MOTION FOR AN ADDEE8S.

HC Deb 10 February 1881 vol 258 cc572-616

MR. H. H. FOWLER

, in rising to move— That an humble Address he presented to Her Majesty, praying that so much of the Order in Council, dated the 16th day of December 1880, made in pursuance of section 32 of 'The Judicature Act, 1873,' as relates to the abolition of the offices of Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer may not come into operation, said, he greatly regretted that the subject involved in the Order in Council should be discussed on the Motion he now submitted to the House. If the course the Government proposed to adopt was a beneficial and desirable one, it would only be a partial dealing with the grave condition of affairs, which an imperfect, not to say hostile, administration of the Judicature Acts had entailed upon the suitors and the public. A Bill grappling with the acknowledged evils of our system of Judicature, and providing suitable remedies, would have been a proposal as well meriting the attention of the House as any Bill promised in the Speech from the Throne affecting England; but as the Government had thought otherwise, as they offered as a panacea for the breakdown of the Judicature Acts a symmetrical improvement in the external organization of the Common Law Divisions, accompanied by the abolition of two of the most venerable, most illustrious, and, as he ventured to think, most useful of our Judicial Offices, they were debarred from the consideration of those remedies which would remove the grievances, of which there was such loud, general, and just complaint, and were confined to a consideration of the question whether the alterations embodied in the Order in Council would aggravate or alleviate those grievances. It was necessary, in order that the House might consider the probable operation of the Order in Council on the working of the Judicature Acts, to call attention to the reforms those Acts were intended to accomplish, and to point out how far those reforms had been attained. The Judicature Act of 1873, amended by the Act of 1875, proposed to consolidate the Court of Chancery and the Superior Courts of Common Law into one Supreme Court— administering justice upon the same principles, adopting the same forms of procedure, and applying and enforcing the same remedies—in other words, the abolition of the double system of Judicature, the conflict and confusion of rival jurisdictions, and of that absurd and costly variety of pleadings, evidence, and trials, which disfigured, not to say disgraced, our administration of justice. It further contemplated a speedy, efficient, and economical administration of justice by simplifying pleadings, by continuous sittings of the Courts for the trial of causes, by attempting to obviate the evils of unnecessary and protracted Va- cations, and by a re-distribution of judicial time and power. To carry out this great object the Legislature constituted one Supreme Court of Judicature, consisting of two Divisions — the primary one called the High Court of Justice, and the appellate one called the Court of Appeal. The High Court consisted of five Divisions—Chancery, with the Lord Chancellor, the Master of the Rolls, and the Vice Chancellors; the Queen's Bench, with the Lord Chief Justice and the Puisne Judges; the Common Pleas, with the Lord Chief Justice and the Puisne Judges; the Exchequer, with the Lord Chief Baron and his Puisne Judges; and the Probate, Admiralty, and Divorce Courts. The present Order in Council proposed that the three Common Law Divisions should be consolidated into one, to be called the Queen's Bench Division. The constitution of the High Court of Appeal had undergone a variety of changes during the last few years. It began in 1873 with five ex-officio and three ordinary Judges. In 1875 three Puisne Judges were added, one being taken from each Court; and in 1876 it was constituted as now, with five ex-officio Judges and six ordinary Judges, called Lords Justices of Appeal. The change to be made by the Order in Council would be of a retrograde character, and would affect the strength and efficiency of the Court of Appeal. In all the changes affecting the High Court of Appeal the five ex-officio Judges were always retained— namely, the Lord Chancellor, the Master of the Polls, and the three Chiefs. The advantage of that retention was this— they had in the Court of Appeal four Judges, who also sat as Judges in the Primary Court, trying causes and conducting the ordinary business. Constituted in the manner described, the Supreme Court of Judicature was intended to combine the advantages of the rival systems of law and equity. Each was to absorb the best features of the other. Special pleading was to be abolished, viva voce evidence was to be made compulsory, there were to be continuous sittings in London and Westminster, and there was to be a special machinery for dealing with intricate cases not suited for trial by Judge and jury. These proposed changes constituted a wise and statesmanlike reform worthy of the high reputation of the two Lord Chancellors and the respective Law Officers of the Liberal and Conservative Administrations who co-operated in carrying the Acts. But Parliament did not complete its work; it left an unusual and unwise discretion to a majority of Judges and to Orders in Council. Perhaps Parliament saved itself a fortnight of unattractive labour; but the result had been vexation, disappointment, and failure. The machinery, the rules, and the regulations by which the great changes introduced by the Act were to be effected were delegated to men who had been trained in, and who wore attached to, the system and the practice which Parliament intended to abolish. Professional experience and success had been gained in the old paths, and ago, as well as inclination, dissuaded those representatives of the past from carrying out the reforms which the Legislature had sanctioned, so that the intentions, of Parliament had been thwarted, and the best provisions of the Judicature Act had been maimed or neutralized. Litigation was never so costly; arrears were never so numerous; delays were never so intolerable and unjustifiable; and the whole judicial machinery was never so completely blocked as at this moment. The Profession, the suitors, and the public united in deploring a condition of things which those who were in authority would not remedy—he said advisedly "would not"—and the continuance of which was a grave scandal on the administration of justice. The fusion had completely broken down. In Equity they clung with such characteristic tenacity to their old-fashioned mode of taking written evidence, which meant evidence drawn by one man, sworn to by another, and read by a third, that viva voce evidence was the exception and not the rule. Trial by jury had been cleverly and successfully driven out, "bag and baggage," by the Judges of the Chancery Division. In the Courts of Common Law the one reform which was the great advantage of the Equity system as the reform which lay at the basis of all other reforms, and without which all other reforms would be useless—he meant one Judge sitting by himself to dispose completely of the cause before him—had been so minimized, hampered, and restricted as to be of little practical value. The clause which the present Attorney General induced the late Attorney Gene- ral to accept in 1870, which was intended to make the one-Judge system compulsory, was, unfortunately, made subject to Rules of Court, by which the clause had been nullified to such an extent as to be virtually repealed. Lord Westbury once said of an eminent Judge, who was fond of sitting with his colleagues, that "he was afraid of sitting alone in the dark." He should be very sorry to make such a disrespectful remark concerning the Common Law Judges. But knowing, as he did, that so far as learning, experience, and judicial ability were concerned, they wore on perfectly equal terms with the Judges of the Chancery Division, he was at a loss to understand why they should shrink from exercising the sole judicial responsibility at Westminster which was undertaken at Lincoln's Inn. The reform in procedure had not been a success; the advantages of the old system had been lost, and the disadvantages of the now one gained. Special pleading, with all its faults, was at least logical; it did define the issue the Court had to try; but the new pleadings, restrained by no requirement of support by evidence, were vague, verbose, and misleading. Interlocutory applications were multidlied indefinitely, and appeals had enormously increased, and costs preliminary to trial had reached a point hitherto unknown. There was in The Times of Wednesday the report of an appeal, in which the claim was £21, and £17 10s. had been paid into Court, so that the sum in dispute was £3 10s. The greatest grievance of all, and that which he thought this Order in Council would tend to increase, was the delay and confusion in the trial of causes, and in the regular sittings of the Courts. The state of things described by the present Attorney General shortly before the Dissolution still existed. It had never entered into the brain of the able and costly staff of officials attached to the Common Law Division to publish a sittings paper, stating the days on which causes would be tried, Divisional Courts holden, and appeals heard. It was all higgledy piggeldy, and a state of confusion which the organizing experience of a railway traffic manager would reduce to regularity in a single week, had been allowed to go on for years, alternately exciting the contempt and arousing the indignation of the suitors, who had to pay heavily for this stupid miscarriage of justice. At the commencement of the present sittings 1,000 cases were waiting for trial in London, and 200 in the Court of Appeal. Last year produced 4,238 causes, of which only 1,983 were tried, and 1,104 wore struck out, the rest being postponed. In about 25 per cent of the causes tried in London and the country, the amount at stake was under £50; and the extension of the jurisdiction of the County Courts to this amount, which the hon. Member for Hull (Mr. Norwood) was so anxious to carry, would practically place the services of two Judges at the disposal of suitors in the causes involving higher amounts. The Legislature directed that continuous sittings for the trial of causes should be held in London and Middlesex; but the Judges had practically changed the word "and" into "or," for sittings had never been held in Middlesex simultaneously with those in London, and continuous sittings had been held in neither. The sittings at Guildhall for the trial of commercial cases had practically come to an end. In addition to the want of continuous sittings, the delays had been greatly increased by the inordinate length of modern trials. Judicial days were abbreviated on the principle adopted by Charles Lamb, who, when remonstrated with fur coming to the India House late in the morning, said he made up for it by leaving early in the afternoon. Mr. Justice Williams had alluded to the rapid despatch of Judges in bygone times, and said they rushed through the Cause List like an elephant through a rice-field. He could not help thinking that justice delayed and justice deferred was too often justice denied, and suitors would prefer the more rough and rapid mode of trying their causes than the more polished, the more dilatory, and certainly more costly system of the present day. By the enormous and increasing cost of litigation the poor man was heavily handicapped, while the rich man or the powerful Corporation had an unfair advantage They had been talking of a country where the Queen's Writ did not run; but in England the Queen's Courts might be said in some respects to be closed. The cost of obtaining justice was so enormous, that they might be said to sell justice. What was the remedy which the Government proposed? If the Government had said to the Attorney General that no professional interest or prejudice should interfere with the carrying out of a wise and efficient judicial reform, the same hand that drew the drastic Corrupt Practices Bill would be able to draw an equally successful Judicial Reform Bill. But until the Government applied pressure in this matter, lawyers never would, for they were all members of a great trade union. The remedy now proposed was to abolish two of the sub-Divisions—the Common Pleas and Exchequer Division—and to consolidate the Queen's Bench Division under what Lord Chief Justice Cockburn called the nominal presidency of one Lord Chief Justice. He admitted frankly that there was no necessity for three Divisions, and he thought that the consolidation would be a great improvement. But the practical value of this alteration depended entirely upon whether it was accompanied by a stringent and regular working of the one-Judge system, and by continuous sitting, according to the ordinary use of the word, de die in diem, in London and Westminster. To merge three Divisions into one, and to keep up that waste of judicial time and judicial power called a Divisional Court, would be an alteration of the idlest character, and would only afford further facilities for nullifying the effect of the Judicature Acts. The Attorney General had so recently explained his views on this subject, that he did not believe he would be a party to such a fiasco as that. Relying on the conviction he entertained that the Attorney General would do his utmost to increase the regular sittings of the Judges on the single-Judge system, he did not propose to dissent from that part of the Order in Council; but the other part of the change from which he asked the House to dissent was a change recommended by no practical advantage, while it tended to detract from the dignity of the Judicial Bench, and to deprive the public of one of its safest and securest guarantees for an efficient Primary Court and a Court of Appeal. The Order in Council proposed to abolish the Lord Chief Justiceship of the Common Pleas and the Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and to substitute for them two ordinary Puisne Judges. It was not proposed to do away with two useless and unnecessary Judges, and to reduce the number of the Judges—no- hing of the kind; they were taking away two Judges of the first rank, and substituting two Judges of the second rank. What did those offices and titles represent? They represented two Judges of the highest rank, chosen from the leaders of the Bar, not only pre-eminent as advocates, but men who had associated with their professional distinction the statesmanlike and legislative experience which attached to Law Officers of the Crown. They represented two Judges of the highest rank presiding over trials of the greatest importance— two Judges strengthening the Court of Appeal, of which they were ex officio members, by that tact, experience, knowledge of men and of affairs so essential to the constitution of a strong Appeal Court. Upon what principle of Law Reform were the public to be deprived of the enormous advantage they had derived