MERCANTILE FRAUD IN ENGLAND.

The Pall Mall Gazette, of Dec. 21, furnished the following picture of mercantile morals in England:

"The readiness with which it was believed, a few days ago, that some ingenious person had brought down the shares of a railway by circulating an utterly groundless report that its chairman had failed, affords a fresh illustration of a state of things which is becoming very serious; so serious that, unless the whole nation is to be permanently disgraced, some sustained effort ought to be made to set it right. We refer to the continual growth and development in all directions of mercantile fraud which appears to pervade men of business of all classes, from capitalists who get up fraudulent joint-stock companies which cost tens of thousands to unfortunate shareholders, down to the not less determined and in their position not less dangercus rogues who add to their gains by keeping false weight and measures. The Times remarked the other day with perfect truth that lying for the purpose of cheating was so common on the Stock Exchange that people there appeared to think nothing of it, and the case is undoubtedly the same in many other departments of business. Not long ago a gentleman, not himself in business, but connected with others who were so enengaged, was informed by one of his friends that he, the friend, had found out that his partner had been raising money by pledging securities which had been entrusted to the firm for safe custody. The firm was at the time in difficulties, and an attempt was being made to wind up its affairs. The outsider thus applied to was horrified to hear that his friend was in any way connected with any such transaction, and advised him at once to disclose it to all the parties interested. The two went for this purpose to the herd of a very eminent house in the trade, and told him what had happened. He treated the whole thing as a most venial irregularity, declared that it would never do to take a strict legal view of such matters, and expressed his firm conviction that the person who had been guilty of this slight deviation from strict propriety was a man of the very highest honor, utterly incapable of a really dishonest action. The two friends, not being satisfied, took steps to have the matter fully investigated, and the same evening the man of high honor confessed that he had committed the further irregularity of forging acceptances to the value of several thousands pounds, and on the next day decamped, leaving his unlucky partner liable to claims of which he had never had any notice, which involved him in absolute ruin and many friends who had assisted him in most serious loss. Cases of this kind are continually occurring, and the remarkable and indeed intolerable thing is not that in such cities as London, Manchester and the like, there should be a large uumber of consummate rogues, but that the honest men should take so little notice of their roguery, and should persistently regard it with indulgence, not to say indifference. No doubt we possess a large number of merchants as honorable as any in the world. We have men whose word is their bond, and who would as soon lie as they would pick pockets; yet we have on the other hand such an assortment of cheats and swindlers, from the millionaire down to the small shopkeeper, as were never, in all human probabil

ity, collected in one place before. The really grave charge against the honest men is that they indulge and countenance the other class-that from indifference, from want of corporate feeling, or from a sort of callous indifference which even an honest man is very apt to contract from continual intercourse with roguery, they not only allow them to take their course and suggest no means whatever for clipping their fraudulent wings, but do their very utmost to put commerce of all kinds on a footing which gives the utmost conceivable facilities to every kind of cheating. It is by no means pleasant to compare the number of barriers which were formerly opposed to fraud with the facilities which are afforded to it in the present day. The system of guilds and monopolies had undoubtedly immense evils, and degenerated before it was finally destroyed into a very hɔtbed of jobbery and corruption; but it did at all events provide some sort of corporate feeling amongst different trades, and some kind of machinery by which that corporate feeling might provide more or less discipline for individual traders. The Inns of Court and the Incorporated Law Society-and especially the formermight no doubt be more efficient than they actually are, and many professional malpractices no doubt exist in spite of them; but if they were swept away there would undoubtedly be many more. Much may be said for an against trades unions, but it will hardly be denied that the corporate feeling which they produce amongst the men who belong to them has its noble and elevating side. Commercial life is subject to none of these influences. The merchant, the specu lator, the shopkeeper, stands for the most part altogether alone, and bends all the energies of his mind to making his own fortune by his own exertions.

The old law of bankruptcy, again, was certainly exceedingly harsh, and the law of imprisonment for debt on which it was founded was harsher still. Harsh, however, and cruel as they were, they did in a very emphatic way indeed assert the great principle that to be in debt and not to be able to pay is disgraceful, and that wilfully to diminish the means available for payment is one of the very worst forms of robbery. The notion of punishing a fradulent bankrupt with death would in these days be regarded with horror, but if our humanity has gained something by the abolition in such cases of capital punishment, our sense of justice has lost a great deal by our refusal to recognise in such an act a crime as gross and as deserving of severe punishment as the worst forms of highway robbery. The old law of partnership, again, was, in its way, harsh. To prevent people from contracting, if they thought proper, upon the principle of limited liability, was, no doubt, to treat them more or less like children; but it did make it much more difficult to devise wholesale frauds than it is at present.

