18th April. Iris not generally known to the commercial community of China that the Regulations for the United States Consular Courts in China, provide " that civil actions based on written promise, contract or instrument must be commenced within six years after the cause of action accrues, others within two." It is to the principle embodied in the latter portion of this Regulation we would draw special attention, viz: that a civil action for any debt other than that by "written promise contract. or instrument" must be connnenced within two years of its date of contraction, shu plain words, if a dishonest debtor can elude the vigilance of a bailiff from serving a summons upon him for debt either by absence, removal or any other way best known to raseality—that debt at the expiration of two years in the eyes of the U. 8. Consular ordinance becomes of Limitations was enacted in a great invalid and void. he original Statute
measure to protect from an_ enforce: ment of a claim already paid, honest debtors who from the lapse of time had lost or destroyed the receipts or proofs of payment—the usual limitation being, we believe, six years. But this two years ordinance, it appears, directly traverses the spirit of the law as intended by the promoters, playing into the handy of unscrupulous debtors, thereby inflicting a great hardship upon the trading community of the eastern ports, 'This hardship is by no means diminished, when we consider' the character and nature of those businesses concerned—whose principal transactions are essentially and almost unreservedly based on the credit system, and who could not exist were it not for the support afforded them by a just and equitable law. But if this law be defective and fail to afford such necessary protection, surely it is time that such' an anomaly should be expunged from the ordinance
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.