during a long succession of years from the efficient discharge of the duties of those eminent Judges? It might be said that the Judges themselves had come to the opinion that these Offices should be abolished. But the opinions of the Judges should be weighed as well as numbered. He did not mean to imply the slightest disrespect or reflection; but they wore entitled to see how far their official character was involved in the alteration. He did not think that Judges of Courts of Equity had any special knowledge of this question beyond that possessed by any Member of the House. With regard to the Chief Justiceships, great weight would attach to the opinion of Lord Coleridge; but when he spoke in this House on the question he opposed the abolition, and the other two Chiefs were absent. Where were the men who would have represented those Offices? They knew that the late Lord Chief Justice was determinedly opposed to these alterations. The 12 Common Law Judges were 7 to 5 in favour of the Order in Council—no such strong, he would not say consensus, but agreement, as to justify the change. Throe Judges had written their opinions for the benefit of the public—Mr. Justice Williams, in a short, terse letter, and Mr. Justice Stephen, in a long, elaborate, and unanswerable article, had opposed the change; and a third Judge had written a letter to The Times, signed "B;" but as several of the Judges' names began with that letter, everything depended on the position, experience, and prepossessions of the author. If that letter was written by a Judge who had been an eminent Member of that House, of considerable legislative experience, a Law Law Officer of the Crown, it would be a strong argument in favour of the change. But if the letter was written by a Judge who never had been a Member of that House, or served the Crown as one of its Law Officers; if it was written by one whose eminence rested exclusively upon his profound knowledge of Commercial Law, but who sometimes took the trouble to show that it was possible to be a very wise Judge but not a very wise politician, he did not think that it would carry weight in this matter. The chief feature of that letter was a reflection upon the late Sir Alexander Cockburn. He was not going to criticize the good taste of a Judge, who must have boon a Colleague, publicly disparaging the judicial career of that great Magistrate; but he accepted the illustration which that letter gave him. Sir Alexander Cockburn was one of the most brilliant advocates that ever distinguished the English Bar, one of the foremost orators of that House, and for nearly a quarter of a century he dignified and adorned the seat of the Chief Justice of England with all the qualities which the Attorney General had so eloquently described. He was a scholar as well as an advocate—a legislator as well as a lawyer—a statesman as well as a magistrate—and, notwithstanding failings which judicial jealousy might remember, he ventured to express the opinion that Sir Alexander Cockburn would rank among those great Judges whoso conduct and career had maintained that high standard of judicial ability which the people of this country greatly cherished. It was because he believed that men like Sir Alexander Cockburn, men who were more than mere Nisi Prius lawyers, were essential to the constitution of a strong Court of Appeal, that he protested against a change which was intended, as that letter frankly admitted, if not to exclude, at least to limit, the chance of men of that character ascending the Bench. This was not the first time the House had discussed the point upon which he was speaking. The Secretary of State for the Home Department and the Attorney General had been consistent; they tad always advocated this change, and had taken a Vote of the House upon it. They sat below the Gangway then; they were Members of the Government now. People sometimes thought that when men joined the Government they subordinated the minor to the major; but in this case the major had been subordinated to the minor. They had conquered the Government; but that was no reason why they should conquer the House of Commons. There were 12 men sitting on the Treasury Bench who, the last time the question was before the House, voted against the abolition of the Offices of Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and Chief Baron of the Exchequer. The Judge Advocate General (Mr. Osborne Morgan), a strong law reformer, spoke and voted against it. Another strong law reformer, the First Commissioner of Works (Mr. Shaw Lefevre), voted against it. A great commercial man, the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education (Mr. Mundella), voted against it. And, ascending to the highest grades of the official hierarchy, among those who voted against it were the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. W. E. Forster), the Secretary of State for War (Mr. Childers), the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for India (the Marquess of Hartington), and, above all and beyond all, the Prime Minister himself. Then of Conservative Members who voted against it were that great lawyer and Judge, Lord Justice Amphlett; that incarnation of common sense, Mr. Henley; and that experienced lawyer and statesman, Mr. Spencer Walpole, whose absence that night they all deplored. The Attorney General (Sir John Coleridge) and the Solicitor General (Sir George Jessel) strongly opposed the abolition of these Offices. Sir John Coleridge said that it was of greater importance than people generally supposed that there should be places which should tempt the more eminent men in the Legal Profession to leave the Bar and go to the Bench. And Sir George Jessel said that it was of the utmost importance that the seats on the Bench should be placed in such a position as to attract the very best legal talent. The Lord Chief Justice and the Master of the Polls, having now attained the fitting rewards of their great abilities, seemed to forget that there might be other Coleridgos and Jessels hereafter who might justly aspire to judicial dignities, which it was the interest of the public they should fill. Any alteration which would indispose the most eminent men at the Bar to ascend the Bench was a dangerous one. A Bar stronger than the Bench very soon came to look down upon the Bench. Anyone familiar with the administration of justice would deprecate the creation of a class of advocates who had no desire to become Judges and no sympathy with the Bench. He agreed with Mr. Justice Stephen, that the inevitable effect of abolishing those ancient and dignified Offices would be to deprive the Bench of its most eminent members and lower it in the estimation of the Bar and the public. They would be told that the dignity and position of an ordinary Judge would attract the most eminent men of the Bar. Let them test that by the facts of history. Taking the last 50 years, who had been Chief Barons of the Exchequer? Lord Lyndhurst, Lord Abinger, Sir Frederick Pollock, and Sir Fitzroy Kelly. Who had been Lord Chief Justices of the Common Pleas? Chief Justices Tindal, Truro, Jervis, Cockburn, Erle, Bovill, and Coleridge. With the exception of Sir William Erle, would anyone assert that any of these men would have taken a Puisne Judgeship, or that it would not have been a great public calamity if they had not taken their seats on the Bench? How many Attorney Generals and Solicitor Generals during that period had accepted Puisne Judgeships? Not one Attorney General. And in the case of the Solicitor Generals, the exceptions were so few as to prove the rule. With the sad exception of that distinguished man, Sir William Follett, whose premature death arrested his brilliant career, every eminent advocate at the English Bar had found the reward of his highest ambition in one or other of the greater Judicial Offices which were the most coveted prizes of the Profession. A Lord Justiceship of Appeal, standing on the same level, so far as salary was concerned, and differing slightly in status with the ordinary Judgeships, could not be an equivalent in rank, public estimation, and historic dignity to any of the three great Chief-ships. It might be said that, the Courts having been done away with, it was the logical consequence of the change that the Presidents of those Courts should follow them, that titles severed from the duties with which they had been associ- ated should be abolished, and that common sense required it. The foremost Member in that House was the Chancellor of the Exchequer—of that very Exchequer of which the late Sir Fitzroy Kelly was the Chief Baron. Did the title and duties of the right hon. Gentleman correspond? No. They associated the name of the Chancellor of the Exchequer with Budgets, the Income Tax, and the Malt Tax, rather than with any judicial duties. Yet the title was a judicial one; but the judicial duties were gone. Sir Robert Walpole was the last Chancellor of the Exchequer who sat judicially. Take the instance of the title and office of Lord Privy Seal, where not a shadow of duty was attached, and yet Leaders on both sides had defended its retention. Where was the Board of Trade? Where was the Local Government Board—the Presidents of which had seats in the Cabinet? The Boards were gone—the Presidents remained. Talce the case of his hon. and learned Friend (the Attorney General). His hon. and learned Friend was neither an attorney nor a general; but he would hardly give up the time-honoured title for some modern one more accurately describing the position and powers of the Office. Talce the Cabinet itself. Why did they not propose to level down the Cabinet? Why did they not propose to have uniform titles with no difference in dignity? If they ran through the whole of our public official life, they found obsolete titles and offices whose present duties had no existence when they were created; and, therefore, the proposal to abolish the titles of the heads of the Courts, because of a change in their duties, was not in harmony with English precedent. He might be asked what special duties did those two dignitaries discharge which could not be discharged by two ordinary Judges to be appointed in their place. He answered that they would bridge the gulf which the Order in Council intended to create between the Judges of Appeal and the Judges of the Primary Courts; they would ward off the danger of two grades of Judges—one superior and one inferior. They would preside over those great trials which attracted the principal share of public interest, and which, so far as popular estimate was concerned, were of far greater importance than the duties in the Court of Appeal. They would in London and Middlesex con- tinuously try those great commercial causes which for generations had been tried at Guildhall and Westminster by the Chiefs. They would strengthen the Court of Appeal by adding to the profound legal knowledge of the ordinary Judges the statesmanlike qualities of men who were lawyers and something more. They would maintain the due relationship between Bench and Bar; they would offer to the best men at the Bar the prizes for which alone they would relinquish their lucrative practices; and they would preserve the Bench from a Bar having no sympathy with it—rivalling it, and possibly surpassing it. Lastly, the retention of these two great Offices would preserve that historic continuity of their Judicial Staff, which every advanced reformer must value, and which every Conservative reformer would gratefully cherish. It would be said that this was sentiment; but sentiment played no small part in every department of our national affairs. It was not always wise to disregard or despise sentiment, especially in the administration of justice. He had no doubt that in some new country or Colony justice might be impartially administered and law correctly expounded by some strong-minded Judge divested of all official costume—probably sitting in his shirtsleeves, with his heels on the table, smoking a cigar or whittling a stick. But would that produce the same effect on the uneducated—nay, on the educated —masses of English society, inspire the same respect for and obedience to the law, as the stately solemnities, the pomp and pageantry, the scarlet and ermine of Her Majesty's Judges, as they went through the length and breadth of the land? Sentiment was an influence and a power with a people proud of a great history, of an ancient Monarchy, and of an old and free Constitution. It was not necessary to go outside the four walls of that Palace for illustrations. The daily ceremonial of that House, the quaint ritual with which the Royal Assent stamped the legislative resolutions of both Houses with the supreme authority of an Act of Parliament—these and a score other of the picturesque peculiarities which characterized our happy union of modern utility with a noble antiquity might be sneered at as sentiment; but they were the symbols, eloquent and enduring, of a national life, whose most glorious privileges had grown with its growth and strengthened with its strength. For six centuries the four Chief Judges of England had borne the titles of Lord High Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Lord Chief Justice of the the Common Pleas, and the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer. Those titles, forming a Peerage of their own, worthy to rank side by side with the Peerage of the territorial aristocracy, for 20 generations had taught the people of England that the noblest duty which a citizen could discharge, the highest honour a citizen could attain, was the administration of justice; and when they recalled the long roll of eminent men by whom those posts had been held, they learnt the further lesson that in this country no class, no caste, no prejudice, no favour could bar the path by which men could climb from the humblest walks of life to the highest dignities of the State. They were asked to sweep away two of these high judicial posts at the bidding of a doctrinaire utilitarianism, which would sacrifice a substantial and permanent advantage to secure the dreary regularity of its own monotonous level. He asked the House, on behalf of the suitors, whose interest it was that justice should be promptly and efficiently administered; he asked it on behalf of the public, whoso interest it was that the most marked ability and highest rank should be in the future, as they had been in the past, the characteristics of the Chief Judicial Offices, not to sanction a change for which no one had asked, which was as useless as it was unnecessary, and which would impair the efficiency and diminish the dignity of Her Majesty's Supreme Court of Judicature.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That an humble Address he presented to Her Majesty, praying that so much of the Order in Council, dated the 16th day of December 1880, made in pursuance of section 32 of 'The Judicature Act, 1873,' as relates to the abolition of the offices of Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer may not come into operation."— (Mr. Henry S. Fowler.)

