THE The Inagahua Times PUBLISHED TRI-WEEKLY. FRIDAY, MAY 25, 1877.

Inangahua Times, Volume IV, Issue 20, 25 May 1877, Page 2

THE The Inagahua Times PUBLISHED TRI-WEEKLY. FRIDAY, MAY 25, 1877.

Bankhuftct, or that peculiar phase of it occasionally developed in certain portions of this Colony, must indeed be a knotty subject to deal with. Hardly a session hag gone by for years past, that legislative amendment of some form has not been necessitated, but so far as can be judged from the limited experience we have yet had of the working of tbe latest contribution to the statute book of the Colony, upon tbis subject, legislative perfection ia this direction would appear to be as far off attainment as eyer, and it is extremely questionable whether » reversion will not yet have to be made to the much maligned Act of 1875. By the Act of last session, the whole power of dealing with bankrupt debtors is cast into the hands of the creditors — the intervention of the Court only being provided for undefr certain circamßtancea Now it is wellknown that in- the majority of bankruptcies, potty bankruptce&at any rate, the declaration of insolvency is more frequently brought about by what may be termed tho vindictive pressure of some one particular creditor,, or par» ticular set of creditors— than from a ' general senso of overwhelming and inextricable difficulty on the part of the bankrupt himself, and by the recent law upon the subject, the vindictive creditors having first of all by perhaps unreasonable and unrelenting pressure hounded down their prey to the Act of bankruptcy, are invested with the power of calmly dissecting him. The position of a debtor under such circumstances may be imagined, for we all possibly know something of the extremes to which some men occasionally allow their antipathies to ca-ry them When the bankruptcy proceeds from other, and i we may say for more legitimate ; causes, the interest which creditnrrs, i unmoyed by personal feeling, usually take in such cases ia proverbial, and of this we , have an instance in the cases only the other day disposed of in the District Court. There some four or five bankrupts, whose gross liabilities amounted to something like £2500 were compelled to. seek the aid of the Court for discharge,, not a single creditor in either of the estates, although nearly all resided in Eeefton, had taken the trouble to attend- any of the mooting . called as prescribed by the Act, and this in the ordinary run i of small bankruptcies may be taken as \ the general result ; nnd perhaps the only exception to this rule is where opposition is only another word for persecution. And the explanation of this probably is that small bankruptcies are particularly of that class of forthcoming events which cast their shadows before. Creditors, therefore, become resigned to their loss long before the final step is taken by the debtor, and are Iherefore in no way surprised by ■it. So long, therefore, aa creditors are content to stand by, the process of "going through the Court" by the new Act ia made easy nnd comfortable — for if the creditors themselves betray no interest in the bankrupt's affairs the Court cannot be expected to. Of course, the greater the facility for the expurgation procesa, the greater will be tbe advantage taken- of it. For these reasons then, it would appear that tbo interest .of all parties would bo very much belter served by giving more power to the Court, and less to the creditors. The Courb while protecting a man from persecution at the hands of a vindictive- creditor will shield him from none of the just and inevitable consequences of' his act,, and to-, ua it seems that the Court alono

can do this effectively. Under the Act of 1875 the fullest privileges were accorded creditors for sifting a bankrupt's affairs— the whole proceeding was conducted in public, and the Court standing fairly between the parties, no better safeguard to the one or other could be desired. For this reason we are strongly of opinion that yet further amendment ■will have to be made in the present Act, and that amendment will possibly have to take the form of a return to the main principles of the Act of 1875.