The Feilding Star. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1890 A Bankruptcy Judge

Feilding Star, Volume XI, Issue 100, 15 February 1890, Page 2

The Feilding Star. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1890 A Bankruptcy Judge

Ix the Wellington Press of Wednesday an excellent suggestion ia made, which, if carried into effect, would exercise a powerful influence over the trading community of the colony. It is contained in the following extract : " If the Chambers of Commerce are in earnest in their desire for an effectual administration of the law against fraudulent traders, let them petition the Government to take the jurisdiction in bankrupty out of the hands of Judges Peendergast and Richmond and the other Supreme Court Judges. Let them ask to have Judge Ward appointed Chief Judge in Bankruptcy for the colony, with a handsome salary sufficient to place him above all malicious suggestions based on the possession of inadequate means, and let him set to work with the Act of 1883 and see whether he cannot satisfy all the ardent aspirations of the commercial world for such an administration of the law as shall restore a healthy pulse to the system, and strike terror into merchants and traders with a taste for magnificent fraud. The present Minister of Justice would confer a signal benefit on the colony if he would boldly take the bull by the horns and make this first essential reform in the administration of Bankruptcy Law." On the face of it, this idea is so good, and is founded on such an evident subtratum of souud common sense, that we doubt not it will be adopted by the members of the several Chambers of Commerce in the colony, and receive the cordial approbation of every really conscientious business man in New Zealand. It is patent that with only one Judge hearing and deciding cases, both verdicts and punishments would have a uniformity in all parts of the colony which does not obtain at the present time, aud which, as the commercial community know to their coat, has led to endless confusion.