§ Mr. Ewartrose to move for a copy of the warrant of his late Majesty King William 4th, under which the Court was opened to the King's counsel and outer barristers, and which was published in that court on the 25th day of April, 1834. Returns of the number of actions commenced in the Court of Queen's Bench, Exchequer, and Common Pleas, respectively in each year, for the period of five years prior to the publication of the said warrant, and five years subsequent thereto. Return of the date at which the Court of Common Pleas gave its judgment, determining no longer to hear Queen's counsel and outer barristers, but to restore an exclusive privilege to the sergeants. Returns of the number of clauses and rules standing for argument in the said courts respectively in the special paper, new trial paper, peremptory paper, or paper for enlarged rules, crown paper, and with paper, if any, kept in the said courts, for the entry of arrears, on the first day of each term within the same period. Return of the number of days after each term appointed by the same courts respectively for sitting under the provision of the Act 1 and 2 Vic., c. 32. Return of the number of causes, distinguishing between special jury, common jury causes, and standing for trial at nisi prius in each of the said courts in London and Middlesex on the first day of sit- 664 ting, within the same period. Return of the number of summonses taken out at the Chambers of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas in the months of January and February respectively in 1839.—This subject had, so long ago as the time of Lord Hale, attracted notice, for his Lordship had expressly stated the binding up of the Court of Common Pleas to the sergeants as a great advantage to the court. The next occasion on which those exclusive privileges were called in question was in the reign of George 2nd, in the year 1755. In that year a bill was introduced for the purpose of opening the Court of Common Pleas to the bar in general. From circumstances into which he need not enter, that bill did not pass into a law. The next occasion on which those exclusive privileges were referred to, was by the appointment of a commission under the auspices of the right hon. Baronet, the Member for Tamworth, which commission reported on the state of the law courts in 1829. The commissioners recommended some alterations with respect to the exclusive privileges of the sergeants, but their report was not acted upon, nor was anything further done on this subject until 1834, when, at the suggestion of Lord Chancellor Brougham, a Royal warrant was issued, opening the Court of Common Pleas to the bar in general; and from the date of that warrant to the end of last year it continued an open court to all the bar. A case, however, was brought before the Lord Chief Justice in the Common Pleas, and he was called upon to decide whether, by law, the sergeants possessed this privilege or not. The court decided that the sergeants possessed the privilege, and since that time the court had been closed against the bar in general, leaving the exclusive privilege as it was before, in the power of the sergeants. The object for which he moved for these returns was, to show what was the effect of opening the Court of Common Pleas to the bar, and what had been the effect of closing it—what had been the effect with respect to the treatment at the bar, and what had been the effect with respect to the interests of the public. He did not see the learned Solicitor-general in his place, but he could not suppose that the hon. and learned Sergeant would be inclined to oppose him. His hon. and learned Friend had lately stood up for the privileges of the House, and he did not 665 think that, having advocated the privileges of the House, for the sake of the public, he would, against the interests of the public, advocate the exclusive privileges of the sergeants. He was convinced that the same respect for the public rights which induced his learned Friend to support, so strenuously, the privileges of the House, would prevent him from excluding the bar from the Court of Common Pleas, which also was for the public good. As he understood the returns he was moving for were not to be opposed he would not further detain the House, as it was his intention to found a motion upon them. He would content himself, therefore, with moving for the returns as they stood in the paper.—Ordered.