§ MR. T. R. BETHELL (Essex, Maldon)To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if the Lord Chancellor has appointed a Commission to advise him as to the procedure of the County Courts and as to improving that procedure, or what is the nature of the Commission now inquiring and to whom will its Report be made; and whether it will, as soon as practicable, be issued to the Members of this House or brought to the attention of the House; and whether the inquiry will extend to the question of the fees charged in the County Courts and to the complaint that they are excessive, and to the working of the system of administration orders.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) The Judicature Committee (presided over by Lord Macnaghten) in their 1625 Report, recently presented, recommended amongst other things, that: "The Lord Chancellor be requested to appoint a Committee to consider the relations now subsisting between the High Court and the County Courts, and to report whether any and what alteration or modification should be made in those relations, and consequently in the jurisdiction and practice of the County Courts." In pursuance of that recommendation, the Lord Chancellor has invited a Departmental Committee, with Sir J. Gorell Barnes as chairman, to consider and advise him on the subject.