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)

said, he should not attempt to answer the whole of the eloquent speech to which the House had just listened. He should reply to only one portion of it, because one part answered the other. The House was not so full when the hon. Member began his address as when he closed it. The first part of his speech commonded itself to every Member who sat on that side of the House; but it found no echo from hon. Gentlemen opposite, except from the hon. and learned Member for Bridport (Mr. Warton), who gave his customary cheer. What did the hon. Gentleman say? He said that the result of his great practical experience was that their present system of administration of justice had broken down; that it was impossible either to continue things as they were or to return to the old system; that the existence of Divisional Courts was no longer possible, and that the one-Judge system must prevail. But what was the conclusion of his speech? He wanted the Divisional Courts abolished, but he desired that the Heads of the Divisional Courts should be maintained; and then he used phraseology more worthy of the time of Lord Eldon than of the present day, and, of course, the hon. Gentleman received loud cheers from hon. Gentlemen opposite. He could not help referring to one phrase. The hon. Gentleman said it was necessary, in order to maintain the pomp of the Judicial Bench, that ex-Law Officers of the Crown should sit upon it. He must protest against the statement that ex-Law Officers of the Crown wore more pompous than anyone else. He left the hon. and learned Member for Launceston (Sir Hardinge Giffard) to deal with the hon. Gentleman as to that statement. He hoped his hon. Friend would forgive him for saying that his speech was rather discursive. It was a practical question with which they had to deal—with which business men had to deal. In a question of that kind he would rather appeal to business men than to lawyers, who regarded it very much from a sentimental point of view. He asked, how was the administration of law to be maintained with credit to the country? If those alterations in the law which must be in the direction of advance were to be effected, how could the Offices be maintained which were the subject of discussion? Though formerly there were three Courts, they formed but one means for the administration of justice. Indeed, in their origin those three Courts were only one Court; but when the object of that division had en- tirely ceased, men began to ask themselves why they should continue. An example might suggest itself to the minds of men not lawyers. Suppose one were asked, "Which would you prefer—one estate of 1,500 acres, or three of 500 acres each?" What would be the answer? But if you had an estate of 1,500 acres, you certainly would not cut it up voluntarily into three, or make hindrances to a man passing from one part to another. The old system, with three divided Courts, and suitors waiting in vain in one Court when in another there were Judges having nothing to do, was a great waste of judicial power. Hence had arisen the necessity of bringing three Courts of five Judges each into one Court of 15 Judges. Those wore the feelings which showed themselves in the Judicature Act of 1873. The hon. Member for East Sussex (Mr. Gregory) had spoken against the Divisional Court system, and insisted on the necessity of amalgamating all the three Divisions. It was no secret why that process had not been fully carried out. He, of all men, was least likely to speak in terms other than those of the highest respect of the late Lord Chief Justice. But it was well known that that great Judge was hostile to the system established by the Judicature Acts. He wished to maintain the old system in its integrity. He had declared himself hostile to any alteration in the ancient system. The Lord Chief Justice's opinion was a great power, and most deservedly so, on that question. There was a great body of opinion at first on the part of the Judges, to which concessions had been made. It was only right to do so, in order to obtain their concurrence in working out the changes which had been made by the Legislature. But it was in the first instance admitted that the maintenance of the old system was only to be temporary. His hon. Friend must recollect that the Prime Minister had said, in 1873, that the Offices which it was now proposed to abolish were not to exist for all time. At the time of the Act of 1873 it was distinctly placed upon record that both the Divisional Courts and those who sat at their head must some time come to an end. In the 32nd section of that Act it was enacted that if the Council of Judges should recommend that those Offices should be abolished, they should pass away. In fact, the maintenance of those Offices was only tentative until a convenient opportunity should arrive for their abolition, and the Council of Judges should come to the conclusion that they should be done away with, and the Legislature should express its opinion that that change should be carried into effect. In fact, a compromise had been come to. Thus, step by step, consistent advance had been made. In 1876, when a Conservative Government was in Office, another blow was aimed at the existence of Divisional Courts. The Act of 1876 enabled the business of the Court to be carried on before one Judge, who should exorcise the jurisdiction formerly exercised by two or more Judges. Then, in 1879, by a Statute passed for the convenience of the public and for economy's sake, all distinction between the Divisional Courts and their respective Offices was done away. In 1879 one Office only was constituted for the issue of Writs. Now, also, there was only one list of actions to be tried. They had now the abolition of all distinction between the Offices and of the old names for the Judges; so that if anyone was appointed to the Court of Exchequer, he sat as Justice and not as Baron. There was, therefore, nothing left but the remnant of the distinction which was only maintained for sentimental reasons. His hon. Friend admitted that he wished the Divisional Courts to go; he had acknowledged that they prevented the full administration of justice; that they caused delays, and almost an impossibility of getting to trial; and yet he eloquently pleaded for the retention of the Headships of those Divisions. He had asked that there should be one Judge in the place of a Divisional Court, and had pointed out how absurd it was that they could not, in the Common Law Courts, obtain that sense of responsibility which every Vice Chancellor in the Equity Courts was always ready to bear. Had the hon. Member never heard of two Judges determining a question in which a sum of £3 10.s. was involved? He might mention that the late Lord Chief Justice carried his views so far as to insist upon having two Judges to sit with him. Thus, day after day, three Judges used to sit to hear cases which Vice Chancellors would not hear, but delegated to their chief clerks. Granting that each Judge should have the courage of his opinions in judicial matters, how could they support the maintenance of the two Chief Justices in question? His hon. Friend said that they were to be maintained to regulate their Courts. [Mr. H. II. FOWLER said, he did not say that.] He (the Attorney General) would assume that he was in error, and would ask what these Heads of Divisional Courts were to do? The Senior Judges had never had any more power than the Puisne Judges; as Baron Parke once reminded Lord Abinger, then Chief Baron, when he said that he was only primus inter pares. In fact, the House was asked to maintain the Crown when there were no subjects. In deference to the memory of the past, they were asked to interfere with the administration of justice in the present. Some might say that this was a matter with regard to which great weight ought to be given to opinion emanating from legal sources. He differed from this view, thinking that hon. Members ought to judge the question for themselves. The administration of justice was a practical matter; but practical men wore too apt to leave to lawyers such matters as the one under discussion. His hon. Friend had appealed in support of his case to the weight of judicial authority. He would assume that the Judges wore perfectly independent in this matter. At any rate, the course which they had taken could not have been dictated by any selfish view. Well, when the Judges divided upon the Question now before the House, 20 voted for the abolition of the Offices of Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and only five against it, and every one of those five also voted for the maintenance of Divisional Courts. The hon. Member disagreed with them on this point, though he joined them in wishing for the preservation of two Offices which must become useless if Divisional Courts were done away with. Among those by whom this subject had been considered was the body represented by the Incorporated Law Society of this country; and the Council of that Institution, consisting of men who had long experience in their Profession, had petitioned the House, through his hon. Friend (Mr. Gregory), to effect the contemplated change. Were these interested persons? Were they not likely to be conservative enough to be governed by sentiment in this matter? Yet they had been compelled, by the practical interests of the position in which they were placed, to petition the House in favour of the change. This step was the result of the unanimously expressed opinion of the members of the Council representing the attorneys of this country, and the men who had published that opinion were the best who could be consulted in this matter. There was one body remaining whose views demanded attention—namely, the Bar of England. That body had given utterance to their views, and he had himself presented a Petition from the Members of the Bar praying that the abolition of these Offices should not take place. But he wished to say a word on the subject of that Petition. It proceeded from a largo meeting of the Bar, an open meeting, but one which was promoted by those who wished to oppose the abolition, of the Offices under discussion. He asserted that it was well known that the meeting was convened for the purpose of protesting against the proposed abolition. Well, what took place at that meeting? It was numerously enough attended; but, with all deference to those of his learned friends who took a leading part in the discussion, the active life of the Bar was not conspicuously represented at it. As to the votes given on that occasion, he was certain that out of every 10 persons present five did not vote at all, and he believed that not more than three out of those five voted against the abolition. He did not think that such an expression of opinion from a body of men essentially conservative in everything connected with their Profession was of sufficient weight to cause the House to accept their judgment as conclusive in this matter. He, for one, protested against the view that the interests of the Bar were to interfere with the interests of the public. The interests of that Profession and the interests of the public were really identical; and it was a foolish idea to suppose that any good could result to the Bar if, in order to maintain what were called the prizes of the Profession, justice were, even for one hour, denied to any member of the community. They would be forfeiting the interests of the future by looking merely at the bare considerations of the present. If, however, he had to con- sider the subject of the prizes open to the Profession, he must point out that of late years those prizes had been greatly multiplied, and that, therefore, it might be said that the Bar had received full consideration in advance for the abolition of these Offices. Within the memory of man there had been 12 Judges; that number was increased to 15, and at length to 18. Three Vice Chancellorships had also been created; and instead of two Lord Justiceships there were now six, holding positions which any man at the Bar might be proud to occupy. Then four paid Officers were appointed to sit on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council; and two Lords of Appeal had been added to the House of Lords, who took their rank with other Peers. Surely these were prizes which were of considerable value, and which amply compensated the Profession for the abolition of the two posts in question? It had been urged that it was necessary in the interests of the public that these two Offices should be preserved, so that Judges of high position should preside over the Civil and the Criminal Courts. But the Judges who were brought the most in contact with the public on Circuit and in the Central Criminal Court were not all Chief Justices, and the argument, if worth anything, would go the extent that they should have, not two, but 18 Chief Justices. But it was not to the House only that the power had been given to reject this proposal to abolish these Offices. That same power had been conferred upon another House far more conservative in its views than that House was, and numbering among its Members men of great experience in the legal world, such as Lord Blackburn, Lord Penzance, and, perhaps, one of the greatest Judges that had ever sat on the Judicial Bench, Lord Cairns. Had Lord Cairns chosen to oppose this proposal, and called upon the Conservative majority of the other House to support him, the proposal would have been easily rejected. A voice had been raised "elsewhere" that evening in opposition to the proposal; but where was Lord Cairns?—he was not present to oppose it. ["Order!"] He was breaking through no Rule, for he was referring, not to what had, but to what had not occurred in the other House. They had heard no word from the late Lord Chancellor, nor from any of the Conservative Peers against this proposal; and why, therefore, should this appeal be made to that House, in which were men who most know the wants of the public? The hon. Member had referred to the miserable utility of the present time. If that were a convertible term with Law Reform, he must give the hon. Member the benefit of it. He was not now uttering the opinions he had formed in the course of official life, but those which he had held eight years ago, when he was sitting below the Gangway, and had contended that more utility should be extracted from the Judicial Bench to the greater advantage of the public. He warned the House not to be led away by the eloquent peroration of his hon. Friend, be-cause they would not be doing their duty in the interest of the public, who had for so long had justice denied them, unless they gave the greatest weight to the opinion of the Judges in Council and carried that opinion into effect.

