ied; the other 12,000 cases (or 92%) escaping
the provisions which refer to the examination and discharge of bankrupts,
and to the accounts, charges and conduct of the agents employed." It is not
to be supposed that all the cases in the latter class were marked by the
abuses which have been here described. In a large number the proceedings
were conducted by agents of high character and standing, and with a due
regard to the interests of the creditors. But the facilities for fraudulent
and collusive arrangements afforded by the act, and the want of effective
control over administration, inevitably tended to lower the morale of the
latter, and to throw it into the hands of the less scrupulous members of
the profession. The demand for reform, therefore, came from all classes of
the business community. No fewer than thirteen bills dealing with the
subject were introduced into the House of Commons during the ten years
succeeding 1869. At length in 1879 a memorial, which was authoritatively
described as "one of the most influential memorials ever presented to any
government," was forwarded to the prime minister by a large body of bankers
and merchants in the city of London. The matter was then referred to the
president of the Board of Trade (Mr Chamberlain), who made exhaustive
inquiries, and in 1881 introduced a measure which, with some amendments,
finally became law under the title of the Bankruptcy Act 1883.

[Sidenote: Act of 1883.]

Hitherto the question had been dealt with as one of legal procedure; it was
now treated as an act of commercial legislation, the main object of which,
while providing by carefully framed regulations for the equitable
distribution of a debtor's assets, was to promote and enforce the
principles of commercial morality in the general interests of the trading
community. One of the chief features of the act of 1883 is the separation
which it has effected between the judicial and the administrative functions
which had previously been exercised by the court, and the transfer of the
latter to the Board of Trade as a public department of the state directly
responsible to parliament. Under the powers conferred by the act a new
department was subsequently created under the title of the bankruptcy
department of the Board of Trade, with an officer at its head called the
inspector-general in bankruptcy. This department exercises, under the
direction of the Board of Trade, a general supervision over all the