Commons Sitting of 11 August 1883

Preamble
The House met at Twelve of the clock.
MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILL—Committee—Bankruptcy [243].
PARLIAMENTARY REGISTRATION IRELAND) BILL.

  POSTPONEMENT OF ORDER.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I am anxious to take the earliest opportunity to say that the Parliamentary Registration (Ireland) Bill is put down on the Votes to-day in error—an error I am very sorry for. Understand that it does not come on today.
  SIR R. ASSHETON CROSS: Will the Bill be put down on Monday?
  MR. GLADSTONE: Yes, for the chance; but if it does not come on on Monday, then it will be taken on Tuesday. I move, therefore, to postpone the Order till Monday.
  Motion made, and Question, "That the said Order be deferred till Monday next,"—(Mr. Gladstone,)—put, and agreed to.

QUESTIONS.

  COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEAL BILL.
  MR. MORGAN LLOYDasked Mr. Attorney General, On what day he proposes to take the Criminal Appeal Bill; and if there is any truth in the report that it is proposed to abandon the latter part of the Bill dealing with non-capital cases?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)said, he must answer the latter Question in the negative. He could not mention the day on which the Bill would be taken; but it would be taken at the earliest opportunity. The Bill would be restored to its original condition as introduced into the House.

  PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE—BANKRUPTCY BILL.
  MR. CALLANasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Whether, in the event of his proceeding with the Clauses of which he has given Notice for the purpose of extending the Bankruptcy Bill to Ireland, he will be prepared to introduce further Clauses expressly reenacting the several Clauses of "The Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, 1857," and "The Bankruptcy Amendment (Ireland) Act, 1872," which it is proposed not to repeal, so as to make the present Bill as complete a Code for Ireland as it will be for England; and, whether, in the event of his not doing so, he will be prepared to accept and adopt the Amendments requisite to expressly introduce such Clauses, instead of leaving it to the Irish Courts hereafter to determine how far these Acts of 1857 and 1872 are consistent or inconsistent with the present Bill, as is contemplated by the Clauses of which he has given Notice?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER), in reply, said, he could answer the Question in a sentence. It was not the intention of the Government to make any alteration of the Irish clauses in the Bankruptcy Bill. Just as the Bill in reference to England did not repeal the sections constituting the existing Courts, so with reference to Ireland the clauses were not repealed which constituted the Irish Court of Bankruptcy and the County Courts.
  MR. CALLANasked, whether the clauses extending the Bankruptcy Bill

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  to Ireland which appeared on the Paper were the same, and, except in principle, identical with those clauses placed before the Grand Committee?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER), in reply, said, that the clauses had been revised and considerably altered; but in substance they were the same.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE (NEW RULES).

    RESOLUTION, [ADJOURNED DEBATE.]
    Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [10th August],
    "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Rules of the Supreme Court of Judicature, 1883, may be annulled."—(Sir B. Assheton Cross.)
    Question again proposed.
    Debate resumed.
    SIR HARDINGE GIFFARDsaid, that he held in his hand two Petitions, which he begged to present to the House—one signed on behalf of the Committee of the Bar, and the other from the Law Society of Yorkshire—and he should have to refer to both those Petitions in the course of his observations. Before doing so, however, he wished at once to get rid of the impression that this Motion was, in the smallest degree, adverse to Her Majesty's Government; and, indeed, if he had not possessed the some what doubtful advantage of seniority, this Motion would have proceeded from the other side of the House. He knew no reason why Her Majesty's Government should regard themselves as being implicated in the matter. Her Majesty's Government were doubtless right in supporting the Executive to a certain extent; but, as a matter of fact, they had had no more to do with the actual framing of these Rules, and had incurred no more responsibility in respect of them, than he had. The Rules, which had been drawn up by the Rule Committee of the Judges, if not at once challenged, would soon have the force of a Statute; and the only mode in which they could be amended or altered afterwards was by a special Act of Parliament. They became law on the lapse of 40 days after being laid on the Table of Parliament. He hoped that since these Rules had been published hon.
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    Members had taken the trouble to ascertain for themselves what was the character of this new Code of Law—for such it actually was—which was rapidly becoming a Statute, and which would shortly be binding upon all Her Majesty's subjects, subject only to the possibility of alteration by Act of Parliament. The Rules had been published in the form of a bulky volume. It was true that the Attorney General had been pleased to say facetiously that he saw no good reason why a bulky volume should not become an Act of Parliament; but it was to the fact that it was becoming an Act of Parliament almost without anyone having seen it, or, at all events, without anyone having had time for carefully studying it, that he desired to draw attention to. There was a great deal in this volume—as far as he had been able to master its contents—of which he himself heartily approved; but Rules of such bulk, and involving such important and numerous alterations of the existing law, should not be allowed to become law without full and careful consideration. One or two of his Friends, who thought with him on this subject, had asked why he had not, in that event, moved to postpone the consideration of the Rules. There was no such power. If there had been, he should have been glad to adopt that recommendation. The only mode in which the question could be raised was by such Motion as was before the House, for an Address, under the powers of the Statute, to annul the Rules. There could not be the smallest objection to the Rules being annulled for this Session. They could be re-introduced in February next, and could come into operation on the following Easter, and to that he failed to see the smallest objection. It would only be a form of postponement, and that was all he at present asked for. Let him call the attention of the House to the nature of the power that had been exercised in framing these Rules, and to the extraordinary manner in which that power had been exercised. He said nothing at present as to the limitation of the power which had been given by Parliament to the Rule Committee of the Judges, although he should have to ask, later on, whether these Rules were such as it was really within the power of the Judges to make? At present he was assuming that they were entirely within the power of the Judges. The power

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    that had been given to the Judges—originally to all, and now, by an Amendment Act, to a select body of them, chosen for the purpose by the Lord Chancellor—was to frame Rules for the regulation of the practice and procedure of the Courts; and it was declared, as he had said, that if the Rules so drawn up by them should remain unchallenged upon the Table of the House for 40 days they should have the force of a Statute—the only mode of challenging them being an Address to Her Majesty praying that they might be annulled. The Rules which had been framed by the Rule Committee of the Judges, under the authority of the Statute, with their Appendices, formed a volume of 417 pages, and the volume comprehended a great variety of matters. It was laid upon the Table of the House—whatever that might mean, because those who took an interest in the Rules could not see them until they were published—on the 10th of July, and no one could get a copy of them until the 25th of July; and it was only on the 11th of August, on a Saturday afternoon, which the Prime Minister had been good enough to set apart for their consideration, that they had come before the House for discussion. What full and careful consideration these Rules would receive at this late period of the Session might be judged from the empty state of the Benches of the House on that occasion. Such was the state of things, notwithstanding that the Rules had reference to matters most vitally affecting not merely practice—as the popular world would understand it—and whether it was strictly within the meaning of the word he would say hereafter—of the Courts, but matters vitally affecting important political rights. That being the nature of the case, he would ask the House what opportunity was there, or had there been, to examine this bulky Act of Parliament—for such it was—unless they agreed to the Motion? The volume comprehended a great deal which he quite admitted might be valuable; but he would ask those hon. Members who had got it in their hands to turn to the last page of it. They would there find there were 22 sets of Rules—many of them themselves Acts of Parliament in effect, because they had already been published, and the 40 days had gone by—which were repealed by this Act. The form in which the volume had
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    been presented was not such as was calculated to enable anybody to follow at once what was being done by it. It was usual, when they were called upon in that House to repeal Acts of Parliament, to have those Acts carefully set out in a Schedule; but unless a person took the trouble—as he had done—to go through the whole of this volume, it was impossible to know what "Appendix O," which repealed the 22 sets of Rules, meant. When they took the necessary trouble they found that by these Rules our whole existing Code of Legal Procedure, dating from 1852 downward, was to be repealed. This was a much more important matter than at first sight it appeared, because every change in our legal procedure involved vast expense to the suitor; and, indeed, Baron Martin had once observed that every set of new Rules of Procedure cost the country some £3,000,000 sterling in litigation. The moment there was a new Code of Law or Procedure established decisions were engrafted upon it; and, after a time, it became a part of the known law, and people were able to advise, and save expense. Any new alteration or change in procedure involved an enormous amount of expense to the suitors; because the moment they had something new, and not governed by decisions, that moment they had a fruitful source of fresh litigation and consequent expense. Was it reasonable, he asked, that they should have this body of altered law presented to them at this period? Hon. and learned Gentlemen opposite suggested across the Table that these Rules were simply a re-enactment; but that matter was much more serious than they seemed to think, for it was not a reenactment simpliciter, but a re-enactment with alterations; and if there was one thing more difficult than another, and more dangerous, it was to find a section which at first sight appeared to be a re-enactment of the same law which existed before, but which, on careful examination, was found to contain important and material changes, which, in some instances, gave an entirely new effect to the Rule. He foresaw that great danger would result from this mode of proceeding. But, after all, what was the great hurry for passing these New Rules? Why not have waited until next Session before laying them upon the Table of the House? Presenting them

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    at this period of the Session placed the House in a great difficulty, because it must either accept or reject them as a whole. It was all very well for those who supported these Rules to say—"If you object to any one of these Rules, pray Her Majesty to annul that particular Rule." That might be very good advice to give if this were March or April, when there would be a full House to consider them; but it was utterly inappropriate at the present time. Since his name had appeared prominently in connection with this matter he had received communications every day from all parts of the country pointing out difficulties that would arise under these Rules; and it was because he could not bring all these details before the House at this period of the Session that he was obliged to support a Motion in the terms in which the present was cast. Let it be remembered that, though it was true he could present an Address to disagree with every one of the Rules, yet he could not present one to disagree with part of them. There was no power of amendment. They must either accept what the Judges put before them or annul the whole of the Rules. He could not help saying—and the observation would apply all through the Rules—that the tone and tendency of the Rules was to make Her Majesty's Judges absolute despots in the Courts of Law. He thought that such a tendency was a great evil in itself. It was a proof of the wisdom of our ancestors—he ought, in justice, to say of our Whig ancestors particularly—that while they made the Judges independent of the Crown they gave the Courts as much power and control over them to keep them in order as over anyone else. The tendency of the Rules was an application of the maxim—which was a familiar one with the Judges—one, he believed, invented by themselves—that it was the duty of a good Judge to increase and enlarge his jurisdiction; but, in his humble opinion, that was a very immoral view to take of the duty of a Judge. Certainly, in the present instance, the Judges had done their best to increase and enlarge their jurisdiction, because in almost every case in which a question could arise under these Rules the Judge was to have the power of deciding it summarily. It was useful to the public that there should be such
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    a thing as independence of the Bar—and he said this not merely for the sake of the Profession, but also for the sake of the public. How was the Bar to remain independent in the face of such a system as this? It was all very well to talk about the independence of the Bar but if they complained they were met by the discretion of the Judges, who could punish by the infliction of costs anything of which they disapproved. Independence on the part of the Bar would be exercised at the expense of the clients, and that was a sort of independence that the public would not be desirous of accepting. In every case where the question was one on which the parties had hitherto been disposed to exercise an option in the case, the question would now be determined by the Judge absolutely. He confessed he spoke with all deference of such learned persons—persons whose great learning and ability and desire to do what was right he recognized as fully as any man; but he must point out that after all they were only mortal men, and, as such, were liable to error in some cases, and that it would, therefore, be better for themselves as well as for the public that they should not have this despotic power conferred upon them. He would only refer to one example of what the Judges had done in the exercise of their power of making these Rules. By an Act, known as Sir Henry Keating's Act, no defence was permitted to be raised in certain circumstances in an action upon a bill of exchange; and the Judges by these Rules had, by a stroke of the pen, simply repealed that Act. They did not say in terms that the Act should be repealed—that would have been too scandalous—but they said that after the publication of these Rules no writ under Sir Henry Keating's Act should be issued. What was the meaning of that? In a certain sense it was procedure; but he did not think that under the powers conferred upon them by the Act they were authorized to repeal Acts of Parliament in this summary fashion. What would have been thought if they had taken upon themselves to order that after the publication of these Rules no writ of habeas corpus should be issued?—and yet if they had the power to make a Rule in one case they equally had the power to make it in the other.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)said, that the Rule to which the hon. and learned Gentleman was referring had been made four years ago.
    SIR HARDINGE GIFFARDsaid, he was sorry to observe that the Law Officers of the Crown appeared to be already assuming the antagonists to this Motion. It was one of the objections to this form of passing Statutes that no one knew anything about it. But for the extraordinary magnitude of this enactment, he had no doubt a great many of the present Rules would have slipped by, too. As to the Rule repealing Sir Henry Keating's Act, it was published by the Judges, and laid on the Table; but he did not know whether it was ever printed by Order of the House until it became law. The 40 days had slipped by without the subject being inquired into, and now the Rule was a Statute. At all events, if the power of so altering the law existed, it ought to be used with something like reasonable regard to what might have been the meaning of Parliament at the time this power was given. It was to this silent and secret mode of altering the law that he objected. The power to enact such a body of law as was contained in this volume would never have been bestowed upon the Judges if it had been supposed that they would have presented Rules on the 10th July; that they would not have been distributed so that Members might know what was contained in them until the 25th July; and that they would not come before the House for decision until the 11th August. This was one of the most important matters that the House could discuss. Without reference to the propriety or impropriety of the Rules, he would say there would be most likely great differences of opinion amongst lawyers, and persons who were not lawyers, if he were to discuss them in detail. It would be an abuse of the opportunity which had been afforded him if he were to try to do so, for the observation would be at once made—"Why, the House of Commons is incompetent to deal with minute matters of procedure." He admitted it could not be done but this they might do—discuss questions of principle. He had objection to some of the Rules, on grounds of principle, and, no doubt,
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    other Members would have objections on grounds of a similar kind; but those Rules he would mention appeared to him to strike at such cardinal principles of our legislation that they ought not to be passed sub silentio. It was well known that there were some members of the Judicial Bench who took a strong view against trial by jury—they made no secret of it; they seemed to think that in Civil cases jurors were likely to go wrong, and Judges were infallible. He was entitled to his own view on the subject. He had often said to Judges, as well as in the House, that he would rather take the average common sense of an English special jury than the opinions of all the Judges put together. He might be wrong about that, and hon. Gentlemen who, he might say, "practised on the other side of Westminster Hall," might take a different view of the matter, believing in the system of reference from one Court to a Court higher. But when they had a verdict on his side of Westminster Hall, it was an extremely difficult thing to interfere with that verdict. According to the Constitutional principle, which he believed was beginning to prevail more largely amongst the Judges than it did at one time, they had no right to interfere with the verdict of the jury, unless they could say it was wrong. Well, was it proper that our system should be in effect abolished?—because that was what the Rules would come to. It might be said—"You do not abolish it; you leave it to the discretion of the Judge." That was one of the things he complained of—that the Judges should try certain cases absolutely, and that in others they should leave the question to the Constitutional tribunal. For his own part, he thought the selection the Judges had made in the matter was not one which would commend itself to anybody. By Order 36, Rule 2, it was enacted that in cases of slander, libel, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, seduction, or breach of promise of marriage—and he invited the attention of the Solicitor General to the last item—the plaintiff might in his notice of trial, or the defendant might on giving notice, signify his desire to have the issue of fact tried before a jury, and thereupon the issue should be so tried. The cases, therefore, divided themselves into these two classes. He considered

