Section 178 - Priority of payment of debts.

Priority of payment of debts: trustee costs, workmen and secured creditors, then employees, government dues, and unsecured claims.

Section 178 prescribes a priority scheme: trustee costs are paid first; next workmen's dues and secured creditors; then non-workmen employee wages; then government dues; and finally other debts including unsecured claims, with intra-class equality, proportional abatement if insufficient estate, discretionary advantage for creditors who preserved assets, equal ranking of unsecured creditors unless contracted otherwise, surplus applied to interest equally, and partnership/separate property applied first to respective debts with proportional treatment of surpluses.