We do not say either that this legislation was wrong, or that it is now possible to alter its essential provisions. Nothing but experience can teach people prudence; and if all mankind are bent on having every possible facility afforded to the cleverer members of the community for getting rich in a hurry, why they must have their way, even if they should happen, as was remarked of old, to be "pierced through with many sorrows;" but that which is not in itself wrong may be grossly defective, and this has, no doubt, been the case with our legislation on commercial matters. Throw open your gaming table to all mankind if you please, but let us at all events have such security for fair play as the

most stringent rules for the punishment of fraud can give. If trade is to be a universal betting-ring, so be it; but let us have no mercy on welchers. The criminal law ought to keep pace with the progress of commercial legislation, and should be extended in direct proportion to the degree in which we give up the notion of protection. Prevention we have given up as being, under the circumstances of the case, impossible, and likely, if attempted, to do more harm than good; but this is the strongest of all reasons for trying our very utmost to increase the efficiency of punishment. If the railings and gates of a park are all thrown down, common prudence ought to teach us to send in an additional force of police.

How then ought this to be done? It should be done by adding to the criminal law a completely new head in the shape of an Act for the punishment of fraud and lying. As matters stand at present, the law is almost a blank on this head. Theft is a comparatively coarse and trivial offence. Embezzlement applies to a very limited class of cases, and the Acts which relate to offences by fradulent trustees, or by factors, brokers, &c, are of a very special and peculiar character, and are so constructed as to apply to a very small part of the frauds which are so rife amongst us. The crime of conspiracy to defraud takes a wider sweep, but to make a conspiracy there must be a combination of at least two persons for an unlawful object, and it is by no means easy to fix people with any specific design of this sort. The Act which punishes the obtaining of goods under false pretences, and the offence of cheating at common law, have been construed by the court in such a narrow spirit, and so many restrictions have been imposed upon them, that they are in practice confined to cases of a very petty character. Nothing can be more characteristic of the spirit in which the judges have dealt with this subject than the fact that they have on several occasions refused to hold that particular circumstances amounted to obtaining goods under false pretences, for fear of extending the Act to all mercantile frauds whatever.

This result, as it appears to us, is just what is wanted. Get a broad, general definition of fraud, and make fraud punishable like theft, putting it in law, as it is in morals, on precisely the same level. Of course there would be difficultythough not, we think, so much as might be supposed--in defining fraud for penal purposes, but it is difficult to imagine a more useful undertaking than that of making such an addition to the criminal law. We are, no doubt, at present a good deal in the dark on the details of the subject. The revelations which come to light from time to time as to the state of commerce, show clearly enough the necessity which exists for further legislation, but so far as we know no systematic inquiry has ever yet been made into the subject. Why should not the present Government, who are greatly in want of practical measures to act as a sop to the British public and to find occupation for the British Parliament, ap point a commission of lawyers and merchants to inquire into the subject of mercantile fraud, and to prepare a measure for its better punishment and prevention? The report of such a commission would pay its expenses ten times over, for no sensation novel would be such amusing reading.

COLONIAL BLUE-BOOKS.

The reports respecting the present state of her Majesty's colonial possessions in North America are now before the public. That for New Brunswick states the revenue of the colony for 1864 to be £213,675, against £175,258 in the year preceding. The expenditure was £175,979, against £184.845 for 1863. The value of imports was £1,863,615, being £208,102 more than in 1863. The exports amounted to £1,052,891, being £23,562 more than in 1863. To this amount, however, the value of the ships built in the province, which was not less than £800,000, must be added, which produces a balance in the account. Many of the exports are often shipped from the American bank of the St. Croix, and consequently do not appear in the return. One hundred and sixty-three new vessels were built and registered in the course of the year. The total number now on the registers of the colony is 958, measuring 233,225 tons. The European and North American Railway, which is the property of the Government, produced $145,057; the expenses were $100.630. The number of passengers was 139,554. The accounts of the Post Office show a deficiency of nearly $21,000, which is attributed to the untaxed transmission of newspapers through the post. Education has cost $115.167. The schools in operation was 816 in number, and the scholars about 30,000. There are 22 superior schools, attended by 1,138 pupils. The university numbers 38 students, and the collegiate school 99 pupils. Applications for Crown Lands have been received to the number of 1,625, including 549 petitions to purchase land at the public auctions' and 1,076 applications to purchase land by the performance of labor.

