Manawatu Herald. SATURDAY, DEC. 5, 1891. Preferential Claims.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue III, 5 December 1891, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. SATURDAY, DEC. 5, 1891. Preferential Claims.

The deputy official Assignee in Bankruptcy opened the eyes of his hearers on Thursday by his interpretation of the law on preferential claims in flax mill estates. He asserted that the law was clear that rent was a preferential claim, and that men who out the green flax, and the men who scutched the fibre after being dressed, had to be treated as preferential claimants, and after thesu had been paid in fall, the men who did the other work, such as feeding the strippers, attending the engine, paddocking, carting &c would come in next. We have no doubt but that the D. O. Assignee is correct, as he has had so many claims of the kind under consideration, but to a lay mind it would appear that all who contributed to the turning out of the fibre should be treated alike, It the engine was not worked it would be of little use cutting the green flax, and without the use of the engine, the scutchers could make no show. If the carters

brought no fibre, how would the mill get along ? ' ] In the estate under consideration ' it was pointed out that M fuel had ] not been supplied to the engine, no , one of the holders of preferential 1 claims could have made a living, < and a boarding-house keeper who j has been heavily " hit " considered , that his claim should have received j the largest amount of consideration < upon somewhat of the principle of ! the house that Jtoib built, as he had ! fed the fiien who had shovelled the ( Goals that fed the fire that caused the i engines to strip the flax, that was ! cut by the men, and carted to the : mill ; and he had also fed the men : who stripped the flax, and paddocked ! it, for the preferential scutchers I The law appears not to be of that way of thinking. From time to time, when the [ actual working of some of our laws are brought before us by unpleasant practical experience, there appears a suspicion that they are not quite as useful and as fair, as we pleasantly olaim them to be, viewing them as abstract questions. In this case of bankruptcy there is an unavoidable feeling that the law is exceptionably favourable to a few without good reason.