OUR BANKRUPTCY LAW.

Waikato Times, Volume XV, Issue 1261, 29 July 1880, Page 3

OUR BANKRUPTCY LAW.

The joint committee of both Houses of Assembly who have been, since the opening of the session, engaged in enquiring into the important subject of our bankruptcy laws, with a view to their reform, have presented the following interim report: — Before commencing a regular sitting, the joint committee decided to address a series of nine questions to , their honors the judges and district court judges, and to the different law societies and chambers of commerce in the colony. The answers to these questions are annexed to the report. After fully considering the information received the committee resolved that an immediate amendment was required in the direction hereinafter indicated, and that the Government be requested to bring in a Bill during the present session embodying the amendments proposed. The committee further re- I solved that an amendment of the entire law of bankruptcy should form the subject of a final report. The cemmittee recom- i mend that the present Debtors and Creditors Act be amended in the following res- i pect, viz., by enacting — (1.) That meetings of creditors shall be held in the town in which the bankrupt carried on his buai- i ness, or the town nearest his place ef resi- ' dence, if his place of business was not in a town. (2.) That an official assignee be appointed by the Government for each Court having jurisdiction in bankruptcy, and that the creditors ehall have power to appoint ono or more trus- i tees in each estate, to aot along with such offical assignee ; such official assignee to find security t» the sat sfaction of the judge of the Court. To meet the salaries and expenses of the official assignees, the committee recommend that a minimum charge of per cent, be paid upon all estates that are brought under the jurisdiction of any Court. (3.) No debtor shall be entitled to his discharge unless, and until, a resolution shall have been passed by a majority in number, equal to three-fourths in value, of the creditors, at a meeting convened for the purpose of considering such a resolution, The majority shall be not the mere majority of those at the meeting, but of tbe whole body of creditors, so that it will be necessary for the debtor to secure a sufficient attendance of creditors cither in person or by proxy. For the purpose of this provision, a person who has been scheduled by the debtor as a creditor, but who had not proved, shall be considered as one of the body of creditors, although, of course, he could not vote till he had proved. The object will be to make it essential to the right to discharge that there shall be an actual consent to the discharge by a majority in number equal to three-fourths in value, of those persons who are. in fact creditor?. The decision of the creditors in refusing to give in granting a discharge shall be subject to review by the Court. (4.) That the present mode of arrangement by deed be repealed, and that any debtor unable to meet his engagements be compelled to file a declaration to that effect, or be adjudicated a bankrupt on the application of any creditor ; that the filing of such declaration or suoh. adjudication shall operate to stay all hostile proceedings against h : s estite, until the creditors determine whether the c tate shall be wound up by a trust deed or in bankruptcy ; and that thE assent required to a release of the debtor be three -fourths in number and vplue of all creditors, whether present or not. (5.) That no bankrupt shall obtain his discharge except by the order of a Judge of the Supreme Court or District Court, in open Court. — The committee have been given another month to bring up their final report, which will probably be submitted at too late a period of the session for action to be taken on it this year, and, therefore, with the amendments suggested above, the present law will continue until next session, when a new departure is likely to be taken by the colony in this branch of commercial l aw ._JV. Z. Times.

Marbiage is proverbially a lottery. For example, a young" Maine fanner recently married a high-cultured Boston girl, who did not know the most elementary things in housekeeping, but had devoted her youth to the study of geology and mineralogy. When her husband took her home, instead of attending to household duties, she took to roaming about the farm, an^ soon discovered on her husband's land a gold mine, which has already yielded £10,000 sterling. I don't quite know what the moral of the story is, but I suppose there is one.— Truth,