SIR HARDINGE GIFFARD

entirely agreed with what the Attorney General had said—namely, that the interest which had to be consulted in this matter was that of the public. That was a sentiment the utterance of which was tolerably certain to elicit cheers; and the Attorney General must have been perfectly well aware that nobody who was speaking in favour of the Motion would have contended for a moment that the interests of the Bar were comparable with those of the public. The question, however, was whether the proposed changes would really be for the interest of the public, and whether they would not weaken the dignity, the authority, and the attractiveness of the Judicial Bench. It was idle to assume that the changes would be in the interest of the public, and then to argue in opposition to their being carried into effect. What were the changes which were effected in 1873, and what were those which it was now proposed to effect? He was glad that the evils of the new system had been admitted; but they were certainly not traceable to the fact that there were three Chiefs of Divisions. Under the old system there were not three Divisions, but three Courts, the Judges of which were independent of each other; and a man frequently found that, under the then existing system of a separation of Law and Equity, he had come to the wrong Court. The distinction between Law and Equity, in one sense, was an intolerable nuisance, which the Judicature Act most justly abolished. As one of the Judges remarked, a man was ticked out of the Palace of Justice because he got in at the wrong door. But it produced evils of another kind. The Common Law Division was but weakly represented in "another place" when the Judicature Act was passed, and, naturally enough, the Chancery system, with its multiplicity of appeals, prevailed. Under the old system, on the Common Law, once they had a question of fact decided, it was extremely difficult to get it tried again unless the Judge was dissatisfied with the case. Now, every trifling matter from Chambers, every trial of fact went, as a matter of course, to the Divisional Court, and then to the Court of Appeal. The result was, that there was no finality in the administration of justice; and he had been informed by one of the most experienced "Masters" that the amount of costs since the passing of the Judicature Act had increased by 20 or 30 per cent. The multiplicity of appeals, moreover, tended to glut the Courts with business, and the evil was increased by the ludicrous arrangement under which the Judges at the beginning of term, on the 11th of January, were scattered over the country on Circuit—a contingency which was certainly never contemplated by his right hon. Friend (Sir E. Assheton Cross) when the Winter Circuit was established. Now, that condition of things had nothing whatever to do with the question of the retention or non-retention of the Offices of the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer. That being so, was it quite fair of the Attorney General to continually speak of the "present system," as if the evils he had mentioned were in any way connected with the Offices under consideration? The question for practical men was how the 15 Judges were to be distributed; and he had heard nothing to prove that the best management was not the "three fives," each presided over by its proper Chief. He could not help thinking that there was great practical advantage in having Courts familiar with the administration of particular branches of the Law —such as the Exchequer Division, the Common Pleas, and the Court of Queen's Bench. What, then, was the mischief which the Chiefs in question inflicted on the administration of justice? He entirely dissented from what the Attorney General said concerning the preservation of these Offices at the time of the passing of the Act of 1873. Lord Cairns and the then Lord Chancellor spoke of the Divisional Courts and their Chiefs as the most convenient and appropriate form into which the business could be divided. When it was suggested that the preservation of the Chiefships was owing to an entirely provisional arrangement, they ought to look at the public utterances of those who were in official charge of the Bill. Both the present Master of the Polls and the present Lord Chief Justice of England expressed themselves in favour of retaining the Chiefs of the Courts. The section of the Statute was plainly against the contention of the Attorney General. It was provided that the Council of the Judges was to meet every year; and if hon. Members would look at the section of the Statute they would find that the Legislature intended that the Council should make a recommendation when it was assembled in the ordinary course. The Council was not to wait until both these great Offices were vacant. Considering the arguments by which the present proposal was supported, it seemed as if Parliament was to be induced to take a particular course with an object not revealed on the surface of the Statute. The language of the Statute to which his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General referred was against him. All that was properly derivable from the language of the Statute was that it was considered that the Judges themselves would be the best persons to make recommendations which Her Majesty in Council might carry into effect. He regarded with considerable apprehension the notion that influence was to be exercised by the Lord Chancellor making a proposition to the Judges which they must either accept or reject. It was no secret that at that moment a non-official Committee was sitting with reference to the proposal. He fancied that it was intended to be of one colour, and practically unanimous; but who appointed that Committee? He was told that the hon. Member for Hereford was a member of it, and, no doubt, his assistance was valuable; but the fact was that some new system was being devised which would be introduced for the acceptance of the House. That being the case, with a new system cut and dried behind the backs of the public and the House, and with an Order laid on the Table, the House would not be permitted to exercise its judgment on the matter. Everyone know what that meant. It was one thing to dissent from a new proposal, and another to reverse an accomplished fact. For that reason it seemed to him very undesirable that the change should be made without protest, and without knowing how far the House was expected to go. As to the argument of the Attorney General that because there were now no Barons of the Exchequer there was no necessity for a Chief Baron, such a contention from other lips would have been childish, and it might just as well be maintained that there was no necessity for the maintenance of the Lord Chancellor because the latticework beyond which he used to sit had been abolished. There was a clear working majority of the Common Law Judges against the change; but the question had never been fairly discussed by them, and they had been overwhelmed by the Chancery Judges. The Common Law Judges had, in fact, never been properly consulted as to the matter, and would have boon against the change if their full complement had been present; but it was so arranged that, with the opinion of a diminished Judicial Body, the subject came before the House. He could only say, by way of protest, that he believed the change would be decidedly contrary to the interests of the public. The Attorney General had said that he would not rely on the opinion of the Bar, but upon that of the solicitors. He should have thought more of his hon. and learned Friend's candour if he had stated that the Bar had decided against him, while the solicitors were in his favour. There was no body of men like the Judges, who surrendered so much in taking a judicial position. It was all very well to talk of their salaries; but, probably, no Judge ever reached the Bench without surrendering a larger income than that drawn from the public. The Prime Minister appeared to deny that statement, and he did not know what means of information the right hon. Gentleman might have had; but men in the active practice of their Profession knew the fact, and he challenged —not the Prime Minister—but those who were acquainted with the subject, to produce an instance to the contrary. At any rate, the point was, to use the fashionable phrase, a factor in the problem. He begged the House to remember that factor, and, mindful of the importance of retaining, he would not say prizes, but attractions, to the best men, not to lower the dignity and the emoluments of the Judicial Bench. Did anyone suppose that the Master of the Rolls, or the present Lord Chief Justice of England, would have accepted Judicial Offices except for the attractions they offered? And who, in such a case, would become a Puisne Judge? Those were two illustrations of his argument that came ready to hand. In short, it could not be suggested that men in the front rank at the Bar would be attracted to the Bench, when half its dignity and its emoluments had been destroyed. He would heartily vote in favour of the Motion.

