§ Mr. D. W. Harveysaid, that in rising to make 263 the motion of which he had given notice, he could not conceal his regret at the information which he had received, of the intention of his majesty's government to oppose the proposition with which he intended to conclude, because he felt it was obligatory on him to enter on those statements which could not fail to trespass largely on the time of the House; and he still the more regretted it, as it was one of those subjects which abounded in dreary details and cold calculations, around which it was impossible to throw the charms of language, or the ornaments of eloquence. With the assurance, however, of being as brief as possible, and bearing in mind that the subject was of deep interest to the country, he should calculate on the indulgent attention of the House. He not unfrequently wished that a rule prevailed, if not by positive prescription, at least by implication, that every hon. member should be bound to make himself master of all those documents to whose production he was chiefly instrumental; for it would have the beneficial effect of diminishing useless returns, and of imparting valuable information. At present, the only labour was the motion; the result, expense to the country, and unread tons of printing. He had felt it his duty to pursue this course in regard to the returns now before them, and he flattered himself he should be able to possess the House of their more prominent contents; and to make himself the more intelligible to the learned Attorney-general; and, the better to enable him to understand his case, and to reply to it, he would in the outset advance the propositions which it was his object to inforce.—In the first place, then, he contended that the resources of the country were culpably expended in needless prosecutions; that the power of the law-officers was unjustly exercised, in the prosecution of the innocent, in the oppression of the unintentionally guilty, and in the undue punishment of those who were designedly criminal; that the cause of all this was to be traced to the absence of defined responsibility; and that the effect of the whole was, the multiplication of prosecutions, for no other purpose, and producing no other effect, than the inordinate aggrandisement of a few rapacious lawyers.—Within the last five years, the number of informations filed at the instance of the Attorney-general (he did not allude to any individual, as the law required the in- 264 formations to be filed in the name of that officer) was one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one; nine hundred and forty of these were for the recovery of penalties under the Customs-laws, and nine hundred and eleven were for the recovery of those under the Excise. The object of these one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one prosecutions was, the recovery of sums of money amounting to 1,038,709l. This sum was distributed in equal portions in the two departments of Customs and Excise. Of nine hundred and eleven prosecutions filed at the instance of the officers of Excise, six hundred and twenty-four were alone successful; and of nine hundred and forty informations filed at the instance of the officers of the Customs, only two hundred and eight had been productive of any pecuniary advantage to the country. He begged the House to understand, that the informations had not been defeated by verdicts of juries; that it was not from any legal impediments that they had produced no pecuniary benefit to the Crown. Seven hundred and thirty-two of the informations filed at the instance of the officers of the Customs were not successful, and two hundred and eighty-seven of those filed at the instance of the Excise shared the same fate, making in all, one thousand and nineteen failures out of one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one; or, in other terms, more than one half of the cases prosecuted produced no benefit whatever to the country, though they yielded an enormous profit to the individual officers who instituted them.—He would state to the House what had been the pecuniary result of these informations. Of the 1,038,709l., the aggregate sum sought to be recovered, the total sum received was only 137,826l., being little more than 2s. 6d. in the pound. So much for the discretion of the public officers, who instituted those fruitless proceedings!— The cases of prosecution under the Customs-laws were just as bad. The amount sued for was 538,709l., the sum recovered only 23,535l. By the returns before the House it appeared, that of the principal sum, exceeding one million sterling, which it was the object of those one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one prosecutions to recover, only 157,826l. had been received; and the House would naturally expect, that a considerable portion of it had found its way into the national treasury. Not so, however, was the 265 case. It appeared, and the House would hear the astounding fact with astonishment and indignation, that after paying 45,897l. to that wretched tribe of locusts who paraded the country to fabricate frauds, and to entrap the unsuspecting-trader, not only was the intire residue absorbed by the rapacious grasp of those who suffer nothing in the shape of money to elude them, but the country was brought in minus, or as debtor to the Crown lawyers, in the sum of 28,414l. In illustration of the system of the intensity with which costs were pursued, and the penalties were disregarded he would state, that it appeared that sixty-three informations had been filed to recover sums of money under 50l., that only 378l. had been recovered from the whole, and that the country had to pay for costs 9,577l.; and that, on an average, no prosecution was brought into the court of Exchequer for a penalty, however insignificant, which did not inflict on the country the charge of 172l.