§ LORD BROUGHAM moved for returns connected with the County Courts (Minutes of Proceedings, 36, 37, 38, 39). He regretted to hear the complaints that had been made with respect to any increase of the salaries of the County Court Judges, for the working of those courts proved how highly beneficial they had been to the public. His noble and learned Friend on the woolsack had said that ninety-nine cases out of one hundred decided in those courts were for sums under 20s. He had looked at the returns, and he found that about one-third of the cases were for such sums, but it appeared also that out of 130,000 disposed of by those Courts last year, no less than 32,000 were for sums above 10l., while he found that in the Courts of Queen's Bench and Common Pleas in the year 1827 —the last year for which there was any return—the number was only 31,600. There was another subject that appeared to him to require attention, and that was with respect to the state of the criminal law digest. Nine months since he had had a correspondence with his noble and learned Friend on the woolsack, in which his noble and learned Friend expressed himself fully sensible of the labours of the Criminal Law Commission, and he (Lord Brougham) was in hope that something would be done with respect to it; but the Government had allowed that Commission to expire. Every one was aware that the labours of that Commission had been very great, and, even without its being renewed, he thought advantage might he taken of 123 the admitted good the learned Members of it had done.
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, his attention had not been called to the subject of his learned Friend's last observations; but as to the renewal of the Commission in question, the Government were of opinion that it was not required. With respect to the cases that had been disposed of in the County Courts, he had merely said that a large proportion of them were of the description he had referred to on a former occasion, and when his noble Friend spoke of the increase of the salaries of the Judges, he (the Lord Chancellor) had mentioned that a considerable number of the cases disposed of by them required no labour.
LORD BROUGHAMsaid, that one reason why those cases were disposed of with so little labour was, that the Judges had the means of examining the parties themselves.
§ Returns ordered.