MR. MARRIOTT

said, the Attorney General (Sir Henry James) had protested with considerable warmth against the interests of the Bar being set up against the interests of the general public. He thought it would have been more becoming if the hon. and learned Gentleman had waited until such a charge had been made. He (Mr. Marriott) was not aware that a single Member of the House had referred to the subject, and he hoped the House would agree with him that they all had the same regard for the public interests as the Attorney General himself. It would be a matter of great congratulation if the public generally would take more interest in these legal discussions. At present, when any legal discussion was being carried on, the public seemed to have a child-like faith in the law reformers, and especially in the Lord Chancellors. The whole of the consideration and discussion of law reforms was left to the lawyers and to the Lord Chancellors. In regard to the Motion now before the House, the reason why he objected to the abolition of these two high Offices was simply this—that it was a step in the wrong-direction. It was another step in the direction they had now been travelling for some seven or eight years, by which, the power of the Lord Chancellor had been increased and the dignity of the Bench had been lowered. This was no idle saying; but he would attempt to prove it. It would be agreed that up to the time of the Judicature Reform Act of 1873 there did not exist a Bench of Judges in the whole of Europe—he might even go further, and say in the whole of the world, either in ancient or in modern times—which commanded more general respect than the English Bench of Judges. Every writer—either in France, Germany, or America—-who had come over to this country, and studied its institutions, although he might find some things to which he would object, the one thing that received universal approval had always been the manner in which justice was administered in this country. The impartiality, the courtesy, and the firmness of the Bench, had always been a subject of praise by foreign observers. Many had tried to trace and find out what were the reasons why the Bench of this country was so distinguished and so respected, as compared with the Judicial Bench in foreign countries. He believed the reason to be this. In most foreign countries dependence was had upon a class of persons who were trained up for the exercise of these judicial functions as a portion of the Executive Government of the country; whereas, in this country, the Bench and the Bar had always been closely connected. The Bar had always been the feeding-ground for the Bench, and when a man was raised from the Bar to the Bench it was not customary for him to assume the airs which a similar class had assumed in a foreign country; but there had always been the best of feeling between the Bench and the Bar. Then, again, the Bench had always been in such a condition that it had had the pick of the Bar, and if it was asked why it had always had the pick of the Bar, he thought the reason was plain. The pay was good; the position was dignified; and a Judge, when once appointed, had nothing to fear; and, what was of the same importance, he bad nothing to hope for. Once a Judge, meant always a Judge. They talked of Puisne Judges—and the word "puisne" was supposed to mean something inferior; but a Puisne Judge, sit- ting with his Chief, was in no inferior position at all. The Chief was, of course, primus in his own Court, but the Puisne Judge occupied the same position, and had precisely the same powers of administering justice. The Chief simply had precedence in his own Court. It often came round to the turn of the Puisne Judge to go Circuit as one of the seniors, and he had then the patronage of a Chief Justice himself. All these little incidents added to the dignity of the Puisne Judge, and he had no hope of promotion. All of this had been changed by the Judicature Acts of 1873 and 1875, and by the Appellate Jurisdiction Act of 1870. From the moment a Judge got upon the Bench he had the thought forced upon him—"What will be my next step in promotion?" The Judicature Act had created two classes of Judges, one of which was called the Common Law Puisne Judges, and the other the Judges of the Court of Appeal; and, strange to say, although the Puisne Judges performed the most important functions, the Judges of Appeal were the Superior Court. As a matter of fact, it was the Puisne Judges who had to appear constantly before the public to adjudicate upon great causes. The great criminal and commercial causes were those which interested the public of this country, and it required Judges of no mean order to preside over these great trials. To make a man a good Puisne Judge it was not only necessary that he should be a good lawyer, but it was also necessary that he should be a man of the world—a man of tact, a man who was able to deal with facts, and who could deal with the counsel before him and the 12 men in the jury-box. No doubt, the duties a Puisne Judge was required to discharge required the possession of far more diverse qualities and talents than those required from a Judge who had merely to sit in an Appellant Court to consider and determine points of law that were generally of very little interest to the public at large. As he had said, there were now two distinct classes of Judges, and the real evil was this—that whereas the Lord Chancellor possessed great power before, he would have much greater power now, because upon the Lord Chancellor would depend the promotion of the whole of the Judges. The Puisne Judge could now be pro- moted to be a Judge of Appeal, and the Judge of Appeal could be promoted to be a Lord of Appeal, and sent to the House of Lords. He desired to cast no imputation upon the present occupants of the Bench; but Judges were only human beings, and if they were placed in a position in which they might expect promotion they would have a temptation to which he thought they ought not to have been exposed in this manner. No such temptation was placed in their way under the old system, and it was a great pity that they should be subjected to it now. The Office of Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench, the Office of Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, and the Office of Lord Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer, were the great powers between the Chancellor and the Puisne Judges. They stood as a sort of breakwater—and, no doubt, in recent reforms the late Lord Chief Justice Cockburn did try to reduce the evils of some of the reforms proposed by the Lord Chancellors. Who was most likely to understand the working of the Common Law Courts—the two Lord Chancellors, who had never been in a Common Law Court in their lives, had never tried a jury case, and had never gone Circuit at an Assize, or the Puisne Judges? Were they likely to know more about the jurisdiction of the Common Law Courts than the late Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, who had passed the whole of his life in trying jury cases, with the greatest success and to the satisfaction of the whole nation? It stood to reason that the Judge who had had most experience of the Common Law Courts would best understand what was required for their reform. Yet the two Lord Chancellors, who were only accustomed to the Chancery Courts, brought in these great reforms, which affected so vitally trial by jury. He recollected when the suggestion was first made that the Common Law Judges should try Election Petitions. The one person who protested strongly against such an arrangement was the late Lord Chief Justice Cockburn; and the reasons which he laid down for his objection were very good. He said—what had almost come to pass now—that the Judges engaged to try these Election Petitions would lose part of their dignity, that they would be associated more or less with Party politics, and the people would not think so well of them. He did not know what the experience of the House was now; but very recently, when Election Petitions were going to be tried, he had heard Members who were interested in them say—"Who is the Judge to try them? Is he a Liberal appointment? If he is a Conservative appointment he will be sure to go against us." He thought the Judges ought to be above such a suspicion. He knew that it was unjust to them; but he thought they ought not to be placed in a position which rendered them liable to it. The step now contemplated, by abolishing the Offices of Lord Chief Baron and Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, would certainly place more power in the hands of the Lord Chancellor, and for that reason he regarded it as an objectionable proceeding. With regard to the Bar, he agreed with the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. II. II. Fowler), who moved the Resolution now before the House, that the only two consistent people were the present Attorney General and the Home Secretary, because they had always voted for the abolition of these two Offices. They would all agree with, him that among the most clever members of the Bar was the late Solicitor General of the Premier's last Government, the present Home Secretary (Sir William Harcourt). The right hon. and learned Gentleman was, if he mistook not, the first person who had thrown up his Profession at the Bar and become a Cabinet Minister. There might be others who were similarly ambitious-—no doubt, in the prophetic mind of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, he foresaw what was going to happen while he was at the Bar—but there might be others, now that what had been called the prizes of the Profession wore to be abolished, who would in future look, not to what had been considered the professional prizes of the Bar, but to other rewards in connection with the Government of the day. They would be of opinion that it would be bettor to become a Cabinet Minister than to be a Judge, now7 that they could not reach the position of Lord Chief Baron or Lord Chief Justice—that it would be bettor to occupy a position where they called magistrates over the coals, and even sometimes reversed the decision of a Judge. That might be the new ambition; but it was going away from the old traditions of the Bar, and he thought that evil would follow when they got rid of those traditions. He should prefer to see the Bar kept within its own line. If they were successful they were rewarded, and the rewards they received were fully appreciated by the public generally. He was sorry to see the old customs broken through by right hon. and learned Gentlemen who sat on the Bench below; and for these reasons, and because he thought the abolition of these two Offices would only increase the power of the Lord Chancellor and decrease that of the Bench, he should vote in favour of the Resolution moved by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton.