—And now that he was on the subject of costs, he would invite the attention of the House to a few prominent items; all of which might be lessened, or totally spared. It appeared that 20l. on an average was paid in each cause to a person called a clerk in court. There were six of this ambiguous genus, who had little else to do than to charge and receive their fees. One of these persons died the other day, whose income amounted to 4,000l. a year, and who had not been near his office for some years. This office, he submitted, might be usefully abolished. There was another single item. It appeared that, for the decision of twenty-two causes, three hundred and seven jurors had been sworn, making fourteen and a half jurors for each cause to be tried. There was a time when an Exchequer juror received 40s. when a verdict was given for the Crown, but in the event of an adverse verdict, he was curtailed in the sum of 20s. He was glad, however, that this regulation was done away with. The juries thus summoned and sworn were regularly paid, although no more than twelve men could be impanelled to try each cause. The Attorney-general might, perhaps, be able to explain this; but, to prevent mistake, he would refer to the bill on the table. In the case of the Attorney-general against Brazier, there was an item,"twenty-three jurymen paid 24l. 3s." There were other cases in which there had been sworn 266 and paid twenty, eighteen, fifteen, thirteen, sixteen, nineteen, seventeen jurymen, and soon. This, he conceived, was a most serious hardship on the public. Indeed, he thought the fee to jurors in Crown cases might be dispensed with altogether; because every man was interested in upholding the just rights of the revenue.—There was another point to which he begged to direct the attention of the House: he alluded to the fees of barristers. In all Exchequer cases there was arrayed against the defendant an army of lawyers, who looked steadily to their fees. It might be that they took these fees from a disinterested wish to discharge their duty; but those who knew the profession must be aware, that there was no stimulus to that eloquence, of which the bar appeared to be the exclusive monopolists, equal to a fee. In several of the cases before him, he found the fees on the Crown side amount to 52l. in each case. This he conceived a most oppressive tax on the public, and one which called for revision. One bill showed, that the law-officers of the Crown were sometimes paid, not so much for their services, as for staying away—that they were paid for many briefs which they never read, and causes. which they never attended; in a word, that they received fees, where the Crown was a party, without any labour. In all causes, however trivial, no less than four counsel were employed on the part of the Crown. In the bill before him they were stated as follows:—"The Attorney-general ten guineas, the Solicitor-general tea guineas, Mr. Clarke eight guineas, Mr. Walton. 4l. 6s. 6d." The bill of costs which he had just mentioned was in a case where the briefs of the four counsel for the Crown extended only to eight sheets; while Mr. Jervis, who was engaged on the other side, and whose brief amounted to nineteen sheets, received only five guineas.—Having touched on two material points— the clerks' fees, and the fees of counsel— he wished to say a word or two as to the expense of witnesses. When the cause of action originated at a distance, and the witnesses resided in the neighbourhood, it ought to be tried at the assizes. But then this would not suit the Crown-lawyers, who, with all their boasted disinterestedness, were peculiarly keen-scented in pursuit of their own emolument. It appeared that, in a recent case, the expenses of bringing the witnesses from Newcastle amounted to 386l., while, had the cause 267 been tried in the county, at least 300l. would have been spared. Now, a word or two with respect to the seventy of these prosecutions. He found that in five cases execution had been issued as follows:—In the first case, for 106l., only 6l. was recovered by the sale of the defendant's property; in the second case, for 151l., the amount received was eleven guineas; the third was for a sum of 325l., where 3l. 2s. 1d. was recovered; a fourth case was an execution for 141l., where the levy was 17s., with a return that there were no further effects; and they had on their table a petition, in which it was stated, that an Exchequer process had been issued, and a man's property sold, for 12l., and that the solicitor's bill amounted to 140l. He would ask the House, whether it was fit that distress should be made the sport of merciless litigation, merely to enrich the lawyers and to degrade the law? Were not these cases which called for control? He was aware they would be told, that no proceeding could be filed by the solicitor of the Exchequer until the whole question had been laid before the board of Excise or Customs, and that all proceedings must be instituted under their direction, and proceeded in under their supervision. Now this proved one of two things—either that there was a culpable negligence on the part of the commissioners, or else the powers vested in them were insufficient; for, would any one venture to assert, that an efficient supervision