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    this to be extremely undesirable, for if people were not alive to their rights they would allow the opportunity of trial by jury to go by. These special applications were things which would be found scattered all through the Rules. Special application might be made to the Judge, and the Judge would have discretion to make orders; but every step in that procedure meant costs. Of course, it was extremely easy to sneer at the lawyers about this, and say that they would be disposed to acquiesce in anything which would magnify costs. He did not believe any such thing; but if the necessity for visiting a solicitor arose for the purpose of defeating the Rule, the object of which was really to deprive parties of their right of trial by jury, no lawyer, any more than anyone else, could be expected to give up his time without payment. It appeared to him that the change brought about by the Rule to which he referred was not a question of procedure at all, and that it was only within the right of Parliament to effect it. The Judges might decide the point, if it went before them for decision, how they liked. That was their affair; but he believed that the selection of cases made on the Rule was a bad one, for they were not cases in which the right of trial by a Judge was much needed. Take cases of fraud, and those things which were the subjects of angry and bitter discussions in these days. Let them, for instance, take the case of an action against the Directors of a Company for issuing a fraudulent prospectus. They might have a man's character tainted for life by the action of a single Judge. It seemed to him that if there was one particular class of case more than another where it was essential to preserve the absolute right to have recourse to trial by jury it was that class where a man's character was at stake. Take the case of an action on a bill of exchange, and the question turned on whether it was a forgery or not. They could not bring into a definite proportion those cases where Constitutional right ought to be the rule, and they ought only to have exception from that in cases whore the parties were agreed that no question as to character would arise. Then there was the question of discovery. Under our new system the right of discovery had been one of the most valuable
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    changes ever effected in the law; but they were now to have a serious limit put upon it—that they should have no discovery unless a deposit of £.5 was made, but the additional sums of £10, according to circumstances, until the maximum of £20 was reached. To a rich man that would be immaterial; but to a poor man it might amount to an absolute deprivation of the right he might otherwise possess. Then the Rules tampered with the Laws of Evidence. He did not believe the Judges had any power to alter the Laws of Evidence. That was not procedure—it was part of the Common Law of the Kingdom.
    THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (Sir FARRER HERSCHELL): By express enactment the Judges have no power to interfere with the Law of Evidence.
    SIR HARDINGE GIFFARDsaid, that whether they had power or not, they had done it. It was a question of the absolute despotism of the Judges. In Rule 38, Order 36, page 105, the Judge might in all cases disallow any question put in cross-examination of either party, or any witness, which question might appear vexatious, and not relevant to any matter to be inquired into. Was that only declaratory of the Common Law? If so, what was the use of putting it in a Rule? If it was not, it was a dangerous innovation, and altogether ultra vires. But was that the meaning of it—was it declaratory? For his own part, he did not believe it was. It appeared to him to limit the power of appeal from the Judge in the most serious way. If a Judge disallowed a question they had a right to put—a question as to credit and so on—it was a matter for a now trial.
    THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (Sir FARRER HERSCHELL): So it is now.
    SIR HARDINGE GIFFARDasked, what, then, would be the use of the Rule? They did not want a re-enactment of all the Laws of Evidence. But he did not agree with the Solicitor General that this was merely declaratory, and in future the question argued would not be the old question. It was at present whether such a question was admissible; but in the future it would be whether it appeared to the Judge to be vexatious and not relevant. That would be the question to be determined, and the Judge before whom it was argued would naturally be inclined to say—" It appeared

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    to my learned brother, and he, having all the facts before him, was much better able to determine the point than I am." If the matter was one for appeal at all, it was only so to this extent—that the Judge in the Court of Appeal might say—"It is a matter which, stated in the Act of Parliament, is a question in the Judge's discretion with which we cannot interfere." That limited the powers of an advocate in a manner which appeared to him to be most serious to the public. In works of fiction it was the fashion to speak of the right of cross-examination being abused, and perhaps it was sometimes; but it was a much more serious matter whether, when important questions were at stake, the right of cross-examination should be interfered with by the Judge. Here was another case. Of course, he did not wish to mention names; but he desired to give the case, as it was a fair illustration of his argument. A young woman brought an action, and in cross-examination she was asked whether 18 years before she had not had an illegitimate child. Until the whole circumstances were disclosed that appeared to be an exceedingly cruel question; and if these Rules had been passed no doubt the Judge would have disallowed the question as being irrelevant and vexatious; but when the whole details of the case were brought to light it appeared that she had been passing off this child as her brother in order to establish an identity, and the answer to that question was the cause of an indictment for perjury. They could not tell the Judge all that was in their briefs, and it was undesirable that they should be called upon to state the object with which a question was asked, as the explanation would probably defeat the whole object of the question. Such matters as these must be left to the good taste and discretion of the counsel. Then there was a great extension of the power, under Order 14, of the Rules of 1875 to obtain summary judgment in cases where there was no defence. That Order was intended to be limited to demands for liquidated sums of money. But now that power was extended to actions for the recovery of land. So important a change in the law ought not to be made in a body of Rules of Procedure, but if, at all, only by express enactment after debate. He expressed no opinion as to the desirability
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    of the change; but he thought that was a reason why time should be given for the further discussion of the Rules. He could not, however, affect to discuss the Rules in detail at this late period of the Session, which rendered it necessary that they should not be-passed in a hurry. Then, in what was called third party proceedings, the Rules gave the Judge despotic power. Under Rule 16, Orders 48, 49, and 52, a third party might, on receiving notice, be absolutely precluded from appearing on the trial. He felt that he must be brief; but the abundance of material really formed his difficulty. He was only able, under the circumstances, however, to point to those matters which seemed to be pressing matters of principle, and ask the House if they would allow these Rules to become law without further inquiry. Another matter which he must refer to, however, was this—An effort had been made from time to time to menace the jurisdiction of the County Courts, and decrease that of the Superior Courts. Over and over again Parliament had refused to do this; but now he found in these Rules a proposal that, if a suitor went to the Superior Courts with a case where there was a concurrent jurisdiction, he should have no more costs than he would obtain in the County Courts. Was that a desirable thing? If it was desirable to get rid of the jurisdiction of the Superior Courts in County Court cases, they ought to do so by express enactment, and not by Rules of this sort. He asked, moreover, was it desirable, when both branches of the Legal Profession asked for further inquiry, that so reasonable a request should be refused. He understood that a Petition had been presented in this matter by the Incorporated Law Society; but he had two others to present to the House. One was from the Yorkshire Law Society, and set out that the Rules which had been issued effected very great changes with which the Legal Profession was deeply interested. The Petition represented the solicitors of Yorkshire, and regretted that they were not afforded an opportunity of offering suggestions before the Rules were passed; and they were of opinion that the fullest opportunity should be given for the consideration of the Rules. He had another Petition from the Bar Committee, which had been recently formed, which set

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    forth that the Rules could not fail to create momentous results in the administration of justice, one of which was that a great increase would he caused in the Chamber work of the Judges, without any proviso being made for its despatch. They conceived that in many respects changes which the Rules involved were such as to demand careful consideration. No opportunity had been afforded the Bar to consider the Rules before they were presented to Parliament, and the Petitioners were of the opinion that this was to be regretted. He had only one word to say as to the mode in which these Rules had been secreted by the Judges. Instead of being discussed openly, as they would have been if they had been an Act of Parliament, they had been discussed in secret. They had been intentionally concealed, moreover. He did not mean to say that in any disrespect to the learned Judges, because he supposed they thought it right that they should not be made public. The Benchers of Lincoln's Inn—a body which he feared enjoyed no great popularity—and the Bar Committee had each applied to the Lord Chancellor for a copy of the Rules; but they had been courteously but firmly refused. They had, therefore, been intentionally kept back—he did not say with a sinister intention; but they had been kept back, and had only been laid on the Table in the month of July, when, if they did not present an Address praying that they should be annulled, they would be-come an Act of Parliament. He ventured to think that the House would never have permitted its functions to be handed over to the Committee of Judges had they known what the result would be. First of all, the power of making Rules was given to the entire body of Judges; but they had not even that safeguard now. He saw the Solicitor General taking a note, possibly because it was the late Government who were responsible for the change in 1875; but that did not affect his case. He was considering this question apart from Party motives. He was glad to admit that the Act of 1873, which was the work of a Liberal Government, did not give such wide powers to a Committee of the Bench; and, for his part, he thought the change of 1875 was most injurious, and they were seeing the result of it at the present time. If great changes of this
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    sort were to be made they ought to be effected by Act of Parliament, and not by a small body of Judges selected by one particular Officer of the Government. He therefore hoped that the House would not at once give its sanction to the Rules.
    THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (Sir FARRER HERSCHELL)said, that this was not a Party matter, and he had taken no notes in any Party spirit; but he thought it essential to point out that a great deal of which the hon. and learned Gentleman complained had been done under the very auspices of the hon. and learned Member himself. The hon. and learned Gentleman had read Petitions to the effect that the Legal Profession ought to have been consulted; but he (the Solicitor General) did not think that the manner in which the Rules affected the Legal Profession ought to be put in the foreground. What they had to consider first of all were the interests of the suitors, and the interests of the Profession were a secondary consideration. Those Rules had been framed in accordance with the provisions of an Act of Parliament, which cast upon the Judges the duty of framing Rules of Procedure. The Judges had spent a considerable amount of time and care in the framing of them; and he could not help thinking that his hon. and learned Friend had treated them with scant courtesy after all the trouble they had taken in the interests of suitors. The hon. and learned Gentleman suggested that Her Majesty should annul these Rules, so that they might be brought forward again next year; but he (the Solicitor General) was not quite so sure that it would be possible to reproduce them after they had been annulled. The hon. and learned Gentleman said it would be possible for the Judges to make the same Rules again the very day after the annulment; but he was not quite so sure as to that. It would raise a very serious Constitutional question. [Mr. WILLIS: But they could be annulled again.] That was true; but they could not go on in that way; and it might be difficult to bring into effect at once Rules which had already been annulled by Her Majesty. It was a serious thing to say that the Judges could re-enact Rules which Her Majesty had said should not be enforced. For his part, he regarded

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    the Rules as a very beneficial reform in the interests of the suitors. They would very greatly reduce litigation, and cheapen the cost of it to the suitor; and the proposal of his hon. and learned Friend was that they should abandon these reforms foranother year. He thought the fact that the Rules would very much cheapen litigation—of course, he did not refer to his hon. and learned Friend opposite—might be one of the reasons why so strong an objection was taken to them in some directions. He would not deal with the details of the Rules, and his hon. and learned Friend had dealt with only three or four Rules, which were, doubtless, those to which exception might most easily be taken. The attack of the hon. and learned Gentleman was really directed more against the Act of Parliament than against the New Rules; but he would point out that the hon. and learned Gentleman was a party—indeed, he was personally responsible, by being Solicitor General at the time—to the passing of the Act of 1876, which made the Rule Committee of the Judges as it existed at the present time. There had been no less than 213 New Rules made under the power of the Act of 1876; and all these were made between 1875 and 1880, when the hon. and learned Gentleman was in Office. If the system was such a vicious one, surely his hon. and learned Friend should have objected then. He was a very strange person to come forward at that late period and object to the system. Of those 213 Rules, not one had been submitted to the Benchers of the Inns of Court, or to the Incorporated Law Society; and why was it that the hon. and learned Member did not complain of the Judges keeping them concealed at that time; and why did he wait until he was relieved of responsibility in order to make a com-plaint of a system which had been universally followed? There were of all these Rules only 125 new ones, or Rules which had been materially altered; and all the rest were simply the re-enactment of existing Rules, it having been thought desirable to consolidate them into one Code. His hon. and learned Friend need not have flourished the large Book of Rules before them therefore, for in 1880 there were as many as 68 New Rules made under his own auspices. In regard to the complaint of the Incorporated Law Society not having been consulted, he would
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    point out that one of the very Rules which the hon. and learned Gentleman objected to had been framed upon a suggestion thrown out in a resolution passed by the Society itself. He thought it would be much better that those who were interested should lay their objections before the Judges—and he was sure they would have the most careful consideration—than that the Rules should be annulled altogether. If Amendments were required they could be made; and surely it was much better to endeavour to amend the Rules than deprive the public of a great and much-needed reform for another year. The hon. and learned Gentleman also complained that great political rights in connection with trial by jury were interfered with in these Rules; but he could not have read the Rules when he made such a suggestion. With respect to trial by jury, at present, in all cases, the practice was for the party desiring a jury to give notice to the other. In certain cases that practice was still preserved. In other cases an application had to be made to the Judge or Master. The expenses of such an application would only be a few shillings. But what was prevented? There were many cases now in which all the expense of a jury trial was incurred, and which had afterwards to be sent to a Referee. The New Rule prevented that great scandal, and cases which were obviously cases for reference would at once be sent to an arbitrator. Then his hon. and learned Friend had referred to discovery. There was hardly a more valuable right in existence than that of discovery. But it was liable to great abuse. Until he had recently had occasion to make inquiry into the subject, he had no idea how far the costs of litigation had been increased under the Judicature Acts in respect of the right of discovery. Then the application of Order 14 to actions for the recovery of land was a most beneficial change; and there was little danger of abuse, as it only applied after notice to quit had been given. Then, with respect to Order 38, he agreed that it might be questionable whether it was expedient to enact a Rule which in any way altered the law. But there was no warrant for suggesting that there would be no right of appeal against a Judge's refusal to allow a question to be put. The Judge had that power already, and constantly