Prince Edward's Island is represented solely by its blue-book. Governor Musgrove accompanies the Newfoundland Blue-book by a report, from which it appears that the revenue, which is chiefly derived from import duties, shows an apparent total of £125,158, against £113,034 for the preceding year. This is however, accounted for by loans and by a special Customs duty amounting to £12,933. The value of imports is stated at £1,067,062, of which £455,308 are from the United Kingdom, and £306,851 from the United States. The expenditure of the colony, like the revenue, remains almost unaltered. There is, how ever, a noticeable difference in the items of which it is made up. The amount disbursed for the relief of the poor was only £15,123, being £11,593 less than in 1863, and £17,421 less than in 1862. The expenditure of 1864 was chiefly made of payments for roads, bridges, lighthouses, steam communication, the repayment of public debt, water supply and sewerage. The exports of the colony are chiefly codfish and oil. In 1864 the seal fishery was a failure, and the amount of codfish was 150,730 cwt. less than in 1862. Owing to the rise in price the value of the smaller export was £795,460, against £787,821 for the larger. The public debt amounts to £167,261. There is no local taxation in the island, the result of which is that local improvements can scarcely ever be made, from the jealousy of the the inhabitants of the rural districts, who object to being expected to contribute, though in ever so small a proportion, to the comfort of the inhabitants of the towns The House of Assembly consists of 30 members, returned by 15 electoral districts, of which five return three members each, five

up

two, and five one. The quallification is a net annual income of £600 derived from any source or the possession of property clear of all encumbrance of £500. The qualification for the suffrage consists of the occupation of a house of any value for two years before the date of the election. The electors on the register are 17,728, and the number of male inhabitants above the age of 20 was at the last census 29,192. Education in the colony has cost £13,814, and 10,437 children are in the elementary schools. The mineral wealth of the colony is very large, but no efforts have been made to develope it. Copper, lead and tin are found in large quantities, and there is a vein of marble of quality quite equal to that of the finest from Carrara. The gaol is not large, and the number of the prisoners is very small compared with the population.

The Bermuda report is accompanied by a despatch in which Governor Hamley states that the recent prosperity of the colony was owing to the blockade-running trade. As that is, however, abandoned, it will be interesting to discover whether the energy and activity evoked by it continue, or whether the colony will fall back into a lower position than before.

The report of the Governor of Vancouver's Island states the revenue for 1864 at £71,268, against £73,776 in 1863. The total expenditure has been £74.246, presenting an increase compared with that of the preceding year of £69,589. Under" Works and Buildings," £18,452 has been expended out of the road and harbor loan. The number of electors on the register is 1,213. This number, however, represents the votes, and not the voters, the number of the latter being only 890, and the surplus of votes being accounted for by the fact that many of the residents in the towns have taken up lands in the country districts which they neither occupy nor improve. The Legislative Council consists of 5 official and 3 non-official members, nominated by the Crown. The Assembly consists of 15 members elected by the constituencies. The British population numbers about 3,000, so that it is easy to understand how strongly the American element must influence the action of the legislature. Besides these there are a number of Chinese and negroes, who, with the Europeans, make up 8,000. The aboriginal Indians number about 10,000. The imports show a net decrease as compared with 1863, but there is an increase of imports from the United Kingdom of £24,367, and decrease of imports from the United States of upwards of £80,000. The record of exports is meagre and valueless, but the amount of gold exported through the banks was not less than £556,945. The last paragraphs of the despatch are peculiarly melancholy. More than 8 per cent. of the total imports to Vancouver's Island, or $395,785, is for wines and spirits. If profit be added at the rate of 40 per cent. and the consumption of British Columbia imported through Vancouver's Island be deducted, the consumption in the last-named colony amounts to $264,915, which, assuming the adult male population to be 5,000, gives an annual expenditure per man of 52 dollars 98 cents. In the city of Victoria there are 85 retail licenses for public-houses, in addition to 23 wholesale licenses. Outside the city there are 41 licensed houses, making a total of 149 licenses to sell drink, for which the fees payable in one year amount to £29,909. Of the social results of this state of things the Governor prudently says nothing.