was exercised in Exchequer prosecutions at present? Would any one venture to assert, that the solicitor who was unsuccessful in half the cases he undertook had a right to demand his expenses for cases of his own instituting? He had before him a case of peculiar severity and hardship: it was that of captain Bryant, who commanded a vessel in the Surinam trade. It was regulated, by the Navigation act, that a penalty of 200l. should be incurred in every case where there appeared a variance between the manifest and the ship's cargo. It appeared, that capt. Bryant, after having taken in his cargo, was applied to to take on board forty-five casks of pepper: he found it was impossible to take the casks on board, but consented to find stowage for the pepper if it was shipped in bags. The pepper was shipped in that form, but it had been previously entered in the manifest as shipped in casks. The captain explained this to the proper authorities here; and so clear did the matter appear, that he was allowed 268 to amend his manifest and correct the mistake. After another voyage, the first thing that met him on reaching England, was a process from the Exchequer, which was brought to trial. A most respectable house in the city memorialised the Customs, and represented the case as it really was; and after several attendances the memorial was rejected, without any reason being assigned. A second application was made; and the answer made by Mr. Carr, the solicitor to the Excise, was, that no offer had been made by the defendant, but that his case would be again considered. Application succeeded application, and each was rejected with disdain. There was a feature in the proceedings of these public boards, on petitions, which called for the loudest reprobation. No innocent man could obtain redress, who did not begin with a false-hood. Guilt was the first object of their veneration; a man must disrobe himself of character to be respectable with them; penalty and innocence must go hand in hand, and he who vindicated his integrity must pay the forfeit of oppression. Captain Bryant resisted this indignity, and proceeded to trial. The case went into the Exchequer, and when the amended manifest was tendered in evidence, the chief baron refused to receive it, on the ground that the commissioners of Excise had no power to allow it to be amended, and a verdict for the full penalty of 200l. was recorded. The captain tendered a bill of exceptions; and after having been driven about from court to court, it was at length agreed, that he should pay the costs of the whole proceeding, no penalty being demanded. The costs of this ill-used man exceeded 250l. Many instances of similar hardship might be given; but he would forbear to press them, for the oppressive character of this court was known to every man who was not deaf to abuse, or thriving by it. He expected to be told that a salutary remedy against expenses had been recently introduced, by giving the magistrates a summary jurisdiction in these matters. He, for one, totally dissented from this impression; he regarded every measure which enlarged the power of the magistrates as a dangerous innovation on the trial by jury; and least of all did he approve it in the administration of laws so arbitrary and conflicting as those of the Customs and Excise. He would detail to the House a specimen of the working of this magisterial system, and he 269 appealed to the hon. member for Essex near him, in confirmation of his statement. He alluded to the case of William Stock, who keeps a free road-side house at Stebbing, in Essex. This honest, but ill-used, man was summoned on the afternoon of a Saturday, before a bench of clerical barons, who held their court of exchequer at Dunmow, to answer the charge of an exciseman, for tunning a parcel of beer without first entering the same in his daybook. No day was mentioned in the summons, nor indeed was the transaction —all was painful conjecture. The oath of the informer was rubric with the magisterial parsonocracy, and poor Stock, in spite of all remonstrance, and of an honest name, was fined 50l. He paid the money, but the charge hung heavily on his heart. Restless under unmerited accusation, he resolved on the vindication of his character. He felt he was innocent; he knew his accuser was guilty of perjury; and he risked the little accumulation of an industrious life in the maintenance of his honour. Peachy, the officer, was tried at Chelmsford for the foul crime of perjury; and, in spite of the law-learning, and of the silk gowns arrayed on his side, the omnipotence of truth, aided by one intrepid counsel, prevailed, and the protegé of the clerical barons of Dunmow was declared guilty of perjury! And what had the officers of the Crown since done? Returned to honest Wm. Stock his fine and his costs? No: they had stretched their ingenuity to find a flaw, and had moved to set the verdict aside; not because the evidence against him was untrue—not for any misdirection of the judge—not because any material witness was absent—but because Stock was described in the indictment as a brewer, he being in fact a victualler; and it was to protect a miserable wretch of this sort, that the public money was spent, and the dignity and talent of the bar abused. He trusted that the memorial which had been sent to the Treasury in behalf of this much-injured man, signed by all the respectability of his neighbourhood, and speaking of him in terms of which greater men might be proud, would be successful, and that he would be reimbursed the 300l. he had nobly spent in defence of his fame and happiness. He must observe, that the deciding on Excise-laws was not the duty of a Protestant clergyman; nay, he would go further; and say, that when such a person became perfectly competent to decide on 270 an Exchequer case, he might with advantage be appointed to the office of attorney-general, but he from that moment was rendered unfit to discharge the sacred duties of his office as a Christian teacher.