for the use of it; and if they manage, which they may, to avoid the residue of the law of usury, they are safe from the law of partnership.  The new man, by his prompt payments and abundant command of capital, works himself into good credit.  It is an understanding, that when he has been thus set afloat, the money advanced by his friends is to be gradually repaid.  He is then left to swim or sink.  If the former be his fate, it is well for all parties; if the latter, his friends will not be the sufferers:  their capital is preserved, and they can play the same game over again, in some other place, with the hope of an equally happy result.

The same modifications of the law which would free partnership of its terrors would be only naturally accompanied with safeguards to protect the public against such schemes as these.  In France, America, and many other countries, there is a system of partnership, with limited responsibility, known by the name of ‘Partnership in Commandite.’  Even with us, limited responsibility is by no means unknown.  It is, however, granted capriciously and unsystematically, without those checks and regulations which, if there were a general system, would be adopted to make it safe and effective.  ‘I wish,’ said Mr Duncan, a solicitor, when examined before the Select Committee on the Law of Partnership, ’to draw the attention of the committee first to this simple fact—­that all the railway, gas, and water and dock companies, and all the telegraph companies, as a matter of course, have limited liability.  It is impossible to trace why they have got it, but they have got it as a habit, and for any extent of capital they desire.  Whether a project be to make a railway from one small place to another, or to provide gas to supply any town, great or small, all those companies, as a matter of course, come to the legislature and ask for, and obtain, limited liability.  They are commercial companies, and one cannot trace the reason why they should have limited liability a bit more than any other company—­but it is so.’

Here we have at least a precedent, which is of importance in a country like this, so truly conservative in the sense of adhering to anything that is fixed law or matter of traditional business routine.  Now, in these concerns, where there is often so much wild speculation and mismanagement, no one is responsible beyond the subscribed stock; yet while we hear enough of the stockholders themselves losing their property, we seldom, scarcely ever, hear of the creditors who deal with them, in contracting for their works or otherwise, losing.  The reason is, because the extent to which they can pay is known, and the people who deal with the company calculate accordingly.  Unlimited liability existing in some indefinite parties, while it too often ruins these parties themselves, is a bait for that indefinite credit which produces their ruin, and sometimes leaves the careless creditor unpaid, even when he has taken the last farthing from the unfortunate partner.