§ LORD ST. LEONARDSwished to obtain from the Government some information relative to the measures which would be taken by the Government in reference to the Suitors' Fund in the Court of Chancery, as he gathered from statements made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that legislation on the subject was in contemplation. According to the old rule, in the Court of Chancery all the funds directed by that Court to be invested were placed in the Three per Cents, because these were national funds. There were very few of their Lordships, or Members of the other House, who were not deeply interested in the safe keeping of these funds, and there were thousands of people out of doors who had a similar interest in their being safely placed. The noble and learned Lord then entered upon an examination of the several grounds upon which he understood the Government to propose to appropriate to purposes not required for the benefit of the suitors upwards of £1,400,000 of their funds.
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLsaid, that the noble and learned Lord had evidently directed his criticisms against a speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer made in "another place." He must protest against the assumption that Government had any scheme in contemplation which they had not the manliness to avow. He was glad the noble and learned Lord had called attention to the subject, and he would assure him that it should not be neglected by the Government.
§ After a few words from Lord ST. LEONARDS,
LOED DENMANsaid, he wished public attention to be directed to the Report of the Commissioners for the Consolidation of the Superior Courts of Law and Equity, and the subject of it to be fully understood. It certainly appeared by the evidence that more than one Chancellor of the Exchequer had cast a longing eye on the Suitors' Fee Fund—and the recommendation of the Commissioners to appropriate the fund was so strong, that without an appropriation of it, the scheme must fall to the ground. He thought that the Commissioners should have published Mr. Harvey Gem's ground plan, by which only a small part of Lincoln's Inn Fields would be required for the building of courts. The witnesses examined were twenty-eight in number, and of these, he believed, fourteen were solicitors with very one-sided views—this might account for the choice of the site abutting upon Bell Alley; amongst them also there was a wish to conduct business with the aid of fewer clerks, but he could recollect that his late father spoke with admiration and pleasure of the manner in which managing clerks and young men who afterwards entered upon business for themselves conducted the cases before him at Chambers. The inconveniences of the Courts at Westminster had been greatly exaggerated, and even a noble Friend of his, one of the Commissioners (Lord Wynford), who had totally dissented from the scheme, and had not signed the Report should not have believed that the dark passages were the only places for witnesses in attendance on the Court of Queen's Bench, because the seats behind the counsel and the galleries ought principally to be appropriated to the witnesses in waiting. The Commissioners had recommended that the Courts at Guildhall, the Old Bailey, and Basinghall Street should be retained; and, while they advocated a scheme of which they could not foresee 206 the disadvantages, they ought also to retain the Common Law Courts at Westminster Hall. The evidence of Sir John Stuart deserved consideration; and it ought not to be forgotten that Sir John Romilly and Sir William Page Wood were opposed to the application of the Suitors' Fee Fund to the scheme. It must not be assumed that because the Earl of Derby had allowed the Commission to issue that, therefore, he would have adopted the Report which had received the support of the present Government.
§ The subject dropped.