—If he had clearly explained what he meant to state, he thought he had made out a case which called for a more efficient control in the management of these causes, and therefore a case for inquiry. He had avoided making use of names as much as possible. It was the system with which he found fault, and not those who acted under it. His opinion was, that these proceedings should be directed by an officer of adequate responsibility, and that such office should be open equally to all parties, in order that even-handed justice might be dealt out to all. It was far from his intention to protect any persons who might be found to have wilfully violated the law. Let such persons be visited with the necessary punishment, but let that punishment be appropriate, and not regulated by the rapacity of cost-making solicitors. Let the law be so framed that, while it visited the delinquent, it might be found the shield and protection of the unoffending—The hon. member concluded by moving, "That it is expedient, that an efficient control should be appointed over the origin and conduct of all proceedings instituted by the Crown for the recovery of penalties under the Customs and Excise Laws."
The Attorney-generalsaid, that the hon. gentleman had stated the subject and arranged his case with great clearness and ability; but as he was not acquainted with all the facts to which the hon. gentleman had alluded, he trusted the House would not impute it to any want of respect, if he should omit to notice any point in the statement they had just heard. The hon. gentleman began by taking the two branches of the Excise and the Customs, the union of which he had described as productive of no good to the revenue. He had stated that government was still subject to the payment of 12,000l. costs over and above the amount of the penalties received. Now, he thought the House would agree with him in thinking, that 12,000l. a year was not a very extravagant sum for the protection of a revenue amounting to 43,000,000l. The Excise-laws embraced all points connected with the internal policy of the country, as arising out of its ordinary trade and manufactures; and the Customs-laws, all points connected 271 with its commercial policy as arising out of its imports and exports. They embraced all points connected with the revenue and the Navigation laws,—they embraced every statute, every question, every doubt, arising out of treaties, acts of parliament, and usages of commerce; and, though such was die case, the complaint of the hon. member was, that in protecting a revenue of forty-three millions, we expended 12,000l. The hon. member asserted, that this was a large sum to expend for such an object. He differed from him, toto cœlo, upon that point. He said, that the protection of the Excise and Customs-laws was cheap indeed, if it did not cost the country more than 12,000l. a year. The next assertion of the hon. member was, that the litigation occasioned by the prosecutions for infraction of the Revenue laws tended very much to the propagation of costs; that such prosecutions, however they might begin, were almost certain to send in a frightful amount of costs and penalties; and that they operated, in consequence, unequally, and oppressively upon the suitor. In support of this assertion, the hon. gentleman cited the number of prosecutions for the Customs and the Excise. The Customs, he said, were 940; the Excise 911; making a total of 1,851. Of these the hon. gentleman said, there were one thousand unsuccessful, and only eight hundred and fifty successful; and, therefore, he drew the inference, that there must have been one thousand prosecutions improperly instituted. If the Crown had brought these one thousand prosecutions before the court of Exchequer and had lost them, this argument would have some weight; but when the House was informed, that these prosecutions had not been either lost or abandoned, but that, on the contrary, the Crown had been successful in almost every one of them, he conceived that the hon. gentleman was totally mistaken in his conclusion. Let them look to what had occurred in the department of the Excise, in 1823. The Crown brought into the court of Exchequer two hundred and thirty-five cases: in fifty-nine cases it obtained verdicts; in three the defendants were successful; and in a hundred and seventy-three, compromises were made in court before trial. In 1824, out of the informations filed in the same court, the Crown obtained sixty verdicts, the defendants two, and a hundred and forty-seven were compromised before trial. In 1825, out 272 of two hundred and fifty informations, the Crown lost verdicts in eight cases only. In 1826, out of a hundred and twenty-seven, it lost two; and in 1827, out of hundred and sixty-three, it lost three. In the five years he had mentioned, nine hundred and ninety-nine cases had been set down for trial, and in eighteen only had there been a failure on the part of the Crown to obtain a verdict. He thought that, after what he had stated, the observations which the hon. member had made upon the improper and oppressive conduct of attornies and solicitors general should be taken cum grano