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    rejected irrelevant evidence, and in that respect his hon. and learned Friend had certainly not made out his case. Could his hon. and learned Friend deny that many of those Rules were benefiicial to suitors, and saved great expense? He assured his hon. and learned Friend that even if these Rules were not annulled, those who had framed them would most carefully and anxiously consider any suggestions for improving them; and he could not help thinking that, if the Bar Committee and the Incorporated Law Society would give their services, any blemishes that might be contained in the Rules would be at once removed, without depriving the public of the benefit of these great reforms for the best part of another year he, therefore, earnestly hoped that the House would reject the Motion now before it.
    MR. GREGORYsaid, that the Solicitor General had naturally laid great stress on the terms of the Motion, which was, in fact, to annul these Rules altogether. But they had been driven to adopt such a form of Resolution. They could deal with the case in no other way. If that Motion were not carried, the Rules became absolute, and there was no other way of protesting against them than by bringing forward such a Resolution. The Petitions which had been presented that day were all in the same terms, and they all asked for time for the consideration of these Rules. In bringing forward a Motion for annulling the Rules, all that was intended was that further time should be given. It could not have been contemplated that, under the Act of 1875, a body of Rules, making so important an alteration in the law, would be issued. They were, in fact, a New Code of Law. It was true that the extension of Order XIV. was made at the suggestion of the Incorporated Law Society, to which he (Mr. Gregory) be-longed; but his hon. and learned Friend (Sir Hardinge Giffard) was not responsible for that suggestion, and it was quite open to him to object to it with reference to the action of the Law Society generally. A somewhat different course had been taken with reference to the Rules and the communication of them to the Society to that which had been taken on previous occasions. It was quite true that a copy of them had been sent to the President of that Society; but it was sent with an invitation not
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    to make the Rules public, although he might show them to a few friends. The copy sent to him was, therefore, absolutely useless, and only placed him in a false position with respect to the Society and the members of the Profession. The President had not had the opportunity of consulting those interested in the matter; he had had no opportunity of laying the Rules before the representative body of the Profession; and he had had no authority to offer any observations or suggestions upon them. The result had been that so far as the Profession generally was concerned, and so far as he as an individual and a member of the Profession was concerned, they had not had the opportunity of looking into the Rules until they were published under the authority of the House. The Rules came into operation in October, and they required careful consideration in their operation on the public, and also on the Profession of which he was a member, to a very considerable extent. For instance, as regarded the public, one of the provisions of the Rules was that on an application being made for the production of any document, or on the filing of interrogatories, a man should pay £5 into Court. Everybody who had conducted cases knew that a suitor had to apply from time to time for documents, and to administer interrogatories. For a rich suitor this might be immaterial. In the ease of a Railway Company, or any undertaking of the kind, this would be a mere nothing; but if a poor man were called upon to make constant payments of £5, the result would be the discouragement of applications, however necessary they might be. With reference to admissions, any person who refused to admit anything had to pay the costs of an application to the Court, unless the Judge at the trial should say that he was quite right in so refusing. Therefore, a suitor would have to pay the costs at once if he refused to admit anything, and he would have to get it back when he could. A man might be called upon to admit the whole case—to admit himself out of Court altogether—and if he refused to do so he must pay the costs. [The SOLICITOR GENERAL dissented.] The hon. and learned. Gentleman might not be aware of it, but, as a matter of fact, however right the suitor might be in refusing to make the admission,

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    he must pay the costs in the first instance. There was another point in connection with the Rules which received the most careful consideration—namely, the question of the delegation of certain duties by the Judges to the officers under them. He admitted that, in the Chancery Division, the duties of the chief clerks were very efficiently performed; but the powers given under the New Rules seemed to be very large indeed. The Judges' officers would be able to do almost everything the Judge himself could do. The present arrangement of business in Chambers, where the Judge attended generally only twice a-week, after a hard day's work in Court, was not satisfactory; and he did not see that the Rules effected any improvement in that respect. With regard to the manner in which the New Rules affected his own Profession, he would venture to say that he did not think the position in which a solicitor stood was generally understood, or that his responsibility and liability were fully recognized. A solicitor was an officer of the Court. As the Court admitted him to practice, so it could deprive him of his practice, and it could make him liable to any penalty it pleased. A solicitor was responsible for negligence or ignorance. He was bound to carry out his duties with due skill and knowledge; and if a client was able to prove that he had not conducted himself properly, he could make him pay any loss incurred by him in consequence of such misconduct. More than this, the Incorporated Law Society had been at work for about 50 years. That Society was formed for the purpose of regulating the practice of the Profession, of elevating their character, of educating them, of taking notice of any misconduct or error or malpractice which they could lay their hands upon. They assisted the Court as far as they could in drawing attention to cases which required to be dealt with by the Court. They devoted their time and their funds to this task; and he thought it would be seen by any Member that in cases where a solicitor's conduct was brought in question action was almost always taken by the Incorporated Law Society. It was on their application that these charges, of which they heard from time to time, were brought against solicitors; and there were many cases of misconduct which
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    would escape attention were it not for the exertions of the Society and its 4,000 members. The Society also examined young men, and elevated their characters. It had certainly always been willing to co-operate with the Judges in effecting any reforms in the practice of the Courts. The Society felt aggrieved by many of these New Rules, as personally affecting the solicitors as a body. There was almost a series of Orders which specially mentioned the solicitor as being liable, at the discretion of the Judge, for matters of the most trivial character—for any little slip, any little miscarriage, any little delay, any non-delivery of papers—to pay the costs, not only of his own client, but of the other side too. He quite agreed that full jurisdiction over solicitors should be given to the Judges; he quite agreed that if a solicitor should neglect his duty, or be guilty of gross ignorance or gross negligence, he should be liable to his client. But the House was asked to pass a series of New Orders, which really required solicitors to be infallible, not only in their relations with their own clients, but also as regarded the parties on the other side. If they were guilty of the slightest act of negligence, or of the slightest omission, it would be heavily visited on them; and the Orders gave special directions to the Judge on that point. He did not think the Profession had altogether deserved any such treatment, and they felt it deeply. As regarded himself, the matter was comparatively light, because his professional career was practically drawing to a close, and he should probably not have to work very long under the New Code of Regulations; but with the views of his Profession as a body the case was different. They had for years been trying to raise themselves in public estimation. They had educated themselves for the professional duties which devolved upon them. They had the interests of their clients at heart in all they did; and, although, no doubt, there were instances of defalcations—instances similar to those which occurred in all trades and professions—he would appeal to Members of the House who had consulted solicitors—and there were few who had not—to say whether they had not always received honest and disinterested advice, and whether they had ever had their confidence in their solicitors

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    betrayed? Such being the position of solicitors, they were pained and grieved at the odium which was cast upon them by those Rules. He confessed that he personally felt hurt to the last degree. After exerting himself, in conjunction with others, for 40 years in endeavouring to elevate the Profession, and to improve it in the public regard, when he was on the point of leaving it, he found it placed under the stigma and the odium imposed upon it by the reference made to it in these Rules. He therefore thought they might reasonably ask for some delay, in order to consider the Rules, and make whatever representations in respect of them which might appear necessary. The Solicitor General had said that any representations would be attended to. He (Mr. Gregory) hoped they would; but, in the meantime, the Orders would be in operation, and, when that was so, representations might not have the same effect as they otherwise would have. On these grounds, he begged to support the Motion now before the House.
    MR. BRYCEsaid, that whatever new powers these Rules might give to Judges in respect to solicitors, they were insignificant as compared with the powers concerning solicitors which Judges already possessed. The most cordial relations existed between the Judges and the solicitors; and he believed that the solicitors were well satisfied with the manner in which Judges had hitherto acted in regard to them. There were no reasons to think that the Judges would behave any worse in the future under the New Rules than they had done in the past under the Old Rules. He did not intend to defend the New Rules in every particular. They contained something which some of them might have preferred to see omitted. But, on the whole, he was of opinion the good Rules outweighed the bad. Apart from the advantage which a mere codification and consolidation brought about, the changes which the Rules made were nearly all changes for the better. It seemed to have been forgotten in some quarters that it was upon the Report of a Committee which sat a few years ago that these changes were based, and that, so far from the changes being bold and sweeping, they really fell short of the recommendations of that Committee. The Committee of Judges, in fact,
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    seemed to have been actuated by the most Conservative spirit. Although the hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir Hardinge Giffard) talked of the Judges as despots, the truth was that the fault of the Judges, if a fault they had, was that they were too timid; they were unwilling to deal boldly with the existing law, even when they were sitting on the Bench; and the same spirit characterized them in the framing of these New Rules. He did not blame them; because it was always better that legal reforms should proceed slowly. In these things it did not do to outrun the opinion of the country, or even of the Profession. With respect to jury trials, the Solicitor General had shown how small the changes were; and he believed the experience of those best acquainted with the subject would have warranted the Judges in going much further. In Scotland, where people were very democratic, things were more advanced, and in the United States, where people also were very democratic, the tendency of legislation had been growing more and more against jury trials and in favour of increasing the power of the Judges, so that the Judges had some precedent for the action they had taken. Although a great number of Rules had been made since the Judicature Act of 1875, there had never been an occasion on which they had been discussed in the House. The Judges might have brought these Rules into operation immediately; but they had chosen to give the House a larger opportunity of considering the changes in Legal Procedure than it had enjoyed before. It would be, therefore, unfortunate if the House were to take a course which it had on previous occasions abstained from taking. Did hon. Members, or did they not, wish to see the procedure of the Courts codified? That procedure, at present, was extremely complex and confused, and needed change. In point of fact, there were few of the 1,045 Rules which were new; he believed the absolutely New Rules only numbered 125; and the 1,045 had been cut down from 1,803. He did not deny there was certain defects in the Rules; but the defects were such that no amount of discussion would enable the House to get rid of them. The Rules raised questions of policy on which hon. Members could not be expected to agree. The hon. and learned Member for Launceston

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    (Sir Hardinge Giffard) would say that between this time and February the Judges might take back the Rules and alter them; but so they might at any time, and how much more forward would they be in February than they were now? The policy they were asked to reverse was the policy which Parliament had already sanctioned in the Judicature Acts, when the principle was laid down that it was impossible for Committees of that House to deal effectually with such matters, and that that could be done only by experts. The whole speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Launceston was an impeachment of the policy of the Judicature Acts. He (Mr. Bryce) hoped the House would come to the conclusion that the policy of those Acts was just and wise. If they were to wait until they got a perfect set of Rules they might wait for ever. The only way they could make an advance was by experience, and by trusting to the good feeling of the Judges to amend the Code accordingly. If they were to take the strong measure of annulling the Rules now, it would be a slap in the face for the Judges, and would only make them more timid.
    MR. BULWERsaid, that since these Rules had been published on the 25th of July, he, in common with other members of his Profession, had been a good deal out of town, and it was only last night he had been able to get a copy and to give the Rules a very cursory examination. He, therefore, declined to enter into their merits or demerits. What his hon. and learned Friend asked was not to abrogate the Rules altogether, but to give the public time to consider them. He regretted that the discussion to-day had been confined so much to Professional Members. The interest of the Profession was not the first thing that ought to be considered, but the interest of the public. The worse the Rules were the better for the Profession, because more legal business would be the result. Did the House know that every set of Rules promulgated by the Judges cost the public thousands upon thousands of pounds before they were settled; and then, when they were settled, they had another set of Rules to take their place, which again would cost the public thousands upon thousands? Therefore, this was emphatically a question for the public. There was no such
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    urgent haste that these Rules should be carried into effect, as they might work very great changes, not merely in procedure and the carrying on of trials, but in the laws of evidence and other matters. The hon. Member (Mr. Bryce) asked how much more forward should we be in February than we were now if delay were given? Well, we should be in this position—that we should know more about the Rules, just as we did about the merit of the claims of M. de Lesseps, which at first were rather rashly sanctioned by the Government. The time would not be lost; the Rules now in force would still operate, and we should only be deprived for a time of the benefit of 125 Rules, which, no doubt, were most important, and would effect great changes; but the public mind would be instructed, and so, too, would the four or five Common Law and four or five Chancery Judges who had dealt with the matter, and who were not infallible. The Solicitor General had relied upon the advantage to the public of sending a case for reference instead of having a trial. A case came under his own notice lately which, if these New Rules had been in operation, would certainly have been sent to a Referee, and would probably have cost the parties thousands of pounds; but it was heard by the Judge and disposed of in half-an-hour, and so saved the parties that expense.
    MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, he quite agreed with the hon. Member who had just spoken that they ought to approach this question from the point of view of the public and not of the Profession; and he thought it right to say here what was being said elsewhere, and what was known to be the feeling outside, that there was increasing dissatisfaction throughout the country with the present system of the administration of justice. The Judicature Act had, in one sense, proved a great failure. It had increased the cost of litigation, and it had increased the delay in the administration of justice. And the difficulty they had to grapple with was that at the fag-end of a Saturday afternoon in the middle of August they were discussing one of the most serious and important questions that had arisen in this Parliament. The administration of justice was producing great and just dissatisfaction; and what they had to ask themselves was whether the Rules now submitted would tend to

