CLASS 3.—LAW AND JUSTICE. (Hansard, 18 March 1878)

§ MR. WHITWELL
asked how it was that the salaries of the Admiralty Legal Branch had been omitted from the original Estimate?

MR. C. BECKETT-DENISON
wished to remind those hon. Members who cried out for the luxury of a Public Prosecutor, what they had in store if such an appointment took place. The present Vote was an example of what they would have to provide in the shape of legal expenses.

§ COLONEL STANLEY
admitted that the cost for criminal prosecutions during the past year had been very considerable. The amount of legal business now transacted for the Treasury, and which was borne on the Navy Estimates for the year 1876–7, caused an increase of something like £6,700, which had to be provided for. That constituted a transfer simply from the Admiralty to the Treasury, which it was deemed desirable to make for the sake of uniformity. A further increase of the Vote was due to the expenses which had been incurred in certain protracted criminal eases.

§ SIR ANDREW LUSK
protested against the growing custom of unduly prolonging criminal proceedings in their earlier stages. A great deal of time was wasted in that way; while juries were subjected to a very severe and, in his opinion, quite unnecessary amount of inconvenience and even positive suffering.

§ MR. FORSYTH
expressed his concurrence in the view which the hon. Baronet had taken. The enormous increase of £21,000 under the head of criminal prosecutions was, he thought, due to the re-duplication of evidence before the Police Courts, and afterwards before the Judges. It was now, in fact, the practice to try a man twice over, and he 1559 had observed with, surprise that in the cases of the Queen v. Meiklejohn and the Queen v. Benson, the proceedings had occupied a longer time before the magistrates than when the defendants had afterwards been tried at the Central Criminal Court. In his opinion, that length of time was unnecessary; for all the magistrates had to do was to ascertain that there was a strong primâ facie ease against a prisoner, in order to justify them in committing him for trial.

§ MR. BULWER
said, he entirely differed from his hon. and learned Friend who had just spoken, and hoped that no magistrates would be so far misled as to follow his advice. Unless a case were thoroughly investigated before a magistrate, very great dissatisfaction would, he thought, be the result. A magistrate, he contended, instead of being satisfied with a merely primâ facie case against a prisoner, should hear all the evidence which could be adduced against him, so that when he was placed upon his trial before a Judge, he might know what it was which he was called upon to answer. It would be a gross injustice to a prisoner if he were sent to prison upon what to the justices might seem a primâ facie case, and at his trial he were to be confronted with any number of witnesses, not one of whom had he seen, or had an opportunity of cross-examining, or of rebutting their evidence. The public were very jealous, indeed, upon the subject of a prisoner having a fair trial; and he hoped no change would be made which would tend to lessen their confidence in the fair administration of justice.

§ SIR WILLIAM FRASER
was not surprised to see so large a sum as £21,000 charged in the Estimates, when the protracted trials which had so much excited the attention of the public last year were taken into account. He looked upon the charge, however, as most preposterous.

§ MR. O'DONNELL
suggested the propriety, in the case of very long and complicated trials, of giving juries somewhat ampler remuneration than they received at present. The country, he thought, would not grudge the outlay for such a purpose, and it would tend to popularize the jury system.