SCHEDULE (B.)-PART 12. REVENUE DEPARTMENTS, &c. SCHED. (B.) PART 12. Revenue Departments, SCHEDULE OF SUMS granted to defray the charges of the several REVENUE &c. DEPARTMENTS, &c. herein particularly mentioned, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1889; viz. : No. 1. For salaries and expenses of the Customs Department 2. For salaries and expenses of the Inland Revenue Department 3. For salaries and expenses of the Post Office services, the expenses of Post Office savings banks, and Government annuities and insurances, and the collection of the Post Office revenue 4. For the Post Office packet service 5. For salaries and expenses of the Post Office telegraph service TOTAL REVENUE DEPARTMENTS 1,807,629 5,666,666 2,036,836 CHAPTER 62. An Act to amend the Law with respect to Preferential BE E it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows: 1.-(1.) In the distribution of the property of a bankrupt, and Priority of in the distribution of the assets of any company being wound up debts. under the Companies Act, 1862, and the Acts amending the same, there shall be paid in priority to all other debts- (a.) All parochial or other local rates due from the bankrupt or Savings. 50 & 51 Vict. c. 43. Application of Act. Act, 1888. (c.) All wages of any labourer or workman not exceeding twentyfive pounds, whether payable for time or for piece work, in respect of services rendered to the bankrupt or the company during two months before the date of the receiving order or, as the case may be, the commencement of the winding-up: Provided that where any labourer in husbandry has entered into a contract for the payment of a portion of his wages in a lump sum at the end of the year of hiring, he shall have priority in respect of the whole of such sum, or a part thereof, as the court may decide to be due under the contract, proportionate to the time of service up to the date of the receiving order, or, as the case may be, the commencement of the winding-up. (2.) The foregoing debts shall rank equally between themselves and shall be paid in full, unless the property of the bankrupt is, or the assets of the company are, insufficient to meet them, in which case they shall abate in equal proportions between themselves. (3.) Subject to the retention of such sums as may be necessary for the costs of administration or otherwise, the foregoing debts shall be discharged forthwith so far as the property of the debtor, or the assets of the company, as the case may be, is or are sufficient to meet them. (4.) In the event of a landlord or other person distraining or having distrained on any goods or effects of a bankrupt or a company being wound up within three months next before the date of the receiving order or the winding-up order respectively, the debts to which priority is given by this section shall be a first charge on the goods or effects so distrained on, or the proceeds of the sale thereof. Provided, that in respect of any money paid under any such charge the landlord or other person shall have the same rights of priority as the person to whom such payment is made. (5.) This section, so far as it relates to the property of a bankrupt, shall have effect as part of section forty of the Bankruptcy Act, 1883. (6.) This section shall apply, in the case of a deceased person who dies insolvent, as if he were a bankrupt, and as if the date of his death were substituted for the date of the receiving order. 2. (1.) Nothing in this Act shall alter the effect of section five of the Act twenty-eight and twenty-nine Victoria, chapter eightysix, "To amend the law of partnership," or shall prejudice the provisions of the Friendly Societies Act, 1875, or shall affect the priority given to the payment of funeral and testamentary expenses by section one hundred and twenty-five of the Bankruptcy Act, 1883. (2.) Nothing in this Act shall affect the provisions of the Stannaries Act, 1887. 3. This Act shall apply only in the case of receiving orders and orders for the administration of the estates of deceased debtors Act, 1888. according to the law of bankruptcy made and windings-up commenced after the commencement of this Act. 4. This Act shall not apply to Ireland. Extent of Act. 5. This Act shall commence and come into operation from and Commenceimmediately after the last day of December one thousand eight ment of Act. hundred and eighty-eight. 6. The enactments specified in the schedule hereto are hereby Repeal. repealed to the extent in the third column of that schedule. mentioned. 7. This Act may be cited as the Preferential Payments in Short title. Bankruptcy Act, 1888. An Act to amend the twenty-third section of "The [24th December 1888.] WHEREAS it is expedient to amend the law relating to the delegation of powers by the Crofters Commission to one or more of their number : Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows: 1.—(1.) In executing the provisions of this Act it shall be Delegation of competent for the Crofters Commission to delegate the duties powers. thereby prescribed to one or more of their number, assisted by two valuers or assessors; but any determination arrived at by such commissioner or commissioners shall be subject to review, upon appeal, by the whole three commissioners. Powers) Act, 1888. (2.) This section shall be read in place of the twenty-third 49 & 50 Vict. section of the Crofters Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1886, and shall have the same effect as though it were enacted in the said Act. c. 29. Short title. 