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    remove one or both of those great sources of complaint—cost and delay? The Solicitor General had said that since the Judicature Act came into operation the cost of litigation had increased from 40 to 50 per cent; he would have been nearer the mark if he had said 70 or 80 per cent. But there was one commodity which was oven more valuable to an Englishman than his money, and that was his time; and at this moment in the Chancery Division the arrears were greater than they were in the days of Lord Eldon. As to the Queen's Bench Division a statement had appeared in The Times that when the Courts opened in November something like 1,100 causes would be awaiting trial. This was a state of things which demanded the immediate attention of the Government and of Parliament. It had often been said that the only way to meet the difficulty was to appoint new Judges. He thought there was no necessity to appoint new Judges. The present Judicial Staff, if properly applied, was amply sufficient to do all it had to do. He know that in saying that he was touching upon very delicate ground. And while he thought it a right and proper thing to abstain from criticism of the great Officers of Justice who presided over our Courts there was the danger that men in that position were apt to regard themselves as exempt from criticism. The Prime Minister was freely open to criticism, and things were said of him that no one would think of saying of the Lord Chancellor, or the Lord Chief Justice. Still there were ways in which they might convey to those personages their sense of the existing grievance, and he believed he was within the mark when he said there was an impression pervading the public mind and both branches of the Profession that there was not the same amount of judical time how appropriated to the public service as was appropriated in the days of the Judges who had passed away. There was no doubt an absurd waste of judicial strength on the Circuits, and the present Government had endeavoured in vain to prevent that waste. But there was another evil, and, in his opinion, the greatest evil of all, and that was the modern practice of sending Judges of the Chancery Division on Circuit. They did not send a colonel of the Guards to command an iron-clad, or
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    an Admiral of the Fleet to lead a Cavalry brigade. And it was no disrespect to the eminent lawyers who lived in the seclusion of chambers, or in the Equity Courts, to say that they had not received the training which qualified them for the administration of criminal justice. Yet the Courts of the Chancery Division were shut when they ought to be dealing with suits in which large properties were involved, while the Chancery Judges were sent to try men who were charged with stealing pocket-handkerchiefs, or sheep, or ducks and geese—offences which might perfectly well be disposed of by a Chairman of Quarter Sessions or a Recorder. The result of this system was that the Courts became congested, and then came the cry for more Judges. The real reason of this anomaly arose from the throwing upon the Judges their travelling and other expenses while going Circuit. When they selected for Circuit a number of Judges of the Queen's Bench Division they were required to pay their own expenses; but the Chancery Judges, who got precisely the same salary, were not called on to pay their Circuit expenses. The result of this was that the Chancery Judges, if they did not take their share of Circuit work, got so many hundreds a-year more than the others. The true remedy for that was to treat all alike, to pay all travelling expenses, and not to allow the element of pounds, shillings, and pence to enter into consideration of the best mode of administering justice on Circuit. One of the most beneficial of the Rules which had been alluded to by the hon. and learned Member for Launceston (Sir Hardinge Giffard) was that which practically restricted the jurisdiction of the Superior Courts to cases of above £50. If they could take out of the Superior Courts all cases relating to amounts of under £50, much relief would be experienced, and two more Judges would be available for general business. The Rules, as a whole, were not all that was wanted. They might, however, be regarded as an instalment, and as a step in the right direction of Law Reform. They were not perfect, and they might, no doubt, be open to criticism; but no Act of Parliament and no Code of Rules was perfect. The principle Parliament had adopted in relation to these matters was that it was incapable, as was certainly

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    the case, of legislating upon them. On the whole, the present Rules formed a very decided step in the right direction. Judges were not law reformers as a rule. [Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT: Hear, hear!] They never had been and they never would be. When, therefore, Parliament got for them so large an instalment as this, he thought they ought to take it thankfully, and then ask for more. Therefore, he was unable to support the suggestion of the hon. and learned Member for Launceston, because he could not' see anything practical in the proposal to postpone them till February or April. The delay would lead to no real progress. Parliament would decide then, as it had decided before, that it was not competent to deal with the question. He hoped, therefore, the Motion would not be agreed to. He would, however, himself move an Amendment which he believed was practical. He desired that the Government should ask the Crown to annul Order 63 which perpetuated the flagrant and glaring abuse of vacations in the administration of justice in this country. This was the 11th of August, and the Royal Courts of Justice would be open just as Windsor Castle was, when Her Majesty was not there, for the inspection of an admiring public who wished to see their architectural beauties; but from this day until the 2nd of November, the building would be practically closed for the administration of justice. It would be difficult to find a parallel of such denial of justice in any other country. The Vacations which this Rule proposed to perpetuate were four in number. At Christmas there were 20 days; at Easter, 12 days; at Whitsuntide, 10 days; and the Long Vacation, 85 days—in all, 127 days out of the 365, or 18 weeks and one day during which Her Majesty's subjects were denied justice while the Judges were drawing their full remuneration. In what Department of the State was there as much as 18 weeks' holiday? He saw the Home Secretary on the Treasury Bench. Had he had 18 weeks' holiday since he had been in Office? Had the Prime Minister had as much as 18 weeks' holiday? Such a state of things existed in no other Profession under the sun, and yet those belonging to trades and other professions had to pay for it. He had brought this question before the notice of the House on a
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    previous occasion, and the Attorney General then said he would bring what he described as the unanimous opinion of the House under the consideration of the Judges, but deprecated any action being taken at that time (August, 1881), because it would not be respectful to the Judges to interfere without giving them an opportunity of expressing their opinion. But so far as the principle of shortening the Vacation was concerned, the House and the Government unanimously accepted it. That representation was submitted to the Judges, and the Home Secretary, in the course of some wise and weighty words, said—
    "One of the greatest difficulties of getting the law administered in this country was the block of business and the loss of judicial power consequent upon the fact that, with reference to a great portion of the business, it was altogether suspended for a third or a fourth of the whole year."
    And the Home Secretary added—
    "That the judicial and administrative staff of the country was more expensive than all the Public Departments of the State put together."(3 Hansard, [216] 1801.)
    He could see no excuse for the present system; but if there was to be no alteration in the Vacation except upon the report or recommendation of the Judges, it would never be shortened by a day or by an hour. [Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT: Hear, hear!] The Home Secretary was right. The Judges had met to consider the question. It was known that there had been a division of opinion among them, and that notwithstanding the protest of the Lord Chief Justice and some of his colleagues, the majority decided to remain as they were, and that these Vacations of which the public complained, and which were a public scandal, should be continued. And they were asked to stereotype an Order which perpetuated this evil. Parliament would be false to the interests of the public, and the Government would be false to the attitude they had assumed as law reformers, if they permitted legislative sanction to be given to such an Order. He was not going to ask the House to specify what should be the length of the Long Vacation, or what would be the best way of promoting facilities in the way of the administration of justice. He simply asked them to decline to sanction the present system, leaving it to the Judges to reconsider the matter before the 24th

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    of October, and to submit to Parliament another and a better scheme for readjusting judicial time and the Judicial Vacations. There was nothing in that that could be said to be in any way disrespectful to the Judges. Although the Long Vacation might have the plea of antiquity, the present Bench had added a fortnight to it. The hon. and learned Member for Colchester (Mr. Willis) remembered having sat in Court as late as the 29th of August; but when the Judicature Act was passed, the Judges interpreted it as requiring that all judicial business should terminate on the 8th of August. That statement was controverted in The Times, and a learned Judge, under the well-known signature of "B.," disputed it. But the evidence which he had put before the House had never been set aside, and he had the highest authority for saying that prior to the passing of the Judicature Act the Judges sat at Leeds, Bristol, Gloucester, Liverpool, and in Surrey long after the 8th of August. So that not only had the Judges perpetuated the old Vacation, but had added a fortnight to it, and now asked Parliament to sanction it. He should take the opinion of the House on his Amendment as being a practical measure of Law Reform. At the same time, he wished to say that although the Rules were not everything they could desire, yet they would make a considerable reduction in the expense and facilitate the administration of justice, and he hoped the House would accept them. He had no desire to deprive the eminent functionaries who sat on the Bench of a fair and legitimate holiday; he did not wish to see the burdens thrown on them unnecessarily increased; but he maintained that 18 weeks in one year was an amount of exemption from public work which no class of public servants ought to ask the House or the country to grant. The hon. Member concluded by moving his Amendment, of which he had given Notice.
    Amendment proposed,
    To leave out from the second word "that," to theo end of the Question, in order to insert the words "Order 63, of the Rules of the Supreme Court, 1883, may he annulled."—(Mr. H. H. Fowler.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    MR. GRANTHAMsaid that while he agreed with the hon. Member who
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    had just spoken in almost all the arguments he had used in the first portion of his speech, he must oppose the conclusions he had arrived at concerning the Vacations in the second part. He had the authority of the late Master of the Rolls, one of the greatest and most hard-working lawyers who had ever sat on the Judicial Bench, for saying that the public would derive no advantage if the Long Vacation were in any way curtailed. If the Amendment which had just been mooted were agreed to, it would have really no effect whatever, and the matter would be left exactly where it was.
    MR. H. H. FOWLERasked permission to explain. The effect of his Amendment, if carried, would be not to leave things precisely as they were before, because the Rule which regulated Sittings and Vacations would be repealed, and the Judges would, therefore, be bound to draw up a New Rule in its place.
    MR. GRANTHAMsaid, he did not think the Amendment would have such an effect, and that matters would remain as they were. But the mere fact of discussing these Rules in such a manner was altogether anomalous; and it was very unfortunate, indeed, that they should have been brought forward at so late a period of the Session. Although he rejoiced at the majority of the Rules, he thought there were some that required modification, particularly those relating to the carrying on of suits on behalf of paupers, and he thought the Judges would see that they ought to be amended. They were not, however, of the drastic character which they were intended to be after the Committee made their Report some two years ago, although that was a reason why the longer time should be allowed for this discussion. If the Rules were now forced through Parliament, an early amendment would be necessary; and he thought it would be better to have one good practical Act of Parliament, even if they had to wait a little for it. At the same time, he considered that, if they were modified, the Rules would form one of the most valuable additions to the laws of the land that had ever been provided.
    MR. INDERWICKsaid, he would not criticize the Rules in detail; but in reference to the speech of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler), he thought the country was indebted to him for having brought before

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    the House one of the most important questions that could be discussed, the readjustment of judicial time, a question which he brought before the House on another occasion by a Motion for the abolition of the Long Vacation. Individually, he did not feel that he could support that abolition; but, undoubtedly, the hon. Member had made use of arguments that day that should commend themselves to the House. They had heard of the serious block of business in the Chancery Division. They had also heard of a considerable number of causes standing over in the Queen's Bench; and he had himself on one or two occasions unsuccessfully endeavoured to bring before the House the state of things in the Admiralty Division, and the great expense many classes were put to by Judges being removed to go on Circuit. Of course, the removal or decrease of the Long Vacation would be of substantial benefit to suitors; but, without taking such an extraordinary step as that, it was quite possible, by means within the disposal of the Government, to make such a disposal of judicial time as that some time should be given to the Courts at London, Liverpool, Leeds, and Manchester, where cases were waiting to be tried. What the Government had to do was to make up their minds to deal in a trenchant satisfactory manner with the question of Circuits. The Circuits were now nearly over, and he had been told by those who had been on Circuit that there was more business this year than there had been for a considerable time. But two or three Judges were sent on Circuit, and were sent to places the names of which hon. Members were familiar with, and they were taken away from business in London, and they went in twos to five places, where there was not a single cause to try; and to other towns Judges were sent year after year where there were but a few causes to be tried. Under the Assize Act, the Government could send Judges where there was business to transact, and they had power to group towns in a way that would give far more satisfaction. But the fact was, no Government had had courage to deal with the question of Assizes; because, in a number of obsolete country towns, the Assize time was popular and important to the local trade. He did not think that Circuit arrangements ought to be done away with; but he did believe that
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    if Judges were sent to places where there was business to transact, and if the Government would take in hand the appointment of Spring and Winter Assizes for civil causes, it would be an enormous benefit to suitors, and Judges would not be occupied in trying cases of the most trumpery character. The fact was, though we did not like to admit it, that we were now administering justice in a mechanical point of view, and sending Judges round in the same manner as the days of years ago, before railways and the telegraph were known, no official allowance being made for the shifting of populations and the enormous increase of our great centres of industry in a few years. This he was glad had been put before the House, for it was a substantial matter to deal with. The block of business in the Court was of more practical importance than the alteration of Rules, and the circumstances under which a jury might or might not be had by suitors. It was a pity that the subject had not been dealt with, as it might be, by an Order in Council. He knew the Home Secretary was in favour of such a course, and he hoped another Session would not pass without a step being taken in that direction.
    MR. STUART-WORTLEYsaid, he had known the Judges to sit in Leeds as late as the 16th or 17th of August; and he believed they were sitting in Liverpool at the present moment. He saw in the newspapers also that there was less work at Manchester than occupied the time at the disposal of the Judges. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler) was, therefore, mistaken in thinking that the Judges had added a fortnight to the Vacation, and that they had construed the Judicature Acts to mean that no legal business was to be transacted after the 8th of August. His hon. and learned Friend (Sir Hardinge Giffard) began his speech by claiming the support of hon. Members opposite, because there was no Party issue in this debate; and it was on that ground that he (Mr. Stuart-Wortley) would not support his hon. and learned Friend. Nor could he support the Amendment crudely proposed by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, who based his speech on the false assumption that there was too much work for the Judges to do at the Assizes. It was evident that no Code of Rules could be passed which would please everyone. Even supposing that