salis. He thought that they ought to stand well with the House, when it appeared that, in the course of five years, they had instituted nine hundred and ninety-nine prosecutions in defence of the Excise laws, and had only failed in eighteen. He thought that this was a good per centage of success on their parts; and he could assure the House that the per centage of success, on account of the good conduct of the law officers of the Crown, was as large in the Customs as it was in the Excise. In 1823, three hundred and sixteen informations were filed; and how many of them, did the House suppose, had failed? Not one—the return was nil. That was a sort of annus mirabilis for the Attorney-general. In 1824, there were two hundred and nineteen informations filed, and only two failures: in 1825, there were a hundred and fifty-one informations, and only two failures: in 1826, there were seventy-four informations and only one failure; and in 1827, there were twenty-eight informations, but no failures at all. He hoped he had said enough to prove, that this invisible and extraordinary person, the Attorney-general, was not so odious, or so cruel in the execution of the duties of his office, as he appeared through the gangrene medium in which the hon. gentleman exhibited him. The next point to which the hon. member for Colchester had directed his attention was, the conduct of the Boards under which these prosecutions were commenced, and the amount which was recovered as penalties by their exertions.—The hon. member complained that, although penalties to the amount of upwards of one million had been sued for, the whole amount recovered was only 157,826l. After observing, that an information had frequently counts for a penalty, because a person failed, to make 273 the proper entries; and for other penalties, because he had not sent out the proper permits; and again, perhaps, for not preparing and keeping, according to regulation, some peculiar documents, the hon. and learned gentleman proceeded to contend, that these multiplied counts for penalties were never insisted upon by the Crown, or by the Boards, except in cases of aggravated fraud and deception; and that they were always content with the most moderate penalty, when they saw any thing produced in mitigation of the offence. It was his practice, when he was clearly entitled to have a verdict, to make a compromise without bringing it to trial, unless he thought there were particular circumstances in the case, which rendered it advisable, for the public interest, to have it regularly discussed in the court of Exchequer. Proceeding in his speech, the hon. member said, "Now you have got 157,000l. odd into your till, what becomes of it? Why, you give away 45,897l. of it to informers." He would ask, was it his fault, or the fault of any of the Boards, that such a sum should be paid to informers? The whole of the acts upon which these penalties were recoverable, recognised the existence and reward of informers. The principle of proceeding upon informations of this description was as old as the times of queen Anne, and had been recognised by every act passed by the legislature since that period. The revenue could not be protected without them. Few, if any, of the frauds upon its regulations could reach the knowledge of the Crown unless by their assistance; and he believed most sincerely, that if they were to come to a determination of giving informersnil in point of reward, they would benil in point of information.—The hon. member who brought the subject before the House, possessed, he felt bound to admit, very great ingenuity; but all his ingenuity had failed him when he attempted to point out any remedy for that which he considered an evil. The hon. member had talked of tribunals; but he would fearlessly challenge the hon. member to point out any tribunal, of any kind, so well adapted as the court of Exchequer to the trial of offences of this description, or to name any kind of court of law, which, in its administration of justice upon cases connected with the revenue, could give more satisfaction to the country. The hon. gentleman had mentioned several 274 cases in which the costs had been very large, although the penalties sought to be recovered were very small. Those cases had neither dates nor names, and the hon. gentleman must, therefore, be left to enjoy them in the solitude of his own reflection. For his part, he knew nothing of them, but he did recollect very lately, that a person was sued for penalties, small indeed in amount, although the costs would undoubtedly be very large. It happened, however, to be a case which involved all the acts of parliament with respect to the duties upon glass; and, therefore, although the hon. gentleman might say that the end was disproportioned to the means, in the cases he had alluded to, he was prepared to contend, that the object to be answered was one which perfectly justified the course adopted by the Crown; and that it was one of those cases which required and demanded a public investigation. The hon. member had complained of the fees which, under the present system, were paid to the clerks in court. On this head he should be very short, as those fees would come under the consideration of a commission recently appointed. Thus much, however, he would say, that the hon. member was quite mistaken in supposing that their situations were sinecures. It had recently fallen to his lot to name an individual to succeed to one of these vacant clerkships; and he had refused to name a gentleman, who was strongly recommended to him, until he had given him his word that he would take notes of every case affecting the revenue which came into the court, and would thus collect, for the use of the barons, a mass of information which could not fail to be highly serviceable to them. He therefore contended that the remuneration which the clerks in court received was not greater than that to which they were entitled, by the talent and labour which they were obliged to bring to the discharge of their different duties.