The trial of the Glasgow Bank Directors will probably end
this week, but too late for our impression, and we can therefore only record that the Lord-Advocate has withdrawn the charges of theft and embezzlement. It was necessary, the Lord Justice- Clerk pointed out, in order to establish these charges, to prove that the accused had used their official position in order to secure illegal personal gain, and the Lord-Advo- cate found this too hard. There was no sufficient evidence that the Directors had pocketed cash, advances on insufficient security, if such were made, being indistinguishable from other errors in business judgment. The accused, therefore, have in the later stages of the trial only been accused of issuing fraudu- lent returns, and even on this point the question of fraudulent motive, which is essential, will be a difficulty. It seems strange
to outside readers of the case that the Directors should not have been charged with conspiracy to defraud, but we presume the difficulty was defect of evidence as to what passed within the Bank parlour. The whole trial reveals the necessity for a better and less cumbrous system of punishing misconduct by shareholders' trustees.
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