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    they could suspend the operation of these Rules for another three months, and that every representation which could be made were listened to, it would be impossible so to amend them that in the end they should satisfy anything like the various conflicting interests which would all try to make themselves felt. Moreover, if they were to annul the Rules, what security would they have that the Rule Committee would meet again and re-enact them? The House could not order the Committee to alter the Rules. However respectfully they might word the Address, and however careful they might be to save the feelings of the Judges, the House had, wisely or unwisely, deprived themselves of the power of oven indicating their wish that the Code should be re-enacted. The conclusion of his hon. and learned Friend (Sir Hardinge Giffard) resolved itself into this—that there were among the Rles two or three that were certainly objectionable What remained as really objectionable were the Rules in reference to cross-examination and jury trials. But, as the Solicitor General had already proved, except in the matter of reversing the presumption, whether there should be trial by jury or not, there would be no greater power, under the New Rules, of compelling a trial without jury than existed before. If his hon. and learned Friend had proposed to expunge the Rule as to cross-examination, he should have voted with him; and that would have prevented the raising, in a perhaps unconstitutional way, of a very difficult question. The principal reason why he objected to the proposal to annul these Rules was that so long as the Rule Committee confined themselves to matters which were intra vires, it was in the last degree undesirable that Rules of Legal Procedure should be discussed by the general public. The despotism of the Judges had been referred to; and it was true that bodies like the Law Societies and Bar Committees were much to be respected—though the Bar Committee had not begun particularly well—but what he humbly thought to be worse than the despotism of the Judges was the despotism, in matters entirely beyond its cognizance and above its comprehension, of the uninstructed public.
    MR. HORACE DAVEYsaid, he was surprised to hear the very weak case which the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Launceston (Sir Hardinge Giffard)
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    was able to lay before the House. The hon. and learned Gentleman had pleaded for delay; he had told the House that the object of the Motion, was to secure that the Rules should undergo some discussion by the public and the different branches of the Legal Profession. In asking the House to assent to the Motion, the hon. and learned Gentleman ought to have shown the House that there were some substantial defects in the Rules; but he had failed to do so. If his hon. and learned Friend had shown that the Rules had abolished trial by jury, or had placed serious restrictions on the right of trial by jury, he would have been justified in asking for further time in which the Rules could be amply and fully discussed in the House and in the country. But the Rules had done nothing of the kind; they, in fact, did not go one step further in that direction than the Rules already in existence went. In regard to the question of the payment of the costs of an action which might have been commenced in a County Court, the hon. and learned Gentleman had also failed to make out such an impeachment of the Rules as would warrant any delay. He was glad to hear from the Solicitor General that the Judges would be ready to give the most attentive and careful consideration to any suggestions which might be made respecting the Rules. In his opinion, there were several matters which were fairly open to criticism, and on which he should have taken a very different view from that taken by the Judges. For example, he doubted the expediency of handing over to the chief and junior clerks in Chambers the duty of dealing with money orders in Chancery. He had great apprehension that the same careful attention would not be paid to the security of the money as had hitherto been paid. He was also very doubtful of the expediency of abolishing what had hitherto been found in the Chancery Division to be a very useful mode of procedure—namely, that by demurrer. It must be borne in mind, however, that these Rules had been under the consideration of the Committee of Judges for a considerable time, and that it would be unwise for the House, except upon the strongest grounds, to take upon itself the responsibility of annulling the Rules. A great deal of the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman was in the direction of an impeachment

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    of the policy of the Judicature Acts. It was obvious that the hon. and learned Gentleman would take away from the Judges the power of legislating with regard to the practice and procedure of the Courts. But that was not the Question before the House. He knew a great many hon. Members had serious doubts as to the wisdom of placing so much power in the hands of the Judges; but that power was deliberately given by Parliament, and he was sure the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Launceston would be the last man in the world to undo, by a side-wind, that which had been determined upon by the House after the most careful and anxious consideration. Had the Judges exceeded their power? He considered his hon. and learned Friend had failed to convince the House that they had done so. He did not regard the objection which had been made with regard to cross-examination as really serious or substantial. He considered that a Judge who presided at a trial ought and must have the power of regulating the evidence which was to be put in at the trial. If any material evidence were excluded there would be ground for a new trial. Justice, however, could not be administered unless there was the power vested in the Judge to stop irrelevant and vexatious cross-examination. To turn to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler), he must say he had long been of opinion that if the question of the Long Vacation was to be regarded from the point of view of the public, it was impossible that the Long Vacation could exist as at present. He did not think it necessarily followed that the Long Vacation itself should be shortened. The difficulties now experienced might be met by increasing the staff of Vacation Judges, or by increasing the number of days on which the Vacation Judges sat. The public did not realize the strain upon the health and strength of the Judges involved in the sittings in Court and on Circuit. It would be unwise to curtail the amount of vacation allowed to the Judges; but there was some justice in his hon. Friend's complaint as to the decreased expenditure of judicial time in the service of the country. It was certain that the Courts sat later and rose earlier than they did formerly; he hoped they did the business more efficiently now than they did
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    when the sittings were more prolonged. He sympathized with the object his hon. Friend had in view; but he doubted whether that object could be effected in the manner suggested. If these Rules were passed, his hon. Friend would not be prevented from bringing forward the question in the future, as he had done in the past; and, therefore, he trusted his hon. Friend would be satisfied with the discussion which had taken place, and that he would not persevere in his proposal to leave out one of the Orders, the effect of omitting which would be to some extent to disorganize and make incomplete that which was intended to be a complete Code of Rules.
    MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, he thought the House was indebted to the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Launceston and to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton for the course they had taken on this occasion. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton had acknowledged the great danger which at present threatened the administration of law in this country—namely, the danger arising from the confusion inseparable from the sending of Equity Judges to administer Common Law. If the discussion had done nothing else, it had brought out the confusion involved in the so-called fusion of Law and Equity. The House had created such distrust in the minds of the Judges by its dilatory yielding to Obstruction that they had adopted the best means of evading the discussion of the New Rules. He (Mr. Newdegate) could not think without shame upon the time wasted in the Autumnal Session upon the futile attempts to prevent Obstruction. Unless the House manifested more determination in vindicating the functions for which it was elected, he foresaw that from year to year the Judges would assume the legislative functions the House abandoned, while Democratic meetings out of the House would dictate the principles on which the House was to act. He cordially thanked the hon. and learned Member for Launceston for this protest against the House abandoning its functions.
    MR. MORGAN LLOYDsaid, he did not believe the carrying of the Amendment would prevent the sitting of the Courts; if it were carried the Judges might either sit all through the year or take any vacation they pleased. There did not appear to be any substantial objection to any of the Rules; the objection

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    was that there was not time to discuss them. It had been said that the Rules abolished considerably limited the right to trial by jury in civil cases; but that was a mistake. The right remained as it was, and the Rules only affected the procedure. It was also objected that they were unfair to members of the Legal Profession, as they reduced the costs of litigation. He hoped they would have that effect, and that they would not only reduce the costs, which had been greatly increased by the Judicature Acts, but would also tend to reduce the arrears of causes and shorten the inordinate length of proceedings. Under these circumstances he must oppose the Motion, though he would have been glad if the Rules could have been embodied in the Bill, as was the case with the original Judicature Rules. This method of legislating was objectionable, and could only be justified by absolute necessity, which would not exist if it were not for Obstruction; but, authority having been given to the Judges to make the Rules, only the very gravest reason could justify the House taking the course that was now proposed.
    MR. WARTONsaid, it was perfectly unnecessary to abolish demurrers; nothing in their practice of the law had been more useful. In the case of "Chamberlain v. Boyd," a demurrer saved the cost and delay of bringing witnesses from Australia by enabling the Court to decide the point of law on the assumption that their evidence would support the allegations made. And the rights and privileges of that House were being argued on a demurrer by the Attorney General, who was now supporting Rules which would get rid of demurrers. The principle of the Rules as to trial by jury was that it should be dispensed with, because it was only by way of exception to trial by Judges that trial by juries was allowed in the class of causes that were most sensational. There could not have been devised a better means of throwing contempt on trial by jury. The tendency of the Rules was to limit the employment of junior counsel, for whom Judges and eminent counsel seemed to have too little consideration. Solicitors were treated scandalously in being saddled with costs if witnesses were absent or papers were missing; and barristers' clerks were to be deprived of what was duo to their merit and fidelity.
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    Let the line between Legislative and Executive functions be recognized, and let Judges judge and Parliament legislate.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)said, the matter had been very fully discussed; but he regretted that it had been debated only by members of the Legal Profession. With the exception of the hon. Member for Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate), he thought that no hon. Member had expressed an opinion upon these New Rules except he was a member of the Legal Profession. If the House would allow him, he would refer to what had been said by the hon. and learned Member for Launceston (Sir Hardinge Giffard), and in doing so he would endeavour not to say one word that would bring him in conflict with the House and the hon. and learned Gentleman. The hon. and learned Member, in his speech, had spoken of these Rules being concealed, and of the Judges being despotic. He (the Attorney General) was sure his hon. and learned Friend did not intend to say anything that would offend; but he was bound to say that he was certain the words used grated upon the ears of many hon. Members who heard them. Let the House do justice to the Judges. They had not assumed any duties or taken any course which ought to be regarded as being despotic in relation to the framing of these Rules. The duty was cast upon them by Parliament, and the House ought to be grateful to the Judges who, having had that duty imposed upon them, had attempted to discharge it according to the very best of their power in the interests of the public. The House ought, therefore, to be very careful in the language they applied to them. Let him ask the House to consider whether it was possible to accept this Motion without almost acting unconstitutionally, and at least acting in a manner which would be a great insult to the Judges. [Cries of "No, no!"] He said so, and said so advisedly. ["No, no!"] At least the House, before uttering these signs of dissent, should listen to what he was going to say. Let him first remind the House of the course that had been taken. The Judges might, if they had so chosen, have framed these Rules, and put them into operation at once without consulting Parliament. That was a course that had been taken several times before. The

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    sanction of this House, to a certain extent, had been given to the Judges at all times to frame Rules that should come into operation even before they were laid upon the Table of the House; and if, therefore, the Judges had thought it right to frame these Rules, and to bring them into operation, they would but have been following precedent. He was bound to say that for his hon. and learned Friend to use the term that these Rules had been kept secret by the Judges was very strong language; besides, it was in no way justified by the facts of the case. The Judges had afforded the House an opportunity of considering the New Rules, and had taken that course at great personal inconvenience. The course proposed to be taken by the hon. Member for Launceston (Sir Hardinge Giffard) was to move an Address to the Crown; but if that were done the Crown would not allow these Rules to come into existence. That would be a most serious thing for the Crown to do, so far as the Judges were concerned. What was to be done when the Rules were annulled? What were the Judges to say? They would be told by the Crown that their labours were to be entirely destroyed, and no reason was to be given. The Judges were not supposed to know the reason why their work was annulled, and yet next year they would again be asked to re-enact that which would be annulled this year. It was, in fact, asking the House to annul the Rules in the hope that next year the annulment would be put aside and the Rules again submitted. That would be a course which appeared to him to be without precedent in the House of Commons, and he trusted hon. Members would pause before they sanctioned such a course. He would ask the House to consider upon what grounds this annulment was asked for. Such a serious step could only be taken on general grounds, such as that there had not been time for consideration, or that there was something in the Rules themselves which necessitated that being done. As for the general grounds, he had heard nothing advanced which in his mind would justify the step. The Committee which considered the Rules in the first instance were men of great experience, and afterwards these Rules were sent to every Law Society in England. The Provincial Law Societies were consulted and made their reports, and all these reports
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    and suggestions were placed before the Judges, and if he had time he could show that every one of them was carried out. His hon. and learned Friend had said it was monstrous that they should extend the provisions of Order XIV. to actions for the recovery of land. But what was said by the Incorporated Law Society on the subject? They said that the provisions of the Order ought to be so extended, and, in fact, the suggestion came from them; and he asked the House to accept the opinion given in favour of the Rules by the Incorporated Law Society. This was not a despotic action on the part of the Judges, for everything that was done was done on the suggestion of those outside. More than that, they placed the Rules on the Table of the House in order to give an opportunity for discussion, and that they need not have done if they had so wished. His hon. and learned Friend the Member for Launceston had said that he had not had time to consider these Rules, but, being a distinguished member of the Legal Profession, a copy of the Rules was furnished to him as early as the 11th of June; but the hon. and learned Gentleman admitted that he had not considered them, because he said he had only waded through them. He thought the House had a right to ask the hon. and learned Member when he moved for this Address to the Crown to state what his objection to the Rules were. He did not move objections to any particular Rules, but he simply asked that the Judges should be treated in a manner which they did not deserve, by having their work thrown back upon them as a whole. The hon. and learned Gentleman had dwelt strongly on the fact that the Rules would abolish trial by jury in certain cases; but that provision was put in the Rules at the suggestion of the Incorporated Law Society. Anyone could have trial by jury if he simply asked for it, and at the expense of 6s. 8d. What was the weight of authority that was said to be against these Rules? The opinion of the Bar Committee and of the Incorporated Law Society had been cited against these Rules; but Parliament I had an authority of its own in such matters. The Prayer of the Bar Committee was that before these Rules were submitted to Parliament they ought to be submitted to them. He had yet to