2. This Act may be cited as the Crofters Commission (Delegation of Powers) Act, 1888. Interpretation. Repeal of c. 60. s. 2. Newspaper CHAPTER 64. [24th December 1888.] An Act to amend the Law of Libel. WHEREAS it is expedient to amend the law of libel : W Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows: 1. In the construction of this Act the word "newspaper" shall have the same meaning as in the Newspaper Libel and Registration Act, 1881. 2. Section two of the Newspaper Libel and Registration Act, 1881, is hereby repealed. 3. A fair and accurate report in auy newspaper of proceedings reports of pro- publicly heard before any court exercising judicial authority shall, ceedings in court privileged. Newspaper bodies and persons privileged. if published contemporaneously with such proceedings, be privileged Provided that nothing in this section shall authorise the publication of any blasphemous or indecent matter. 4. A fair and accurate report published in any newspaper of the reports of pro- proceedings of a public meeting, or (except where neither the public ceedings of public meetings nor any newspaper reporter is admitted) of any meeting of a and of certain vestry, town council, school board, board of guardians, board or local authority formed or constituted under the provisions of any Act of Parliament, or of any committee appointed by any of the above-mentioned bodies, or of any meeting of any commissioners authorised to act by letters patent, Act of Parliament, warrant under the Royal Sign Manual, or other lawful warrant or authority, select committees of either House of Parliament, justices of the peace in quarter sessions assembled for administrative or deliberative purposes, and the publication at the request of any Government office or department, officer of state, commissioner of police, or chief constable of any notice or report issued by them for the information of the public, shall be privileged, unless it shall be proved that such report or publication was published or made maliciously : Provided that nothing in this section shall authorise the publication of any blasphemous or indecent matter: Provided also, that the protection intended to be afforded by this section shall not be available as a defence in any proceedings if it shall be proved that the defendant has been requested to insert in the newspaper in which the report or other publication complained of appeared a reasonable letter or statement by way of contradiction or explanation of such report or other publication, and has refused or neglected to insert the same: Provided further, that nothing in this section contained shall be deemed or construed to limit or abridge any privilege now by law existing, or to protect the publication of any matter not of public concern and the publication of which is not for the public benefit. For the purposes of this section "public meeting" shall mean any meeting bonâ fide and lawfully held for a lawful purpose, and for the furtherance or discussion of any matter of public concera, whether the admission thereto be general or restricted. 5. It shall be competent for a judge or the court, upon an Consolidation application by or on behalf of two or more defendants in actions of actions. in respect to the same, or substantially the same, libel brought by one and the same person, to make an order for the consolidation of such actions, so that they shall be tried together; and after such order has been made, and before the trial of the said actions, the defendants in any new actions instituted in respect to the same, or substantially the same, libel shall also be entitled to be joined in a common action upon a joint application being made by such new defendants and the defendants in the actions already consolidated. In a consolidated action under this section the jury shall assess the whole amount of the damages (if any) in one sum, but a separate verdict shall be taken for or against each defendant in the same way as if the actions consolidated had been tried separately; and if the jury shall have found a verdict against the defendant or defendants in more than one of the actions so consolidated, they shall proceed to apportion the amount of damages which they shall have so found between and against the said last-mentioned defendants; and the judge at the trial, if he awards to the plaintiff the costs of the action, shall thereupon make such order as he shall deem just for the apportionment of such costs between and against such defendants. 6. At the trial of an action for a libel contained in any news- Power to paper the defendant shall be at liberty to give in evidence in defendant to give certain mitigation of damages that the plaintiff has already recovered (or evidence in has brought actions for) damages or has received or agreed to mitigation of damages. receive compensation in respect of a libel or libels to the same purport or effect as the libel for which such action has been brought. need not be set ceeding. 7. It shall not be necessary to set out in any indictment or Obscene matter other judicial proceeding instituted against the publisher of any forth in indictobscene libel the obscene passages, but it shall be sufficient to ment or other deposit the book, newspaper, or other documents containing the judicial proalleged libel with the indictment or other judicial proceeding, together with particulars showing precisely by reference to pages, columns, and lines in what part of the book, newspaper, or other document the alleged libel is to be found, and such particulars shall be deemed to form part of the record, and all proceedings may be taken thereon as though the passages complained of had been set out in the indictment or judicial proceeding. |