very grave matter. At the present time a bankrupt

gathered the proxies, or they were able to dispose of it, and that the trustees gathered for him, so that the meeting should have the option of taking it up at was ruled by him, and the independent its value. If the trustees did not take it creditor was absolutely swamped at up, the creditor held the security and every stage of the proceedings. In this made what he could out of it, and was respect also the spirit of the Act was not, as in England, barred from proving defeated by the rule. Again, instead of until he had given up his security. proxies being confined to their proper That, in his opinion, was an equitable destination and applied for the purpose arrangement. He had no desire to deoriginally intended, the person from tain the House at any length, his object whom the proxy happened to be secured was to put those points before the Gofound that it applied to all the proceed-vernment, so that when they proposed ings under the bankruptcy, and that, to amend the Bankruptcy Act they should consequently, he was absolutely excluded proceed on the lines which he had just from any further part in the transac- indicated. In default of their being able tions, and was committed hand and foot to close, it was in the power of the Lord to the person to whom he gave the proxy. Chancellor to so alter the rules as to obThat also was done in accordance with viate a great deal of the injustice that the rule, and not in accordance with the now existed, which was sorely felt by the Act. With regard, again, to the assets, commercial classes. It was the rules the Act of 1869 provided for the collec- that caused the friction; and these, he tion of estates in the hands of trustees contended, should be altered. He trusted in bankruptcy; but, unfortunately, no that his suggestions would receive the rules had been made applicable to trustees favourable consideration of the Governunder liquidation. It was well said ment, and that a remedy would be found that all the rubbish went into bank- for the grievances to which he had the ruptcy, and all the profit into liquida- honour of calling the attention of the tion; and the consequence was that House. a large amount of property was now in the hands of trustees under liquidation which could not be recovered. The Act of 1869 provided that all estates not applied or distributed within five years should be vested in the Crown. That would be the case where the rules had been made as in the case of bankruptcy; but, unfortunately, no rules, as he had said, had been made applicable to liquidation, and consequently those sums were still outstanding, and had not been carried over to the Crown. He would not object to those sums going over to the Crown by the Act of 1869, because the Crown had power, which it would, no doubt, exercise, to distribute them upon application. What he complained of was that those estates had been outstanding for years and years in the hands of persons who were no more entitled to them than he was. By that means the creditors were defrauded of money to an enormous extent. There was another point he would like to refer to-namely, the mode of dealing with creditors holding security. What he would venture to ask was that the Scotch system, which was a much more equitable one than the English, should be adopted. That system provided that the creditor holding the security should be

Mr. Gregory

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (Sir FARRER HERSCHELL) said, he quite agreed with the hon. Member as to the abuses that existed under the present bankruptcy system. Those abuses had been forcibly exposed by the President of the Board of Trade last Session. He (the Solicitor General) assured the hon. Member that had the exigencies of Public Business not prevented it, the matter would have been dealt with during the present Session in a Bill which had been prepared. That Bill dealt with the whole of the abuses that had unexpectedly arisen in the administration of the Act of 1869. The theory of that Act was that the creditors would look after their own interests; but the vast majority of estates were administered under the Liquidation Clauses, and by professional men, and not by the creditors. In this respect the Act of 1869 had failed. He did not, however, think that the bulk of the existing abuses could be remedied by a mere alteration of the rules, as suggested. He thought something more was needed if the system was to be made satisfactory; but he quite admitted that if it were not possible to carry a Bankruptcy Act dealing with the whole question, it was worthy of consideration as to whether some of the

details to which attention had been there was a point also raised last year called might not be attended to, pending with regard to the custom of sending the passing of a comprehensive measure. formal telegrams on any change of He assured the hon. Gentleman that Government to all the officials conthe subject would receive the attention nected with the Foreign Office. Не which its importance demanded. again called attention to this subject, because the Under Secretary of State had undertaken that this custom should cease, and his object was to ascertain whether any steps had been taken to put caused great expense? Finally, he an end to these useless telegrams which asked whether any advance had been made in the direction of shortening the telegraphic messages ?-a subject which

CLASS II.-SALARIES AND EXPENSES OF it was also promised last year should

have to be exceeded. He repeated, that | agricultural interest. He had brought pressure was being put upon the De- this subject already under the notice of partments to keep the expenditure within the lowest possible limits.

were a body very difficult to move, he | With such a system of accounting it was would endeavour to have the Returns difficult to see what control the Departmade up so as to show distinctly the ments could have over their own expendiquantity of so-called butter imported, ture; while, as he had shown, any useand where it came from. Now, he would ful criticism of the charges when the like to know whether the Board of Cus- Estimates came forward, was rendered toms had refused to do this; if so, whe- impossible. He had succeeded in getther the Board of Trade had any autho- ting some improvements introduced into rity to require the Returns to be fur- the Scotch Estimates, and one was now nished in a form that would supply the able to obtain something like a clear desired information; and whether any idea of the expenditure that was going further steps would be taken by the on; but, with regard to the English Board of Trade to obtain it? Estimates, the matter remained as before in a state of obscurity. Under the circumstances, he ventured again to submit to the hon. Gentleman in charge of the Estimates that which he had urged year after year on the attention of the Government-namely, that the whole of the expenditure now dispersed over the Estimates should be brought together with full details, and under different heads, in one general statement-the only form of accounts that afforded the means of examining, comparing, and controlling expenditure.

MR. COURTNEY said, he regretted that the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade was not in his place to answer the questions of the hon. Member who had just addressed the Committee. He would, however, take note of the point of the hon. Member's remarks, which he understood to be simply that he desired to have it stated in the Returns what was the exact nature of the substances imported into the country under the heads of "Oil" and "Lard.”

MR. MOORE said, he would repeat his questions on Report. The right hon. Gentleman had said very truly that there was no desire to stop the importation of the articles in question, which, as he (Mr. Moore) believed, largely consisted of wholesome fat. The object he had in view was to ascertain exactly what it was and where it came from, so that some check might be placed on the sale of it as butter.

GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR said, it was noticeable that the law charges in this Department showed a considerable increase in amount over the Estimates of former years. He had on previous occasions drawn attention to the form in which this and other charges were presented in the Estimates, as affording no materials for criticism or means of exercising proper control over the various branches of Public Expenditure. The item of £18,300 under the head of Law Charges in the Legal Branch of the Department was an instance of this. To criticize that item as it stood on the Paper could have no practical or useful result whatever. There were no details, and, consequently, no opportunity of examination or comparison; in short, the information conveyed by the Estimate was nothing more than that a certain amount of money had been spent in law charges.

SIR HENRY HOLLAND regretted that the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade was not present to give the Committee some assurance that a better supervision would be exercised over the law charges incurred by the Department. There had been an increase of expenditure under this head in almost every case. This pointed to the necessity of exercising great care and attention at the time the law charges were being incurred, because, after that, there was no option but to pay the bills. The amount incurred by the Board of Trade for law expenses, which were, to a considerable extent, the result of carelessness on the part of officials, was very large; and, therefore, he would impress upon the Financial Secretary that the strictest supervision should be exercised over the expenses in connection with public inquiries at the time when that supervision could be of any use.

MR. COURTNEY said, he failed to see that the form of accounts advocated by the hon. and gallant Gentleman (General Sir George Balfour) would lead to the reduction of expenditure. As far as he was able to understand the proposal, it was that the charges for all the Departments should be collected under one head.

GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR said, that was not his point. He desired