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    learn that the Bar Committee came into existence in order that four Judges should submit their labours to it. He wondered what these gentlemen expected was to be their duty. Because the Judges did not submit their Report to the Bar Committee before giving it to the public, his hon. and learned Friend said that the Committee kept the Rules secret, and made of that a ground for a charge against the Committee. He hoped the House would believe that the result of the labours of those four Judges showed that they had acted with unusual courage. He firmly believed the Rules would work a great reform in the law generally, and all in the interests of the public. The costs of Chancery suits would be reduced down to the level of Queen's Bench costs, so that there would be no longer any extra charge on the public. He could assure the House that the public only would benefit by these reforms, and everything that had been done had been done for the purpose of lessening the scandalous charges and expenses attending law proceedings. He was certain that it could not be shown that the interests of the public suffered in any way from these Rules, and for that reason he asked the House not to accept the Amendment. They must either accept the labours of the Judges as they had been carried into effect, or they must point out the errors that the Judges had made in the Rules before they could be refused.
    SIR HARDINGE GIFFARDsaid, he should not have availed himself of his right of reply if the Attorney General had not put a construction on his words which they did not bear. Whatever might be said about his speech being misunderstood, he should say the speech of his hon. and learned Friend would be very much misunderstood by the Judges. He did not say that the Judges were despots. What he said was, that while the policy of our Whig ancestors was to keep Judges down, the tendency of these Rules was to make Judges despotic; and upon that solitary sentence the Attorney General had thought right to say that he had described the Judges as despots.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)said, he had heard the phrase "the despot Judges" over and over again.
    SIR HARDINGE GIFFARDobserved, that he had simply discussed the tendency of the Rules. The notion of
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    describing these learned men, many of whom he was glad to say were his intimate and dear friends, in any terms of opprobrium or reproach was the furthest thing from his mind. Except the Attorney General, he did not think there was a single Member of the House who would have supposed he intended to do so; and he was quite sure none of the Judges would have supposed he had spoken of them in their absence as the Attorney General had represented. The Attorney General seemed to think that an Address to the Crown in pursuance of the section was a reflection on the Judges; but if it was never to be used they had better give unchecked power to Her Majesty's Judges. But as long as they said this power of legislating, so to speak, required a check, how could it be insulting to the Judges if they availed themselves of the only mode of doing so? The Attorney General said the Judges had worked night and day so as to present the Rules at an early period; but had they not presented them to Parliament so soon, and had only published them on the 24th of October, there would have been 40 days before next Session in which there would have been an opportunity of considering them and presenting an Address. But that was evidently what the Government did not want. He did not conceal from the Attorney General that he thought some of the powers given to the Judges had been used in such a way that they would produce mischievous results to the public, and especially was that the case with regard to referring a question to arbitration after scientific evidence had been obtained on both sides at great expense. Therefore, when he was asked to accept a Code of Jurisprudence of this sort he looked upon it with great jealousy, and he required an opportunity to examine it. The Attorney General had made a most undue use of what he had called a Minute on this matter of a Committee of the Incorporated Law Society; but it was not a Committee of that Society, but a certain number of gentlemen selected by the Lord Chancellor. The Committee was appointed by the House, or under the powers of the Judicature Act, and then the Attorney General said that the Report of these gentlemen—or rather their opinion, which had no more authority than that of any other person—had been before the House for two years. The Attorney General had

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    further misrepresented him in saying that he asked the House to pass an adverse judgment on the Rules; all he asked was that time should be given to consider the matter in detail. He did not expect the House to form a judgment on these Rules, as they were matters for lawyers to consider; what he did ask the House to say was that sufficient time had not been given to form a judgment upon their merits or demerits after they had been considered by lawyers.
    MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORasked, as a point of Order, if any hon. Member desired to present an Address to Her Majesty with reference to any other Rule than that named in the Amendment, he could after the Division move an Amendment to that effect?
    MR. SPEAKER: If the House decide that the original words should not be adopted, then on the Question that the words of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton be there added, an Amendment might be moved.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 99; Noes 22: Majority 77.—(Div. List, No. 285.)
    Main Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 49; Noes 71: Majority 22.—(Div. List, No. 286.)

  BANKRUPTCY BILL,— [BILL 243.]
  (Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Solicitor General, Mr. John Holms.)
  BANKRUPTCY BILL,— [BILL 243.]

    CONSIDERATION.
    Order for Consideration, as amended, read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be re-committed in respect of Clause 24."—(Mr. Chamberlain.)
    MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, he rose to move the adjournment of the House. The House sat until 4 o'clock this morning, and met again at noon. It was understood from the Prime Minister that the Government would not ask the House to sit beyond a reasonable hour this evening. On Wednesdays, according to the Standing Orders, the House rose at 6 o'clock. A "reasonable hour" this evening must be presumed to mean an hour earlier than the dinner hour—say 6 o'clock. The character of the Bill they were asked to consider was such that it was not reasonable to believe that any practical
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    progress could be made before the dinner hour, and no public advantage could result from a discussion in that time.
    MR. CALLANseconded the Motion for Adjournment.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. Arthur O'Connor.)
    MR. CHAMBERLAINsaid, he hoped the House would allow them, at all events, to get the Bill into Committee. The Prime Minister had said that the House would not be asked to sit very late, and he did not see why the House should sit very late if hon. Members would address themselves to the Question. But when they got into Committee it would be for the House to decide whether they cared to proceed further.
    MR. CALLANsaid, that he was prepared to sit if necessary so as to break the Sabbath.
    MR. DALYsaid, he hoped his hon. Friend would not press the Motion for Adjournment. They must recollect that this was a very important Bill, and owing to the lateness of the Session they ought to be willing to make some personal sacrifices for the purpose of passing it. There was great anxiety for this Bill amongst the commercial classes of Ireland.
    MR. BLAKEsaid, he would join in the appeal to his hon. Friend. Outside the City of Dublin all the mercantile classes most earnestly desired this Bill. He could speak most positively for his own constituency, because the Corporation of Waterford had sent to him as well as to the City Members a very earnest request that they would do all in their power to get the Bill passed.
    MR. PARNELLsaid, he hoped his hon. Friend would not proceed with his Motion. Of course, it was open to everybody to have an opinion on the merits or demerits of the clauses extending the Bill to Ireland, and he supposed they would have a proper opportunity for discussing them; but upon this Motion nobody appeared desirous of saying very much. He thought that any Member moving such a Motion at this period of the Session took a great responsibility on himself in regard to other questions of importance in which the people of Ireland were interested. He did not wish to use his influence with any of his hon. Friends as regarded the passage of

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    the additional clauses; but he certainly did think that when the House had frequently sat on Saturdays until 12 o'clock at night, 6 o'clock was too early an hour to adjourn.
    MR. M. BROOKSremarked, that the hon. Member for Waterford had told the House that all the mercantile classes in Ireland were in favour of this Bill. ["No. no!"]
    MR. BLAKE: No. I said all the mercantile classes outside Dublin.
    MR. DAWSON (The LORD MAYOR of DUBLIN)expressed his belief that the Chamber of Commerce and other commercial bodies in Dublin were favourable to the extension of the Bill to Ireland.
    MR. DIXON-HARTLAND, in supporting the Motion for Adjournment, said, this was the first Bill that had come up from the Grand Committees. ["No, no!"] Well, it was the second; and if it were to be taken now, when they were all nearly worn out, it would be striking a very great blow at the Grand Committees.
    MR. FINDLATERsaid, he should support the adjournment. There had not been any manifestation of public opinion in Ireland in favour of the Bill. There had been a fictitious public opinion got up by the signing of a certain document by several Members of Parliament, the great majority of whom, he undertook to say, knew nothing whatever about Bankruptcy Law. He knew how those Petitions were manufactured. He had very serious objections to this Bill. ["Order!"]
    MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must confine himself to the Question of Adjournment.
    MR. FINDLATERsaid, he was opposed to a long Sitting this evening.
    MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, although he still retained his personal objection to proceed with the Bill at this hour, he would, in deference to a request of the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), the Leader of the Party to which he owed allegiance, ask leave to withdraw his Amendment.
    MR. BIGGARwished, before the withdrawal of the Amendment, to direct the attention of the Prime Minister to his statement last night, that he did not intend to ask the House to sit late today. The spirit of that pledge would argue that they should not sit later than 6 o'clock, particularly as they had disposed
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    of one branch of Business which had been put on the Paper.
    MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he had distinctly conveyed to the House that the Government would not ask the House to sit till a late hour this evening; but it was quite evident by the letter and spirit of that pledge that they had not reached the time at which the House should be asked to desist from its labours. At that hour (6.30) it would be extremely wrong on the part of the Government if, after giving Notice of this Business, they should refuse to proceed with it.
    MR. P. MARTINsaid, great and important issues would be involved in the discussion, which was not one of the mere re-commitment of the Bill. The measure would have the effect of introducing into Ireland the great evils of officialism.
    MR. SPEAKERsaid, the hon. and learned Member was not confining himself to the Question of Adjournment.
    MR. P. MARTINsaid, he was endeavouring to show that the discussion would be one of great importance.
    MR. MELDONwished to say why he should vote for the adjournment of the House. It was said that the Motion was one for the re-commitment of the Bill; but it must be remembered that the discussion about to take place was one upon the principle of it as applied to Ireland. On the ground that the discussion must be of a lengthened character, and that the Prime Minister gave a distinct pledge that the Sitting should not be a late one, he thought it was a most unreasonable thing that they should now be asked to enter upon a general discussion of the principles of the Bill.
    MR. PULESTONsaid, that, in his opinion, more harm than good would be done if the Government persisted in proceeding with the Bill after what the House had accomplished during the afternoon.
    MR. BARING, on the contrary, trusted the Government would not be deterred from their resolution to proceed, as the Bill, however it might affect Ireland, at any rate was of the greatest consequence to England.
    Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
    Original Question put, and agreed to.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
    MR. P. MARTIN, who had the following Notice on the Paper:—
    "That, in view of the fact that the Second Reading of this Bill was taken, and its committal to and constitution of the Standing Committee assented to on the statement that the provisions did not extend to Ireland or Scotland, that Clauses which proposed to so extend it were proposed in Committee and then withdrawn, and that the Bill has been since in part recommitted, it is inexpedient and unreasonable at this period of the Session to now propose that by new Clauses the Bill shall be extended, and the substantive control in the administration of estates in bankruptcy in Ireland vested in the English Board of Trade, and the abuses and evils incident to the already too widely extended Governmental centralization in Irish affairs increased, it is inexpedient to proceed with the Bill,"
    said, that before the House went into Committee on this Bill, he was anxious to say a few words. The Motion he had placed on the Paper in general terms expressed his opinion in respect to the Bill, and he would now very briefly, so far as the nature of the subject would permit, deal with the question. He respectfully submitted that the time and circumstances under which the present Motion had been made were most inopportune. This Bill was introduced into the House by the President of the Board of Trade, on the 29th of March, and it was then expressly declared that its provisions would not extend to Ireland, and during the discussion on the second reading not a single Irish Member stood up to ask that the Bill should be extended to their country. It was then referred to the Grand Committee, and, of course, as it was a Bill dealing simply and solely with English mercantile interests, the Committee was constituted with that borne in mind. On the 20th March the Bill entered the Grand Committee, and it was not until the 6th of June that the thought entered the mind of anybody to extend it to Ireland. Some discussion then took place, and certain Members asked that it should be extended to Ireland; but up to that time he believed he was true in stating not a single official of the Irish Government was on the Committee, and it was only then the Attorney General for Ireland was placed on the Committee. On being placed on it he put certain Amendments on the Paper, extending the Bill to Ireland. Now, what became of those Amendments? They were presented to the Committee after some days, and were
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    then withdrawn; but he would admit that they were withdrawn on the statement of the President of the Board of Trade for the purpose of consulting Irish feeling in reference to the matter. A "round robin" on the matter was then sent to the Irish Members. Was that the way to consult Irish feeling—was that the way to conduct the Business of the House properly, to send round to Irish Members in the dark hours of the night a paper asking them to sign it and say they were in favour of extending this Bill to Ireland? Was that the way Business was to be managed in the English Parliament, to send round at the fag-end of the Session a paper to the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Shaw) and his Friends, who were anxious to have local bankruptcy jurisdiction in their counties, and not allow the matter to be properly discussed at the Grand Committee? No doubt, it was stated that the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray) interfered there to prevent discussion; but the allegation of the President of the Board of Trade the hon. Member repudiated on the spot, stating that he was perfectly prepared then and there to oppose the extension of the Bill to Ireland. Under these circumstances, what had since occurred to justify the right hon. Gentleman in introducing these clauses again? The clauses never had the benefit of public discussion; in point of fact, they had never been examined into or ventilated. What justification now could there be for the sudden and hasty change on the part of the President of the Board of Trade? None that he could see, unless it was because of some gross abuse existing in the Irish system of bankruptcy. Now, he admitted that there might be some defects in the Irish system, as there was in all legal systems, and that it was capable of considerable improvements. He always advocated that small bankruptcy cases ought to be tried in the counties in which they arose, and he believed there was ample machinery existing at the present moment to give effect to that object. Why should not his own county of Kilkenny and the other counties in Ireland that had at present the benefit of Chairmen of Quarter Sessions have also the benefit of local Courts of Bankruptcy for the trial of small cases? But if this Bill passed it would be impossible to establish Courts of that character. Now,