MR. GREGORY

would only, at that hour, say a very few words, and he would not have risen at all if it were not for the fact that allusion had been made to the part he had taken in connection with the provisions of the Act and the Order-in Council. As had been stated, he had had the pleasure of co-operating with his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General and another hon. Member of that House in attempting to carry out what they considered to be the scope of the Judicature Act, by including, in one great Division, the whole of the Common Law jurisdiction. He had also had the satisfaction of supporting a Motion to this effect in the Law Institution. No doubt, there was at that time considerable difficulty in getting the Act into operation, because, as the holders of the Offices were in existence, provision could only be made for the future; but he had always considered it desirable that some alteration should be made in the direction which had now been taken. A good deal had been said as to the failure of the Judicature Act, and of the evils which it had introduced. He had seconded a Motion made by the Attorney General in the last Parliament, which had for its object the remedying of those evils, as far as they could do so in that House. He admitted that there had been delay in the administration of justice; but he did not altogether admit that the Judicature Act had been such a failure as was alleged. On the contrary, he believed that many of its provisions had proved highly beneficial to the public. Many of the complaints which had been made in regard to the administration of justice, had reference to matters which were beyond the operation of the Act. For instance, they had thrown more duties upon the Judges than was formerly the case by additional Circuits. And not only had they increased the labours of the Judges, but they had taken them out of the Courts just at the time their presence there was necessary for the due administration of justice. Although these were well-founded causes of complaint, they were not due to the operation of the Judicature Act; nor, in his opinion, did they bear upon the subject under discussion. The present question was not whether they were to diminish the existing number of the Judges, because they would have to appoint new Judges whether these particular Offices were continued or not, and, consequently, there would be no diminution in the number of Judges upon the Bench. The only question was whether they were to continue what he might call nominal Offices. That was really what the question came to, stripped of all extraneous matter. They had already gone to this extent; they had consolidated all the lower branches in the Courts; they had consolidated all the proceedings in the Courts; they had consolidated the Masters, the servants, and the Officers of the Courts. Every Judge they appointed was a Judge of the High Court of Justice, and not the Judge of a Division. Practically speaking, all difference had ceased to exist, and yet they were now asked to continue the Heads of Departments which had no real existence. For what reason should they do this? All the ground he had heard assigned was that, by discontinuing these Offices, they weakened the Court of Appeal, and by continuing these particular Offices they might get a better class of gentlemen to undertake the judicial functions of the country. As regarded the Courts of Appeal, he ventured to think that without these high Officers—the Lord Chief Baron and the Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas—the Court of Appeal was sufficiently strong as it stood, and that there was no cause to complain of the operation or working of it. There were six Judges in the Court of Appeal, with the Master of the Rolls, the Lord Chief Justice, and the Lord Chancellor to assist if necessary. During the last 10 years the Lord Chief Baron and the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas had sat but very seldom in the Court of Appeal. They had only sat in one or two cases, and had consequently not given to the Court any individual strength. Then, as regarded the effect of the arrangement upon the Bar and the opening it gave to men at the Bar, he was by no means prepared to say that the most successful advocate always made the best Judge. He had known, within his own experience, instances which tended to prove the contrary of that proposition. A forensic mind was not always a judicial mind, and, with great respect to the hon. and learned Gentlemen who had performed the functions of Lord Chief Justice and Lord Chief Baron during the last 10 years, he had no hesitation in saying that there many of the Puisne Judges who would have discharged the duties equally well. Indeed, he should have preferred, personally, to try a case before many of the Puisne Judges rather than some of the hon. and learned Gentlemen who, in a series of years, had filled the higher Offices in question. He could mention the names of Puisne Judges, not only within the last 10 years, but extending over the last 20, 30, and 40 years, who were equal to any men who over filled the superior Offices. It seemed to be supposed that the public would altogether lose the services of the higher class of the Bar if they abolished these Offices. He ventured to think that they would not; they would still have the appointments of Judges of Appeal as professional prizes, together with the Office of Lord Chief Justice, the Office of Master of the Polls, and the Office of Lord Chancellor. Surely, these were prizes sufficient to attract the highest intellect of the Bar. It was said, on the other hand, that they ought not to hold out the hope of promotion to the Judges. He certainly thought that was an argument which could have no weight in the present day. There was no Judge who would condescend to do anything unbecoming his position or his country for the sake of obtaining a higher position; but, at the same time, he did think that the holding out of a prospect of promotion was of advantage rather than otherwise to the Judicial Bench. For these reasons, he was of opinion that it was desirable to give effect to the Order in Council and, in so doing, to carry out the spirit and intention of the Judicature Act. With respect to the opinion of those with whom he was professionally connected he might confirm the statement which had been made by his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General, He had had much pleasure in presenting a Petition in their behalf in favour of this Order in Council, and praying the House to adopt it. That Petition was unanimously agreed to by the Law Institute of which he was a member. The question was specially brought before the Council of the Institute after due notice had been given, and it was fully considered and discussed. As the Council were elected in order to watch over the interests of several thousands of persons, they might be taken to be a representative body upon questions of this kind. They regarded it not in the slightest degree as a Party question, but as a question affecting the administration of justice, and in that light they had considered it.

SIR R. ASSHETON CROSS

desired to say a very few words upon the question, and would promise that, at that hour of the night, they should be very few. He wished to speak in the first place as an earnest law reformer, not in any Conservative sense, but as one who heartily and sincerely desired to see the present system of law thoroughly reformed. But he wished also to speak altogether unconnected with the Profession to which he had the honour to be-long. He felt strongly on the point raised by the Resolution, and he would very shortly state to the House the reasons which had induced him, after very careful consideration, to come to the conclusion he had been forced to arrive at in the matter. He quite agreed that in matters of this kind they were not for a moment to take the Judges themselves as having any vested rights or interests that ought to interfere with the public welfare in a matter of this kind. He would say exactly the same of the Bar, that they had no vested interests in any of the appointments, and that it was not necessary, so far as the public interests 'were concerned, that their future prospects should be made a question of consideration. When he came to the meeting of the Bar to which his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General alluded just now, he was quite sure that if the members of the Chancery Bar had been excluded because they did not know anything of the Common Law Bar in regard to the intricacies of the procedure in the Common Law Courts—

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)

was understood to say that there were no members of the Chancery Bar present at the meeting in question.