—The hon. member appeared to imagine, that in consequence of these prosecutions the offices of attorney and solicitor general were too largely paid by the miserable fees which they received for conducting them. He would assure the House, that the law-officer of the Crown who bestowed his time in supporting cases in the Exchequer, was a loser and not a gainer by it. He had been days and weeks confined to the court of Exchequer, to the Joss of the far more lucrative 275 practice, which, if he had not been kept there, he should have had in the House of Lords. The hon. and learned gentleman then alluded to the case of captain Bryant, and observed, that he had been prosecuted for a breach of some regulations upon the subject of his manifest. Of the case, however, he knew nothing; but he did know that these regulations with regard to manifests were of great importance, as gross frauds were attempted to be practised by persons who made false entries. In a recent case, a very valuable picture had been discovered between two marble slabs, although the manifest contained no entry of any thing but a slab of marble.—He next adverted to the case of Stock, and which had the advantage of coming to them supported by the hon. member for Essex, to whom, without mixing him up with this man or that, he would say that every thing belonged, which ought to belong to a man of honour, and character. But what was the case? There was an act in existence, whereby offenders against the Revenue laws, might, at a great saving of expense to individuals, be taken before a local tribunal of magistrates, and there have their cases decided. It happened that, in the case of Stock, this tribunal sat upon a Saturday night, and that it was called upon to receive an information as to whether he had or had not signed papers, which he should have put, by a given time, into the Excise-office. It was very important that notice should be given by every manufacturer to the Excise, in order that some officer of it might attend to calculate the duties. The hon. member had spoken as if the question in the case had been a question as to whether it was tenor eleven o'clock; but the real fact was, that the man gave no notice, and that the magistrates, who turned out to be the clerical barons, convicted him for not giving it. The party convicted proceeded against the witnesses for perjury, and had obtained a verdict against them at the assizes for Chelmsford. It was not the fault of the Attorney-general if the witnesses committed perjury, or if the magistrates erroneously convicted Stocks on perjured evidence. Since that time application had been made to the court of King's-bench to set aside the conviction; and if this were the whole of the case, he thought that no great grievance had been proved against the present system. The local jurisdiction given to magistrates in these 276 cases was, he contended, a great boon to the public, by the saving of expense which it produced in the attendance of witnesses from the remotest corners of the kingdom, at Westminster. This alteration was produced chiefly through the influence of the present Master of the Mint, to whom on that account the country was much obliged. For his own part he was convinced that the alteration was a large, substantial, and merciful mitigation of the laws. During the last Term there was only one Custom prosecution; and he believed that three parts out of four of the offences against the Excise were now disposed of by the local tribunals. In conclusion, he stated that he did not know what substitute the hon. member intended to propose for the system which he wished to upset. The hon. member seemed anxious to launch the House into the boundless ocean of legislation, to plunge it into the mare magnum of doubt and difficulty; but he trusted that the House would not be precipitately led away by a flourish of words, with the idea that it was possible to devise a petty system for the protection of a revenue of 43,000,000l.
§ Mr. Westernadmitted that the proposition of the hon. member for Colchester was too general, and that he had not pointed out any particular remedy for the grievances of which he complained. He was of opinion that a more efficient control than that which existed at present should be imposed upon the Boards of Customs and Excise. With reference to the case of Mr. Stock, that individual had been convicted summarily under a mistake of the magistrates; who, he believed, had become sensible of their error. The evidence upon which he had been convicted was the false testimony of an Excise officer; and the individual did not himself know the charge against him. The magistrates were desirous of mitigating the penalty of 50l., and urged Stock to apply: but he declined, and prosecuted the excise officer for perjury, and convicted him. He hoped that this case would be taken into consideration in the proper quarter. He should support the motion of the hon. member for Colchester; and he agreed with him, that more efficient control should be exercised over the proceedings of the Crown-officers, in suing for penalties under the Excise laws.
