§ MR. WHITWELLsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether the attention of the Treasury has been drawn to the fact that the fees received in the Superior Courts of Common Law equal the expenditure less an amount of only about 6 per cent in the two years ending March 1869 and 1870, while in the Court of Probate the expenditure exceeded the fees in 1869 by £76,373, or more than one-third, and in 1870 by £55,008, or nearly one-third of the whole expenditure; and, if the Government has any intention of causing the scale of fees to be so altered as to make the probable amount of fees equal to the expenditure?
§ MR. STANSFELDsaid, he was afraid, in the first place, that his hon. Friend took too favourable a view of the balance between expenditure and 1842 receipt in the Superior Courts of Common Law when he said that the fees received in those Courts equalled the expenditure less an amount of only 6 percent. His hon. Friend might observe, if he looked to the Return from which, no doubt, his figures were taken, that the salaries of the Judges were not included. But, whatever the basis of his calculation might be, his hon. Friend placed on one hand the Courts of Common Law and on the other the Court of Probate, and stated that in the case of the latter Court the expenditure exceeded the fees in 1869 by £76,373, or more than one-third of the whole expenditure. The answer was, that the whole of the difference apparently in favour of the Common Law Courts and against the Court of Probate was caused by the very heavy compensation payable by the Court of Probate under the legislation of some years ago, when compensation was provided for proctors and others. He thought his hon. Friend would understand that it would be unreasonable to raise the fees of the Court so as to make the suitors of the present day pay those compensation allowances.