SIR E. ASSHETON CROSS

differed from the Attorney General. He had been told that a large number of Chancery barristers were present, and that they took part in the proceedings. He believed he was right in making that assertion. He was sorry to feel compelled also to differ from his hon. and learned Friend the Member for East Sussex (Mr. Gregory). His hon. and learned Friend told the House that he had presented a Petition to the House on behalf of the attornies in favour of the Order in Council. The hon. and learned Gentleman explained the reason why the Petition was adopted; and if it was the reason on which the attornies determined to support the Order in Council, no doubt, any body of men simply acting upon the premises suggested by his hon. and learned Friend, must have come to the same conclusion. How was it that his hon. and learned Friend explained the Petition. He said that it was necessary that all the traditions of the Courts of Justice should be thrown over, in order to do away with the difficulty of arranging the business; and, therefore, he added, the question was whether the purely nominal Offices should be continued or not. If that was the question put before the Council of the Law Institute, he did not see how they could come to any other conclusion than they did. If these were purely nominal Offices, and there was nothing more to justify their being kept up, they ought to be abolished at once. That reason might explain the position taken up by the Council of the Law Institution; but, at the same time, it rendered the Petition presented by them absolutely valueless for all purposes connected with the present vote. It was satisfactory to know that the Re-solution was brought forward by an hon. and learned Member of the Profession, who would not have brought it forward if he did not think he was acting in the interests of the Profession at large. His impression was, that the working of the Judicature Act, if the views advocated by the Attorney General on this particular question were carried into effect, would considerably lower the position of the Common Law Judges. He did not say that the Judges did not occupy the same position in the public estimation that they had occupied hitherto, but that it would be found that the men who accepted those appointments were not of the same status as had, up to the present time, been appointed. This was not a case in which the supply was always equal to the demand. It was necessary, in order to secure the thorough confidence of the public and the Bench, that it should be tilled by the best men of the Profession that could be found to fill it. Everyone knew that it was much easier in the time of the 12 Judges to find the best men to fill the station of Common Law Judge, than it was when they numbered 18. The more the number was increased the greater was the difficulty in getting them. Let it be considered whether the step about to be taken was likely to diminish the difficulty. At the present time Her Majesty's Government had not simply to pick out 18 men, but also to fill the appointments for six Judges in the Court of Appeal, superior in rank, dignity, and in the character of the work which they had to perform to the Common Law Judges. As this went on the result would be that the best men of the Profession would not take the Office of Common Law Judge; they would wait to see whether their chance would not be better by being made a Judge of the Court of Appeal. He would not say whether the Judges gave up their emoluments, or whether or not they sacrificed them; but he believed, in the vast majority of cases, that the Common Law Judges did sacrifice income when they accepted the Judicial Office. Under the old system the 12 Judges did everything; they formed the Court of Appeal, and were the only Judges to whom the public had to look. But a new order of Judges had now been created, and, that being so, in the interests of the public, the best Judges that could be obtained ought to be appointed; and associated with these Judges, who had, probably, been brought up to practice only, there should be some men who had seen more of the habits and business of the world, He believed it was of immense advantage to the Common Law Courts that their Chiefs should be men who had been in Parliament, who had filled the Offices of Solicitor and Attorney General, who knew exactly what was the course of Business in that House, and who knew, besides, more generally than lawyers usually did, what was going on in the world. But one result of this measure would be that all those men would disappear, except the Lord Chief Justice of England. His hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General would not deny that it was of importance that these Judges should be appointed at once, because there was so much business in the Courts that every day the appointments were delayed was so much loss to the country. This Order had now been before the House some 20 or 30 days. Her Majesty's Government had had this Order in their mind for the abolition of these Offices, and knew that they would have to bear what the House of Commons would say upon the subject. The reason why the appointments had not been made at once was that Her Majesty's Government knew, if these Offices were retained, they must appoint A and B, men who had been in that House, and who had experience of public affairs quite irrespective of their Profession, and who had not accepted the position because they knew that, after this Order came into force, they would be sunk to the level of the Puisne Judges. When the present Order came into force, not A and B, but Y and Z, would be appointed; and the loss would not be to the Profession, but to the suitors. Again, he believed it would be one of the worst things if the Judges of the Court of Appeal did not associate themselves on Circuit with the business of the other Courts. The Divisional Courts had been so much thrown into the shade, that the suitors were making more appeals to the Supreme Court than before. In 1876 there were 111 appeals; in 1877, 216; and during the last two years there had been, for each year, from. 240 to 250. The sittings of the Divisional Courts were, therefore, becoming less and less important. Suitors would go to the Court of Appeal; and the consequence would be that the number of appeals would be so great that the Judges would not be able to get through them, and three more Judges would have to be appointed to the Appeal Courts. There would then be nine Superior Judges; and the inevitable result would be, as he had before pointed out, that the best men at the Bar would not sit on the Common Law Bench. He suggested that it would be a great advantage to the public if, at all events, the Lord Chief Justice of England should have two other Judges to assist him as the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and the Chief Baron to assist him as Vice President. No one had a higher respect than himself for the Lord Chief Justice; but he objected that all the patronage of the three Judgeships should, in future, be vested in him. He held there could not be the slightest reason for that being done. The respective Chiefs were absolutely irresponsible for the patronage of which they disposed, and there would be the same absence of responsibility if it were vested in one of them only. It would, he believed, be better for all the Judges that they should have, under the direction of the Lord Chief Justice, other Judges sitting in their Courts of greater experience. Whatever might happen to the Order in question, he trusted Her Majesty's Government would take into consideration the necessity of appointing some Assistant Judges of the same class as the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and Lord Chief Baron; and that they would not allow all the patronage hitherto disposed of by the Judges to be entirely in the hands of the Lord Chief Justice. He had endeavoured to show that, in course of time, the lines they were proceeding upon would necessitate the appointment of three more Judges. He believed our Commercial Code would never have been in its present state had it not been for such men as tried the the civil causes at Guildhall; and he trusted that some step would be taken to ensure that the Common Law Bench should continue to be reserved for the best men at the Bar. Indeed, he could conceive no greater danger to the public than that such men should refuse to sit upon that Bench; and, therefore, he believed if the Order was passed, a step would be taken in the wrong direction.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, if he could agree with the right hon. Gentleman as to the effect the Order would have upon the position of the Common Law Judges in the future, he should certainly not support it; for he could not conceive anything more necessary than to maintain the character and public esteem of the Common Law Judges. The right hon. Gentleman had, several times in the course of his speech, referred to the 12 Judges in the old days, and pointed out how much more difficult it was to find 18 suitable men than 12. It was impossible to go back to the condition of things which existed in the days of the 12 Judges. He could not agree that the fact of having two Judges, to be called Chiefs though they had no subjects, and of their having somewhat higher salaries, could raise the level of the whole of the Common Law Judges of England. The right hon. Gentleman argued that the ordinary Judges would be degraded in the opinion of the people of England if two Chief Justiceships were abolished. He had also, in other quarters, heard language of contempt for what were called Ordinary Judges as compared with the so-called Superior Judges; but that had surprised him less than the language of the right hon. Gentleman. When he was first a member of the Bar there were many Judges for whom he had the greatest veneration—he might say fear; but they were ordinary Common Law Judges—Park, Maule, and Blackburn —and certainly they did not derive their dignity or authority from the fact that Lord Donman presided in one Court and Chief Baron Pollock in another. Pollock and Denman were eminent men, and in their time had been Solicitors and Attorneys General; but Blackburn, Park, and the other ordinary Common Law Judges, did not derive their authority and weight with the people of England from the fact that these eminent men were Chiefs in their Courts. What was the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman? He (Sir William Harcourt) confessed it seemed to him that the right hon. Gentleman entertained an empty and chimerical apprehension, and he believed that the authority of the ordinary Puisne Judges of England would be what it always had been, and would rest chiefly on their character, and greatly on their abilities. The more character and abilities they had, the higher would they stand in the estimation of the people of England, and it was a mistake to suppose that they were going to shine with the borrowed light of their visionary Chiefs, who, although they bad a little additional salary, had nothing else, not even a finer robe, to add to their weight. He confessed he was astonished at the light hon. Gentleman's mode of dealing with that weighty and respectable Institution, the Incorporated Law Society. He thought his hon, and learned Friend opposite the Member for East Sussex (Mr. Gregory) must be surprised that the Judges of England, who were supposed to be rather a smart and intelligent body, were entirely deceived by the way in which the question was put. He (Sir William Harcourt) could not think that the Heads of the Profession of Solicitors and Attorneys of England were deceived. Did the House suppose that they did not understand this question as well as the House did, and a good deal better? They were the people most interested in the question, and certainly had no interest in degrading the character of the Ordinary Judges; and he did think their decision, and that of the Judges ought to weigh with the House more than that of anyone else. What an extraordinary thing it was that the Ordinary Judges had voted for a proceeding which was to degrade themselves— that a majority of 20 to 5 Judges should come forward to vote for a proceeding which, in the eyes of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, degraded them in the opinion of the people of England. The late Solicitor General (Sir Hardinge Giffard) seemed to think the method in which the matter had been brought before the Judges unfair, and he hinted at some means by which the Government might have brought some pressure to bear upon them; but he could not understand how, in any possible form, pressure could have been brought to bear upon them. Really, when the House was going to determine a particular question of this kind, when only a limited number of Members were able to form an opinion upon it from personal experience, if they did not take the overwhelming opinion of the Judges, and the opinion of such a Body as the Incorporated Law Society, upon it, he did not understand on what ground they were to proceed, unless, of course, they went on the sentimental ground of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler), and he had indulged in a lofty tone of sentiment that night, expressing his views in certainly more poetical language than the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Lancashire (Sir B. Assheton Gross) as to those Superior Chiefs and those very Ordinary Judges. He invoked them with the eloquence they all recognized he possessed to continue the "picturesque peculiarities" of the Chief ships. That many of them were picturesque he (Sir William Harcourt) had no doubt, and that many of them might have peculiarities he did not deny; but the "picturesque peculiarities" wore to be maintained,"lest,"—as his hon. and learned Friend said, with that sentiment which always met with the response of the other side — he did not know whether the hon. and learned Member used the exact words; but it was in the spirit of—"we Americanize our institutions. "He said—"If you do not preserve these picturesque peculiarities you will be having Judges who will whittle away at the Bench. "That was the hon. and learned Member's view of the Ordinary Judges. He (Sir William Harcourt) did not think that either the "picturesque peculiarities" of the language of his hon. and learned Friend, or the somewhat sombre views of the right hon. Gentleman, were likely to relegate the 18 Common Law Judges of England to the position they apprehended. The right hon. Gentleman opposite, at the close of his speech, really did seem to feel that he could no longer fight for these shadowy Chief-ships; and he dropped the suggestion that, perhaps, after all, there was no use having three Chiefs when they had only one body of Judges, and that they might have one Chief with two Vice Presidents. He (Sir William Harcourt) did not know that two Vice Presidents would do any more than the Chiefs to lift the character of these Puisne Judges. But the right hon. Gentleman did make one suggestion in which he (Sir William Harcourt) did not differ from him altogether—namely, as to the enormous accumulation of patronage in the hands of one Judge. He would only speak for himself, and give his own individual opinion; but it certainly seemed to him that this matter, which was not included in the Order in Council before the House, might very well be considered on some future occasion. He did not wish at all to enter a strong protest against the views of the right hon. Gentleman on this subject, and he would not any longer detain the House, as it seemed to him all had been said on the subject that could be said. It was some satisfaction to the Attorney General and himself to think that in voting for this Order in Council they would be maintaining principles on this Bench that they had always supported.

