of the property of the bankrupt until the appointment of a person by the creditors, or in default of his appointment. But the official receiver has likewise to make a report in regard to the conduct of the bankrupt, and in considering whether that discharge should be granted or refused or merely suspended for a time, the Court has to consider that report and the objections and views of the official receiver as placed orally before it. The official receiver has also necessarily to investigate the debtor's affairs and to report on any scheme of composition, which again must be sanctioned by the Court. Hence the principle of official management stands out prominently, as well as a kind of semimoral censorship in regard to the conduct of the bankrupt. The Act of 1883, in fact, carries us back a long way; it has revived the principles which underlay the graduated certificates of conformity, and the official control of the Act of 1842. The absorption of the Bankruptcy Court in the High Court of Justice is of less. interest than the reappearance of these old familiar principles. In other respects there is not much which is noticeable in this last statute; details are different, but we have in this review of bankruptcy legislation in this country endeavoured to keep in view the principles and the prominent features of each succeeding piece of legislation. The statute book is a monument of good legislative intentions; these are never more conspicuous than in the many Bankruptcy Acts, the very number of which testifies to the fact that these intentions have year after year often produced little but disappointments.

There are indications, however, that at length some

finality has been attained, and that a working compromise between government control, which is, in effect, the assertion of moral theories, and the management of a debtor's assets by his creditors, which is pure business, has been reached. After a long series of attempts-characteristic of the adaptability of English law-the conflicting interests of the debtor and of the creditor, of commercial morality and of the realisation of assets, appear to be reconciled as far as is ever likely to be possible.

CHAPTER IX.

THE COMMERCIAL COURT.

TRIBUNALS of Commerce are well established in several European countries, but in England they have never been more than suggested. At the present time, however, something in the nature of a Tribunal of Commerce is to be found in the form of what is popularly called the Commercial Court, which, however, strictly speaking, is but one of the Courts of the King's Bench Division, in which what is termed the Commercial List of Causes is tried by a judge to whom this particular class of legal work is assigned for a definite though short period, and who, contrary to the ordinary practice of the High Court, himself deals with all the preliminary interlocutory proceedings. This unsymmetrical arrangement is typical of English ways, but it is one which, as a phase in the growth of English procedure, is remarkably interesting and important. In effect it has resulted in the existenceof a special Court for the trial of a special class of legal business. Theoretically, there is no more reason why, for example, a merchant and a shipowner who have a dispute over a charter-party should have a particular Court. set apart for the decision of their litigation, than two rival patentees who, however technical is the subject-matter of the disagreement, still have to take their place among ordinary litigants.

Yet after all this new tribunal is a return to mediæval procedure, for in seaport towns from very early times there were Port or Marine Courts, presided over by municipal officials who were assisted by merchants or mariners, for the trial of disputes relating to mercantile or maritime matters; and the Fair Courts and the Staple Courts had a similar jurisdiction in inland towns. These Courts long ago fell into abeyance, though in more modern times the sittings held at the Guildhall, in the City of London, for the trial of actions by jury, to But these some extent preserved ancient traditions. sittings were ended by the passing of the Judicature Act of 1873; the creation of a Commercial Court revived them to some degree, and was in principle a return to an even older system, of which the expeditious trial of commercial disputes in the place where they arose was the essential characteristic.

Let us first of all see how this Court, as we shall now call it, came into existence.

The mercantile community is in many respects an organised body; it has not only its special organs of opinion in the press, it has its Chambers of Commerce and its representatives in Parliament, who can safeguard its interests. It has thus an actual and definite force, which cannot altogether be ignored. But it is doubtful if even this organised force would in itself have been sufficient to introduce a change in the judicial system which would meet the wants of men of business. Something in the nature of an accident must be regarded as the efficient cause of the creation of a Commercial Court. At the end

of 1892, Lord Gorell (then Mr. Justice Barnes) became a judge of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division, on the appointment of Sir Francis Jeune to the place of President of the Division, left vacant by the death of Sir Charles Butt. The new judge was thoroughly acquainted with mercantile law, and was equally cognisant of the demands of the commercial community, whilst the President cordially agreed with any plans to increase the usefulness of the Division over which he presided. So in the course of 1893 it was made known that commercial causes arising out of disputes in some way connected with shipping, but in no sense purely Admiralty actions, would be entertained in the Admiralty Court at such times as the Court could spare from its special work. At once several actions were entered to decide points arising out of contracts of marine insurance. The number of commercial cases increased, and it became clear that if the judicial strength of the Division would have permitted it, the commercial community would have gladly resorted to it as a Commercial Court. It was obvious, however, that this was impossible without an addition to the number of judges attached to the Division, for two judges were only sufficient to cope with the regular flow of business, whether probate, divorce, or admiralty; the commercial work, with the existing strength of the Bench of the Division, could, therefore, only be dealt with in a fragmentary manner, and sometimes at the risk of dislocating the arrangements for the trial of admiralty actions. With the Queen's Bench Division fully equipped for work it was obviously impossible to place an additional judge at the service of the Admiralty Division, to do work proper for another Division, and for a time it appeared as if the mercantile body