BILLS OF EXCHAGE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VII, Issue 378, 1 August 1874, Page 3

BILLS OF EXCHAGE.

The London " Daily Telegraph "in a recent issue says :—": — " Byles on Bills of Exchange " is not yet a popular work, and it is astonishing to lind how much general ignorance pre\ ails as to the distinction bewe'en a cheque to bearer, a cheque to "order, and a crossed cheque. In a case which came on recently before Mr. Knox it appeared, according to the reports, that the Charingcross Branch of the Union Bank had paid over the counter a crossed cheque, in which the words "or order" had been scratched out. " Mr. Lewis," the report runs, "asked the witness if he was in the habit of cashing crossed cheques ; and the witness (the cashier of the bank) replied that he considered the cancelling of the words ' or order ' also cancelled the crossing." We do not wonder that Mr Knox should have " expressed his amazement at such a statement." It is possible, however — for, as a rule, bank officials are well acquainted with the law of cheques— that the cheque in question was not really crossed ; and, if so, the cancellation of the words " or order." if duly done, would make it an open cheque. i here arc it is almost needless to explain, three kinds of cheques A cheque to bearer the banker is bound to pay on demand across the counter, by whomsoever presented. A cheque to order he is bound to pay in like manner if endorsed by the person to whoße order it is payable. A crossed cheque he muse pay, not over the counter, but only to a banker. "Do cross a cheque, however, it is not enough to clrarr tlie two lines ; the words " and Co " must also be written between the lines, a fact of which many people are not aware. - Noi*' should we be surprised to find that ■ the so-called crossed cheque, the payment of which was disputed before Mr. Knox, was marked with a couple of lines merely ; in which case, if the words "or order " were duly cancelled, the cashier had no option but to cash it. At the Bame time ifc is desirable, in the interests both of bankers and their customers, that the existing law on the subject 6hould be amended ; aud the best amendment of all would bo that any alteration in the body of a cheque, whether initialed or not, should invalidate the document. There would be no hardship in this ; since the man who draws a cheque has presumably got a cheque book, and so can, if he has made a mistake in ono cheque, cancel it altogether and fill in another. Nor is this all. A book of chequos payable to " or bearer" would then answer all purposes ; aB the insertion of a name in the blank space, even without cancellation of the words "or bearer," might be held to make it an " order " cheque j while if crossed with two lines and the requisite " and C 0.," it would of conrse become payable only through a banker. Now that cheques are as much part of our national currency as twenty-pound notes, the law with regard to them cannot too soon be so amended as te make h\ easily intelligible to the many. " Byles "is a learned work, and a sound one. But it could be wished that the law of exchange, promissory notes, and bankers' cheques, were something more than an ill-digested collection of case-law. Clear principlearun through it ; and it ought to be easily capable of codification. Indeed, a little Biil of some -sixty sections would do all that is needed. Why should not Sir John JLubbock undertake, fch> fawki?