The Scotch Court of Session finally decided on Friday week
that Trustees holding shares in the City of Glasgow Bank on be- half of their wards were as responsible as shareholders,—that is, were liable for calls to the last shilling, not only of the trust funds, but of their own estates. The Court, though fully sen- sible of the hardship thus inflicted on Trustees, of whom it was stated by Lord Mure only one had been a share- holder on his own behalf, held that the law was clear, having been finally settled by the House of Lords, in the case of " Lumsden v. Buchanan," raised when the Western Bank of Scotland failed. The judgment, which makes trusteeship a most dangerous risk, has provoked a number of suggestions for reliev- ing trustees ; but they seem all to be of little weight, in presence of the fact that if trustees were not personally liable, all shares in unlimited Banks might pass to trustees, and responsibility to the creditors wholly cease. The true remedy is to abolish unlimited liability in concerns whose shares are quoted on 'Change alto- gether, and substitute for it some strict limit, such as is frequent in the organisation of " Chartered " Banks. There seems to have been no expectation that the Court of Session could decide other- wise, but ruined men do not fear law-suits.
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