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    let them see whether there were such gross abuses in the Irish system as would warrant this sudden change. He would give the words of a man who had studied the question of localization of Bankruptcy Courts with great care (Mr. James Campbell), and who had read several papers on the subject before the Statistical Society. What did he say? He said that the Irish bankruptcy system could not fail to be viewed in a favourable light, inasmuch as it would be found to contain all the virtues, whilst it was free from the vices, of the English and Scotch systems. The debts of the Irish Court, Mr. Campbell said, were collected economically and expeditiously by the Official Assignees; while the English system did not escape the unfavourable comments in this respect of the Commission of 1864. What did Mr. Justice Harrison say—a Belfast man, whose opinions ought to have some weight with the hon. Members from Belfast who were in favour of this Bill. Mr. Justice Harrison spoke in most favourable terms of the Irish system, and stated that while debts in England took 30 and 40 per cent to collect, they were collected in Ireland for 14 per cent. Now, these were important matters, which he submitted ought to be borne in mind before a hasty and sudden change was made. The President of the Board of Trade, when introducing this Bill, stated that £5,000,000 sterling had been wrongfully and fraudulently withheld from its owners. That, in fact, was the raison d'être of this Bill. Now, compare that state of affairs with what occurred in Ireland, and it would be found that not one shilling had been lost by the Irish Bankruptcy Court. It was, therefore, a very strange and a very curious thing that when, by this system, the money of the creditors was realized so cheaply and so expeditiously, that a great change should be made, and a new system of officialism introduced. What was the advantage of this Bill? The Official Referee, whom it was now proposed to extend to Ireland, introduced a most complicated system. First of all, a receiving order was to be made, under which the Official Referee was to take possession of the assets; then there was to be a Committee of Inspection as to which of the number fell below a certain limit, and report was to be made to the Judge. Altogether the whole of the
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    proceedings under the clauses of the Bill were of the most complicated and difficult character, and would entail waste of money and unnecessary expense upon the traders who were brought under its operation. What was gained by the substitution in Ireland of the Official Receiver for the old system? Nothing at all. The abuses and the abstraction of money which was complained of under the present system in England did not exist in Ireland. There the Official Assignee was a public officer; the dividend list was made out at a certain time, and it was the right of any creditor to walk into the Official's Office and ask for his dividend. If he did not get it, even on the next day the creditor could walk down to the Courthouse; and, without the assistance of attorney or counsel, could make an application to the Judge, who would not only direct payment of the dividend, but would probably make such a report as would incapacitate the Assignee from holding any such office in future. So far from this Bill providing an expeditious system, it, on the contrary, put into operation a scheme terminating in that great and important body, the Board of Trade, to which the Irish trader would have to resort to obtain his order. Instead of providing Bankruptcy Courts easily accessible to every suitor, this Bill created a body of irresponsible officials throughout every part of Ireland, from whom the unfortunate creditor would at last be driven to seek the aid and protection of the Board of Trade. As a general principle, therefore, this was a very singular system for the right hon. Gentleman to ask the House to adopt, especially as some men of the very highest authority and experience had condemned in the strongest terms this system of officialism altogether. On the second reading of the Bill an opinion of Lord Sherborne was quoted, pointing out the danger of relegating to a political body like the Board of Trade functions of this character. What was this system, too, but a wholly now and untried one? He could understand the proposal to extend this to Ireland, if it had been in successful operation in England; but, on the contrary, it was well known that in England they had muddled this question of bankruptcy, and introduced into it almost every wrong system they could introduce.

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    The right hon. Gentleman, too, was quite wrong in saying that these clauses, which were now, at the tenth hour, presented to the House, were the same as those originally brought before the Grand Committee. The very first of the latter proposed to extend the Bill to Ireland in a very different manner from what was now suggested. So far from creating small local Courts in different places, these clauses did the very opposite; for, in point of fact, they transferred to the Lord Lieutenant a power which the House of Commons ought not to vest in him—a power, namely, to create Bankruptcy Courts in such places as he thought fit. Some hon. Members might think this right; but he should be surprised if the majority of the House were in favour of such policy. If the Bill had not received the sanction of the Board of Trade, he should have stamped it as a piece of privileged and gross jobbery. He would assume that five Courts were appointed—Cork, Belfast, Limerick, Waterford, and Derry. How were these five Judges to be controlled, and from what fund would they be paid? Clearly, the Recorders could not fill the offices; and the curious spectacle was afforded of such an advocate of economy and retrenchment as the right hon. Gentleman pressing forward a Bill which, in regard to Ireland, would lead only to extra expenditure. Let them go a step further. These Courts would require a permanent staff, and from what fund were they also to be paid, or was the cost to be met out of the assets of the estates? These points furnished abundant reasons why there should be a full and adequate discussion of this Bill, so that the Irish people might really know what they had before them. Do not let anyone suppose that if this Bill were passed bankruptcy expenses in Ireland, of which many people now complained, would be any smaller. He trusted the President of the Board of Trade would not propose such a monstrous thing as that these expenses should be borne out of the estates of the debtors. This new Official Referee was to be paid from a percentage charged on the presentation of petitions; but he would have the House observe that plus that there would be the expenses of attorney and counsel—gentlemen whom many people would like to get rid of altogether in these transactions. The 17th section said, that—
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    "The official referee shall take part in the examination of the debtor, and for the purpose thereof, if specially authorized by the Board of Trade, may employ a solicitor with or without counsel."
    Here the inevitable solicitors stepped in—who might not be an Irishman, but an English attorney appointed by the Board of Trade, who would thus obtain the right to practice in Ireland without having obtained the necessary call, and without paying one farthing. But the grievance did not end there. Under the present Irish system there were limited provisions with respect to rights of appeal; but the 104th section of this clause proposed a power of appeal without stint or limit, and conceived on a most liberal principle. In this he recognized the hand of the English Solicitor General; and when the whole round of appeals up to the House of Lords had been carried out nothing but the proverbial oyster shell would be left for the unfortunate creditor. Then, again, for the sake of uniformity, economy, and expedition, the English Bankruptcy Judges had been constituted a part of the Supreme Court of Judicature; whilst there were separate clauses now to be moved by the Government, excluding this provision in respect to Ireland.
    Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present.
    MR. P. MARTINresuming, said, that when the Conservatives were in power they carried out these provisions; and on the Irish Judges being consulted all they advised was that the Bankruptcy Court in Dublin should be attached to the Chancery, and not to the Common Law Division. So little regard, however, was shown to Ireland that an express provision was to be moved excluding from that country this very moderate measure of reform. It was shown very clearly, by a Return presented on the Motion of an hon. Member opposite (Mr. Arthur O'Connor), that there was not work enough for even the two existing Judges; and he could not see why one of them, at least, should not be utilized in the Equity Courts. Mr. Walsh was a gentleman enjoying a large Equity business before he was made a Judge, and no one was better fitted to adorn the Irish Bench. The system of this Bill was intended to meet large and congested business, and it was a cruelty to

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    introduce those complicated and expensive provisions into Ireland, where they were not wanted. Another wholesome and just distinction drawn by the existing Irish law was that between trading and non-trading defaulters. It would be a great hardship to non-trading classes in Ireland to be subjected to stringent acts of bankruptcy. The result would be, that if a man, in a moment of error or folly, were to tell his servant when a man called for payment of an account—"I don't want to see him," he would thereby commit an act of bankruptcy, on which adjudication could take place, because it would be inferred he had acted with intent to defeat his creditors. It would be cruelty to apply such an Act of Bankruptcy to the non-trading classes throughout Ireland. Was there not, he asked, something behind the conduct of the Government in regard to this Bill? Was not this an attempt to extend the accursed centralization in Ireland? The President of the Board of Trade had got in the thin end of the wedge already with the tramways, and he now tried to get control of bankruptcy. He would, under the Bill, have enormous patronage in respect of bankruptcy; and it would not be very difficult then for the Dublin Lights Board to fall at his hand, and he who decried centralization would secure the control and leave every Irish matter in the hands of an English Board. It was no longer to be the Lord Lieutenant who would have the real control of Ireland, but the President of the Board of Trade. At the same time, such was his high opinion of the right hon. Gentleman that, if all that multifarious business could possibly be supervised personally by the present President of the Board of Trade, he would have loss objection to such an arrangement; but they could not hope that any one man could bestow upon it the vigilant attention which was required, and still less could they expect that the right hon. Gentleman would remain permanently in Office.
    MR. EWARTsaid, that, judging from the speech just delivered, legal and commercial men from Ireland took very different views of that question; but, although the present state of things might be very satisfactory to the lawyers, it was anything but satisfactory to the mercantile community. To describe the present system of bankruptcy in Ireland as being cheap, simple, and expeditious
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    was to draw a sketch from fancy only. The reverse was the opinion of the entire community in Ireland, except a small knot of gentlemen connected with the Legal Profession, many of whom were deeply interested in the existing system. Bankruptcy business in Ireland was now dear, complex, and tedious, so much so that the merchants allowed the traders to do almost what they liked rather than go into a Court of Bankruptcy. As to there being a small amount of business in that Court in Ireland, the fact was that a great amount of business which should go into Court did not go there at all for the reasons he had indicated. The hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny (Mr. P. Martin) had spoken slightingly of what he called the "round robin;" but it had been signed by 62 Gentlemen, while others gave it their approval, although objecting to put their names on the paper. In the town which he represented (Belfast), the Town Council, the Chamber of Commerce, the Linen Merchants' Association, and men of eminence in the banking world supported that measure. Indeed, there was a general consensus of opinion entirely in favour of the Bill. They wished to cast in their lot with England in regard to that legislation. The hon. and learned Member had quoted Judge Harrison as speaking in favour of the Bankruptcy Laws in Ireland; but that was when comparing them with the existing laws in England. He (Mr. Ewart), therefore, sincerely hoped that the Government would go forward with the measure.
    MR. DALYsaid, he must deny that that measure had been either conceived in haste or pressed forward with confusion. He also maintained that it had been considered in Ireland, and was approved by the mercantile community. As a matter of fact, no proceedings had been more carefully watched and discussed than the proceedings of the Grand Committee on the Bill; and the announcement of its extension to Ireland was received with satisfaction by commercial men throughout the country. The hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny (Mr. P. Martin) had had the audacity to state that the Bill had never been discussed by the Irish people. To that statement he gave a categorical denial. He knew, indeed, of no subject which was more freely canvassed and discussed in Ireland. The Irish Bankruptcy Law was

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    only good in comparison with the existing state of Bankruptcy Law in England; and the opinions quoted by the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny, of Mr. Campbell, and Judge Harrison, who were both theorists, were in opposition to the unanimous opinion of mercantile men in Ireland. No one felt where the shoe pinched more than the wearer; and the opinion of men who had 20 or 25 years' experience of the operations of the Bankruptcy Court in Ireland must weigh heavier than the opinion of an outsider who read a mere theoretical opinion before the Statistical Society in Dublin. When the Bill was introduced he sent it to every Society and Chamber of Commerce and Commercial Institute in Cork that was capable of examining it, and also to the Southern Law Association, composed of experienced solicitors; and from all these—from Mercantile Associations and Legal Associations alike—there came the opinion that it would be a great boon if the Bill were extended to Ireland. The Bill, as now before the House, had the approbation of the Dublin Mercantile Association and Council of Commerce, and of the most influential merchants of Belfast. He himself had the pleasure of meeting at the Board of Trade the Mayor of Belfast, surrounded by men representing its commercial interests, who came there with the head of his own Corporation and a number of the most influential men in Cork to pray that these clauses be extended to Ireland. There might be details which could be amended in Committee; but, in his opinion, the Bill contained that germ of a principle which had been desired throughout Ireland—namely, the establishment of local Courts of Bankruptcy. He had presented a Petition from 750 firms in the great centres of trade in England doing business with Ireland, who prayed that the great boon enjoyed here of a local Bankruptcy Court should be established in Cork, Belfast, and other centres. He, therefore, asked the English Members not to look upon this as an exclusively Irish question, but to consider the immense amount of business done from the English side of the Channel with Ireland. Was it unfair that Irish Members should ask that in their smaller operations at home they should be put on the same platform as Englishmen, and have a cheap and expeditious method of bankruptcy, in place of the costly and
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    protracted system at present carried on in Dublin? The evils of the present system comprised the delay in adjudication, whereby the trader, if he was dishonest, gained an immense advantage over his creditors. Again, where small estates had to be administered, the expense of taking witnesses to the Court in Dublin often absorbed nearly the whole of the assets; while the process of distributing the assets was also very expensive and dilatory. The establishment of local Courts would go far to remedy those evils. The extension of that Bill to Ireland was unanimously supported by the mercantile men of Belfast, Cork, Limerick, and Waterford. By whom was the measure opposed? Looking over the 30 pages of Amendments, he found, by an odd coincidence, the name of lawyer after lawyer, who did not represent the commercial classes, but presumably acted from esprit de corps, or from some other motive in defence of the Dublin legal gentlemen who were interested in the existing system. He would only add, in conclusion, that he hoped he had succeeded in establishing the fact that in the arguments used by the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny there were a great many inaccuracies; and he trusted that the House would not be deterred by the threat of factious opposition from conferring on the mercantile community in Ireland the boon which they anxiously anticipated.
    DR. LYONSsaid, he desired to put the House in possession of the views which a number of commercial men had addressed to him in regard to this Bill. This day, on it becoming known in Dublin that the Government was in earnest in their intention to extend this Bill to Ireland, he had been addressed by a body of individuals representing so many interests that it was impossible to ignore their high position and their right to speak on behalf of the commercial community. From the large number of telegrams which he held in his hand he would only enumerate a few, though they were all from persons of the most independent position. It was unworthy to impute to them that their position, as opponents of this Bill, was in the interest of a small clique of lawyers, or in the interests of Dublin alone. The Directors of the Royal Bank of Ireland had telegraphed to him that until experience was had of this Bill, and of its working

