National Association for the Promotion of Social Science. Report of
the Standing Committee of Jurisprudence on the County Courts Acts Amendment Bill—This is a statement, temperate and exhaustive, like all other reports of the association, of the arguments for and against the Chancellor's proposal. The Committee, however, seem to be over- timorous as to the effect of abolishing imprisonment for debt, in defer- ence chiefly to the County Court Judges. But these gentlemen have given no opinion on the present Bill. All they were asked and all they said was that it would not do to abolish imprisonment simply. The question raised by the Bill is whether a bankruptcy system applied to the humblest debtors will not be an efficient substitute for it in all those eases in which credit is given from proper motives, and whether it is not desirable to abolish credit in all cases where it is given to get the debtor into the creditor's power, or in the hope of screwing the money out of his relations to save him from gaol. We believe that the Bill will effect these two objects, and that both are good. The dilemma pro- posed by the Committee—if you want to abolish credit, the Bill does not go far enough ; if not, it goes too far—avoids the true issue. The Chancellor does not want to abolish credit, but to restrtiin it. The clause of the Act relating to the- limitation of suits for less than 20/. does not, it now appears, carry out the Chancellor's intention. We entirely agree with this report on that clause as it stands, and the criti- cism of the Committee on the sections which virtually exclude all actions for sums tinder 20/. from the superior courts deserves attention.
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