MR. WARTON

said, he felt very deeply on this subject—a subject which, in comparison with other matters that had lately occupied the attention of the Government, had had but a small fraction of time devoted to it; and, even if this were to be the last time he were to speak—not that he hoped it would be— he should still trespass on the indulgence of the House on a question which touched not only the independence of the Judicial Bench, but a far deeper and more important matter—the Monarchical principle. They had reached a time when they had even in the Cabinet cradle Republicanism. There was a disposition abroad which savoured of Republicanism, and it was to be witnessed in many things which had been brought forward by the Government. There were those terms "President," "Vice President," and so on. He was taking these things from the legal documents of the Judges, and he did not justify their use, from whatever quarter they came. The tendency was to disparage Monarchical principles, and one reason why he valued these ancient Offices under discussion was because they showed they had come from the fountain of honour, and that we were loyal and obedient subjects of the Crown. The titles of Lord Chief Baron and Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas should, from their very antiquity, if for no other reason, be retained. In the age in which they lived they must not lose sight of the practical, and the tone of the speech of the still learned Home Secretary was so severely practical that the right hon. Gentleman must have got up in pure wantonness of power to acknowledge a principle recognized by one of the great orators of antiquity—namely, always to meet seriousness with ridicule, and ridicule with seriousness. The right hon. and learned Gentleman should have been directing a jury—he and the learned Attorney General ought to be filling those posts they now sought to destroy. An important argument which had been used in the course of the discussion had not been answered. He did not scruple to say that one reason why they had come to this pass was because they had had a succession of Lord Chancellors distinguished for their knowledge of Equity, their great piety, and their ignorance of the law. Standing up, as he did, for the honour of the old Common Law, he did not wish to see its dignity detracted from more than was absolutely necessary, and for this reason he disregarded all the votes of these Equity Judges. The late Lord Chief Justice had been referred to; and when reference was made to that great man most of them were touched— he himself was touched almost to tears; and he could not help remembering how, at the end of a great trial, which none but he could have tried, and which, should such a case arise in the future, there would be no Judge to do justice to, Chief Justice Cockburn had said he hoped to have some place in the affectionate remembrance of the Bar. This great man did live in the affectionate remembrance of the Bar. What was now taking place reminded him of the old fable of the dying lion. The meaner animals around the lion waited until his last gasp before they commenced to attack him. Had the great Judge lived until to-day, he would have protested as valiantly against the proposed change as, years gone by, he fought for and saved the fortunes of a Government—that of Lord Palmerston. This was another reason for preserving men of this class on the Bench. ["Question!"] This was the Question. He was about to illustrate the difference between two classes of men by what had occurred in the House. When the Government of Lord Palmerston was trembling in the balance, and there had already been an adverse vote given against it in the other House, the brief in the House of Commons was sent to a not very remarkable man, an ordinary Judge, a very respectable man in his way, the kind of man they would have filling all the posts on the Bench after this Order in Council had become law. He was not the man who should have been intrusted with such a brief; but the defence was taken up by Cockburn, and the Government wore saved by one of that class which the House was just about to banish from the Bench.

Question put.

The House divided: —Ayes 110; Noes 178: Majority 68.

AYES.
Alexander, Colonel C.	Leamy, E.
Allen, W. S.	Leighton, S.
Ashmead-Bartlett, E.	Levett, T. J.
Aylmer, Capt. J. E. F,	Lewisham, Viscount
Bailey, Sir J. B.	Loder, E.
Balfour, A. J.	Long, W. II.
Barttelot, Sir W. B.	Lopes, Sir M.
Bateson, Sir T.	Mac Iver, D.
Bellingham, A. II.	M'Garel-Hogg, Sir J.
Bentinck, rt. hn. G. C.	M'Laren, C. B. B.
Biddell, W.	Makins, Colonel W. T.
Birkbeck, E.	Manners, rt. hn. Lord J.
Blackburne, Col. J. I.	Marriott, W. T.
Bourke, right hon. R.	Maxwell, Sir H. E.
Brodrick, hon. W. St. J. F.	Metge, R, H.
	Mills, Sir C. H.
Bruce, Sir II. II.	Morgan, hon. F.
Bruce, hon. T.	Moss, R,
Camphell, J. A.	Mowbray, rt. hn. Sir J. R.
Castlereagh, Viscount	Mulholland, J.
Churchill, Lord B.	Murray, C. J.
Clarke, E.	Newport, Viscount
Coddington, W.	Northcote, H. S.
Compton, F.	O' Donnell, F. H.
Crichton, Viscount	Parker, C. S.
Cross, rt. hon. Sir E. A.	Patrick, E. W. C.
Davenport, H. T.	Pemberton, E. L.
Davenport, W. B.	Powell, W.
Dawnay, Col. hn. L. P,	Power, E.
De Worms, Baron H.	Puleston, J. H.
Dixon-Hartland, E. D.	Rankin. J.
Donaldson-Hudson, C.	Ridley, Sir M. W.
Douglas, A. Akers-	Ritchie, C. T.
Dyke, rt. hn. Sir W. H.	Round, J.
Emlyn, Viscount	Sandon, Viscount
Feilden, Major-General R. J.	Schreiber, C.
	Sclater-Booth, rt. hn. G.
Fenwick-Bisset, M.	Scott, M. D.
Firmer, Sir E.	Severne, J. E.
Fletcher, Sir H.	Smith, rt. hon. W. H.
Fowler, R. N.	Stanhope, hon. E.
Gibson, rt. hon. E.	Sykes, C.
Gore-Langton, W. S.	Talbot, J. G.
Gorst, J. E.	Taylor, rt. hn. Col. T. E.
Grantham, W.	Thornhill, T.
Halsey, T. F.	Tottenham, A. L.
Hamilton, I. T.	Walrond, Col. \V. II.
Hamilton, right hon. Lord G.	Warton, C. N.
	Watney, J.
Hay, rt. hon. Admiral Sir J. C. D.	Whitley, E.
	Wilmot, Sir II.
Hicks, E.	Winn, E.
Hinchingbrook, Visc.	Wortloy, C. B. Stuart-
Holland, Sir H. T.	Wroughton, P.
Home, Captain D. M.	Yorke, J. R.
Hope, rt. hn. A. J. B. B.
Kennard, Col. E. H.	TELLERS.
Kennaway, Sir J. H.	Fowler, H. H.
Knight, F. W.	Giffard, Sir H. S,

NOES.
Acland, Sir T. D.	Ffolkes, Sir W. H. B.
Agar - Robartes, hon. T. C.	Findlater, W.
	Firth, J. F. B.
Agnew, W.	Fitzmaurice, Lord E.
Ainsworth, D.	Fitzwilliam, hon. C. W. W.
Allen, H. G.
Armitstead, G.	Fitzwilliam, hn. H. W.
Arnold, A.	Foljambe, C. G. S.
Ashley, hon. E. M.	Forster, Sir C.
Balfour, J. B.	Fort, R.
Balfour, J. S.	Fowler, W.
Barran, J.	Fry, I,
Bass, A.	Fry, T.
Bolton, J. O.	Gladstone, rt. hn. W. E.
Boord, T. W.	Gladstone, H. J.
Bradlaugh, C.	Gladstone, W. H.
Brand, H. R,	Gordon, Sir A.
Brassey, T.	Gower, hon. E. F. L.
Brett, R. B.	Grant, A.
Bright, rt. hon. J.	Grant, Sir G. M.
Brooks, M.	Gray, E. D.
Brown, A. IT.	Gregory, G. B.
Bruce, rt. hon. Lord C.	Grenfell, W. H.
Bryce, J.	Grey, A. H. G.
Burt, T.	Guest, M. J.
Buszard, M. C.	Hamilton, J. G. C.
Buxton, F. W.	Harcourt, rt. hon. Sir W. G. V. V.
Campbell, R. F. F,
Campbell- Bannerman, H.	Hartington, Marq. of
	Hastings, G. W.
Causton, R. K.	Hayter, Sir A.D.
Cavendish, Lord F. C.	Henry, M.
Chamberlain, rt. hn. J.	Herschell, Sir F.
Cheetham, J. F.	Hill, A. S.
Childers, rt. hn. H. C. E.	Hill, T. R.
Chitty, J. W.	Hollond, J. R.
Clarke, J. C.	Holms, J.
Cohen, A.	Holms, W.
Collings, J.	Hopwood, C. H.
Collins, E.	Illingworth, A.
Colthurst, Col. D. la T.	James, C.
Commins, A.	James, Sir H.
Cotes, C. O.	Jardine, R.
Cowper, hon. H. F.	Jenkins, D. J.
Craig, W. Y.	Johnson, E.
Creyke, R.	Johnson, W. M.
Cropper, J.	Kingscote, Col. R. N. F.
Cross, J. K.	Kinnear, J.
Crum, A.	Lawson, Sir W.
Cunliffe, Sir R. A.	Laycock, R.
Davey, H.	Lea, T.
Davies, D.	Leatham, W. H.
Davies, R.	Lee, H.
Davies, W.	Lefevre, right hon. G. J. S.
Dickson, J.
Dilke, A. W.	Lewis, C. E.
Dilke, Sir C. W.	Mackie, R. B.
Dillwyn, L. L.	M 'Carthy, J.
Dodson, rt. hon. J. G.	M'Kenna, Sir J. N.
Duff, rt. hon. M. E. G.	M'Lagan, B.
Dundas, hon. J. C.	Marjoribanks, E.
Earp, T.	Martin, F.
Edwards, H.	Martin, R. B.
Edwards, B.	Mason, H.
Egerton. Adm. hon. F.	Molloy, B. C.
Elliot, hon. A. R. D.	Monk, C. J.
Errington, G.	Morgan, rt. hon. G. O.
Evans, T. W.	Morley, A.
Fairbairn, Sir A.	Morley, S.
Farquharson, Dr. R.	Mundella, rt. hon. A. J.
Fawcett, rt. hon. H.	Nolan, Major J. F.

O' Beirne, Major F.	Simon, Serjeant J.
O'Conor, D. M.	Smithwick, J. F.
O'Gorman Mahon, Col. The	Stanley, hon. E. L.
	Stansfeld, rt. hon. J.
O'Shea, W. H.	Summers, W.
Palmer, C. M.	Thompson, T. C.
Palmer, G.	Tracy, hon. F. S. A. Hanbury-
Palmer, J. H.
Pease, A.	Trevelyan, G. O.
Peddie, J. D.	Waugh, E.
Philips, R. N.	Wedderburn, Sir D.
Pugh, L. P.	Whitworth, B.
Pulley, J.	Williams, S. C. E.
Ralli, P.	Williamson, S.
Ramsay, J.	Willis, W.
Ramsden, Sir J.	Wilson, Sir M.
Reed, Sir E. J.	Wodehouse, E. R,
Reid, R. T.	Woodall, W.
Rendel, S.	Woolf, S.
Richardson, T.
Roberts, J.	TELLERS.
Rylands, B.	Grosvenor, Lord R.
Sexton, T.	Kensington, Lord
Shield, H.

House adjourned at a quarter after One o'clock.