The Chancellor of the Exchequerobserved, that if he could sec any prospect 277 of improving the system of the law in this particular, he would be the last to throw any obstacles in the way. It was impossible not to see the hardship of the case mentioned by the hon. gentleman, and which deserved consideration. But, admitting the facts to be as stated, it appeared not to be the result of a defect in the law, still less in those who administered the law. It was one of those unfortunate cases, which must occur in the most perfect system, arising from the perjury of an individual, bringing misery upon the innocent, for which there was no remedy. The hon. member had stated, that the individual had no previous knowledge of the crime with which he was charged. This was scarcely possible, as he must have had the information. He should give his best consideration to the case, with the view of ascertaining what could be done. If the facts were satisfactorily proved, there would be no indisposition on the part of the Treasury to interfere, as they had done in other cases. The hon. member for Essex had said, that a more efficient control should be exerted over the proceedings of the Crown-officers in Exchequer prosecutions. But the Revenue Boards did exercise great care, and never commenced a prosecution without inquiry, nor until they had ample proof of the guilt of the parties. As a proof of this, he would state, that out of nine hundred and eighty-four informations exhibited last year, there had been nine hundred and seventy-one convictions. It seemed to be the object of the hon. mover to get rid of the tribunals before which these suits were brought. He had objected to the court of Exchequer, on account of the expense of bringing up witnesses. This was the old accusation; and now, when summary conviction was established by law to remedy that evil, he said that it disposed of the subject's property without trial by jury. The jurisdiction given to magistrates had generally afforded great relief; and in all cases there was an appeal to the quarter sessions.
§ Mr. Brightsaid, he was surprised that the country had not risen up against the system of Revenue-laws. The new Consolidated law had not got rid of the obnoxious penalties, but had in a few lines re-enacted them. He should not be constent with any consolidated Revenue-law that did not specify the pains and penalties. The returns which had been so trium- 278 phantly appealed to, did not include the remonstrances and appeals to the authorities. If free trade was to be calculated on, this system of law must be altered. He objected to the local jurisdiction which gave to magistrates the power of convicting without appeal. He thought that a great reform in the Excise laws was requisite, and that a complete consolidation of them should take place.
Mr. Herriessaid, he was astonished that the hon. member should not have been aware that the first and chief Consolidation-law had already passed, and contained a material correction of the former acts. By the former law, some inconvenience arose from the local jurisdiction; by the subsequent law, in all cases of prosecution before magistrates, there was an appeal to the quarter-sessions. The right hon. gentleman adverted to the prevalent error, that jurors received a larger remuneration if they found a verdict for the Crown than for another party, and stated that, from the best information he could obtain, such a practice never had existed.
§ Mr. W. Smithrose amidst cries of "question," He said, there had been some cases within his knowledge of such extravagant injustice under the Excise laws, that he had had some intention of bringing them before this House. Then the expenses of these prosecutions: this was a subject which had not received an answer from the other side [The hon. member was here stopped by cries of "question."]
§ The House then divided. For the motion 39; against it 146. Majority against the motion 107.
| List of the Minority. | |
| Baring, A. | Lennard, S. B. |
| Baring, F. | Lumley, S. |
| Baring, sir T. | Marjoribanks, S. |
| Bentinck, lord G. | Milbank, R. |
| Bernal, R. | Marshall, W. |
| Birch, J. | Monck, J. B. |
| Craddock, col. | Martin, J. |
| Caulfield, hon. H. | Maxwell, J. |
| Dawson, A. | Maberly, colonel |
| Easthope, J. | Palmer, C. F. |
| Euston, lord | Russell, lord W. |
| Fergusson, sir R. | Rickford, W. |
| Grosvenor, hon. H. | Smith, W. |
| Hume, J. | Sykes, D. |
| Heneage, G. F. | Stuart, V. |
| Heathcote, R. E. | Wilson, sir R. |
| Howick, lord | Wood, J. |
| Jordan, Robt. | Western, C. C. |
| Warburton, H. | TELLERS. |
| Wrottesley, sir J. | Harvey, D. W. |
| Waithman, alderman | Bright, H. |