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    in England, they in Ireland should not be asked hastily to abandon a system of Bankruptcy Law which had hitherto given full satisfaction. These Directors, he said, were gentlemen who could be mentioned alongside some of the greatest commercial men in England. He had received telegrams from many other representative men and firms and Associations. It was not necessary for him to specify names. The senders all agreed in expressing their satisfaction with the working of the existing system. He only desired to put the views of the great body of the commercial community before the House. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade had stated he was desirous of being guided by the Representatives of Irish constituencies, and by those who represented the great commercial interests of the country. That, he pointed out, was not to be taken from a numercial comparison; but when they took the position of gentlemen of great commercial status, of perfect independence, and integrity of character, he thought that expressions of opinion such as he had the honour of conveying to the House were worthy of respectful consideration, and he was sure they would receive such consideration at the hands of the President of the Board of Trade.
    MR. DAWSON (LORD MAYOR of DUBLIN)said, the hon. Member for Dublin (Dr. Lyons) was not alone in receiving telegrams with regard to this Bill. He himself had also received telegrams; and it was quite evident, from their similarity with messages received by the hon. Member for Dublin, that they all emanated from a certain source, which would have found itself very weak indeed in the expression of Irish opinion without these Whips. The fact that they had all been received to-day was a condemnation of them as a genuine or representative expression of opinion. The Bill had been before the House since the 19th March; and it was strange, if the commercial people of Ireland felt so keenly on the subject, that they should have waited until now in order to inspire their Representatives to oppose it. They had not only inspired their Representatives, but he believed they had been themselves inspired, and the very phraseology of the telegrams they had sent had been forwarded to them. The Royal Bank was a peculiarly Dublin
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    institution, which had no branches to any extent throughout the country. Notwithstanding the telegrams referred to by the hon. Member (Dr. Lyons), there was no pronouncement from any distinguished house of business, except that which was an emphatic pronouncement in support of the Bill. Let them see what was the public opinion held by Ireland on this question. They were told by the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Daly) that most of the Amendments upon the Paper appeared in the names of Members of the Legal Profession; and, that being so, it would be well to see what was thought in Ireland on the subject. One of the first commercial circles in which he had heard this Bill criticized was a meeting of the Irish Commercial Travellers' Association in Dublin on April 7th. These were the men who held in their hands the threads of the commercial operations of Ireland; and one of them, Mr. Macdonald, who presided at the meeting, pointed out how the traders were injuriously affected by the present system, and how they, as a rule, took little notice of bad debts, because it would only be throwing good money after bad to go into the Bankruptcy Court. Honest traders in Ireland could not get on, because of the system which permitted the frequent appearances in the Bankruptcy Court of those who paid only 3s., 4s., or 5s. in the pound. Those who desired to see the commercial position of Ireland improve ought to welcome the introduction of such a measure as this, which would tend to make Irish traders business-like and prudent. The only reason which for a time had made him hesitate about supporting this Bill was that it was opposed by an hon. Gentleman with whom he had always desired to act most harmoniously—namely, the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray); but the hon. Member for Carlow was accountable, to some degree, for the sound opinion which he now held. The Freeman's Journal of the 23rd April commented on the meeting of the Commercial Travellers' Association, and expressed its belief that the need for the improvement of the Bankruptcy Law, recommended by that Association was obvious, and that their suggestions were sound. He found from a return that there were in the year 14,000 and odd bankruptcy cases, and

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    that for each case there were 15 or 16 sittings. As Judge Walsh, the Judge of the Bankruptcy Court, stated in May last, it was no wonder it was proposed to make some change in the system, considering the frequent adjournment of the cases pending before the Courts. Under the present system a man could open a place of business one day and shut the next; and, in his opinion, if this Bill was passed, it would introduce such good commercial habits into the country that it would go far to promote the prosperity of the country. In Dublin he remarked the case of a man who had closed several times and opened again; and, wishing to understand how he was able to do that, he inquired of the Official Assignee, and the Official Assignee told him that the man made declaration that he gave the best account he could give—the best account he could give being no account at all. Now, what was the view of the commercial traders in Ireland on the question? The Chamber of Commerce in Dublin was in favour of it, so were the Chambers of Commerce in Limerick, Belfast, Waterford, and Derry—in fact, all the towns in Ireland gave an unqualified support; and it was not until the telegrams were received a while ago, the identity of phraseology of which showed a common origin, that there was any indication of opposition to it. That opposition came entirely from the Dublin Legal Profession, and he should say that Profession took a very narrow-minded view of this matter. The fact was, there was no great amount of commercial business in Ireland, owing, to a considerable extent, to the state of the Bankruptcy Law; and he believed that a reform of that law would lead to a rapid increase of trade. One of the reasons alleged against the Bill was that it would deprive Ireland of a local institution, and centralize it in London. Now, such an opposition would entirely have his sympathy; but the President of the Board of Trade told him that he intended doing no such thing, but that it was proposed to establish in Dublin a branch of the Board of Trade—in fact, a new institution over which he would have control, and which would be only responsible to him. It was said—"Try the Bill in England, and then, if it succeeded, apply it to Ireland." Well, he would say—"Try it in England and Ireland, and if it does not succeed
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    deprive both of it." And now he came to the climax of the argument in favour of this Bill, and that was that there was a national element in the desire for it. He hoped, therefore, that the President of the Board of Trade would persevere with the Bill, and extend to Ireland a measure which would lay the foundation of that commercial prosperity which they so much wanted, and which they were so much in hopes of getting.
    MR. M. BROOKSsaid, he had listened with attention to the speech of the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Daly), and the right hon. Gentleman the Lord Mayor of Dublin (Mr. Dawson); and he failed to see that they pointed out one blot in the existing Irish Bankruptcy Law. Their arguments were entirely confined to a condemnation of the administration of an Irish system which was carried on by Irish gentlemen, and a condemnation of an institution which he never heard condemned before, and which he had always heard spoken of as being most satisfactory. If there was such a feeling in Ireland in favour of the Bill, why did not the Lord Mayor of Dublin ask the Body over which he presided to express an opinion on the matter? The Corporation of Dublin always took a deep interest in anything that concerned the commercial interests of Ireland; and why were they not asked to express their opinions on this question? He was amazed to hear the attacks made on an honourable Profession, to the effect that Amendments had been placed upon the Paper from mean and selfish motives. Now, he would be ashamed to suggest a doubt; but might it not be asked whether the Legal Profession in Cork and Belfast had personal interest in the matter also? He represented the unanimous feeling of the mercantile, manufacturing, and shipping interests of the City of Dublin, and they had but one feeling, and that was that, unless some weighty reasons were given, the Government ought not to make the changes proposed in the Bill. The more the subject had been examined, the more clearly did it appear that great injury would be done to the public interest by the application of the Bill to Ireland. Trade would be restricted and money interests injured; and he, therefore, hoped the House would negative the present proposal, which ought not to be proceeded with

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    without fuller discussion. He would move the adjournment of the debate.
    MR. GLADSTONEsaid, before that Question was put, and before it found a Seconder, he would make some observations which might have some influence on the mind of the hon. Gentleman. The experience which the Government had obtained since the close of the debate on the Judicature Rules and Orders had been very valuable in the light it had cast upon the future. It had enabled the Government to make a forecast of the future with sufficient accuracy, and to point out what was their duty under existing circumstances. In the few remarks he had to make, he would confine himself to an estimate of the facts of the case. The first point of importance was that they had arrived at the 11th of August. On this, the 11th of August, his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade had made a Motion to extend the enactments of the Bankruptcy Bill to Ireland, in pursuance of an announcement he had made to that effect; and there had been placed upon the Table of the House, almost entirely on account of that announcement, 39 pages of Amendments, which, he believed, amounted to more than 300 in number. It had not been found practicable to discuss these Amendments. Hon. Members from Ireland had felt it their Parliamentary duty to initiate a discussion on the principle of extending the Bankruptcy Bill to Ireland. Some half-dozen Irish Members had addressed the House upon the subject; and there remained, so far as he could form an estimate, no less than twice that number who also felt it incumbent on them, as Irish Members, to address the House.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: Not half that number.
    MR. CALLAN: Twice that number, Sir.
    MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he might be excused for attaching as much value to his own estimate as to that of other persons. It came, therefore, to this—that it would be impossible to name a day for resuming the discussion. Supposing they were now, or shortly, to adjourn the debate, the earliest day for resuming it would be Wednesday next; and though it might be possible to bring the Speaker out of the Chair at the close of the Wednesday Sitting, they
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    would only be at the beginning of the 39 pages of Amendments. Under these circumstances, the end of August would be reached before the Bill could be sent up to the House of Lords; and he was bound to say that would be making a draft upon the patience and forbearance of the House of Lords which would be hardly justifiable; and, undoubtedly, this was a Bill upon which the Legal Authorities of the other House had eminently a title to a fair opportunity of full discussion and consideration. The Government had not scrupled to ask the House in the past to make considerable sacrifices. It was a serious matter for the House to be entreated—and it had listened most cheerfully to the entreaty—to continue its daily discussions to hours so unreasonable as those at which it had recently adjourned. Besides that, they were reaching the outside limit of the Parliamentary Session in contemplating the transaction of the Business which they had before them, apart from the discussion of the extension of this Bill to Ireland. With regard to the measure itself, Her Majesty's Government attached to it the very greatest importance; and desirous as they were that Ireland should have the benefit of this measure, and that she should have the benefit of it without delay, yet they had another duty to perform—their duty to England, which substantially had got the measure; and it would be a heavy responsibility if, in the anxiety at once to extend it to Ireland without delay, they were to entail upon the House such a prolongation of labour as might even end in endangering the passing of the Bill as a Bill for England, but a Bill which he hoped would, in the next Session, serve for an extension to Ireland. [A laugh] He witnessed the glee of the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar), who, no doubt, looked upon this as another of the many achievements which had marked his career in the House. The hon. Member must be content to take a rational view of public affairs, and form but a modest measure of the achievements within the power of the Government. They considered that it was within their power to secure the passing of such a valuable measure; S and they did not think they ought to do anything that would endanger this result. They thought there was a limit on the demands which they were justified in

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    making on the House. The debate which had taken place was enough to show that the field opened by the Motion for extending the Bill to Ireland would practically be a very wide one. He had been careful not to say a word about Obstruction, or anything which could give offence to anyone. But he had now, on the part of his right hon. Friend (Mr. Chamberlain), and on the part of the Government, to say that while, of course, they would at once prosecute this measure, and would name an early day next week for that purpose, they would desist from any attempt to extend its provisions in the present year to Ireland; and it was his duty to ask leave to withdraw the Motion made three hours ago by his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, that, before the Motion was withdrawn, he would like just to say a word. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister was perfectly justified in stating that he had not said a word which would wound the susceptibilities of Members of the House. He had not been one of those who had taken any part in signing the request to the President of the Board of Trade; but he did not sympathize with the insinuation that the six Members who had taken part in the opposition to the Bill had been actuated by anything mean or selfish in that opposition. The opposition had been almost essentially of a local character, and was supported by enemies of centralization, and by lawyers; but it was only fair to add that it had not been obstructive. The Government were a little to blame in the matter, because they ought to have given the House an earlier opportunity for discussion. He hoped, however, that next Session any Bill for extending the provisions of the English Bill to Ireland would be introduced at a sufficiently early period to insure proper discussion.
    MR T. A. DICKSONwished to say, before the debate closed, that 70 Irish Members were in favour of the application of the Bill to Ireland; but that the influence and wishes of those Members were thrown aside by the Prime Minister, and the clauses relating to Ireland cast aside, in deference to the opinion of six Members. He had learned from these facts the value of Obstruction, and, in the end, it would prevail if persevered in. They had also seen the interests
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    of the entire commercial class in Ireland sacrificed to a clique of Dublin lawyers.
    MR. CALLANsaid, he had at no time during the past 15 3years admired the Prime Minister more than he had that evening, because there had been nothing more becoming in the Bill than its withdrawal. To show how the Prime Minister could gauge the opposition to the Bill, notwithstanding that the hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. T. A. Dickson) and the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) had spoken of only six Members, and that the opposition had been confined to a Dublin clique of lawyers, he would point out to the House that, although he had opposed it, he was not, unfortunately, a practising barrister; also the two hon. Members for Monaghan (Mr. Healy and Mr. Findlater) had opposed it—["No, no!"]—also the hon. and learned Member for Kildare (Mr. Meldon), the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny (Mr. P. Martin), who had retired with a large fortune; the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar), who was a merchant; the two hon. Members for the City of Dublin (Mr. M. Brooks and Dr. Lyons), one eminent as a merchant and the other as a medical man; the other hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Fay), the hon. Member for Wexford County (Mr. Small), and the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray). There had been 13 Members opposed to the Bill altogether, and who were prepared to oppose it at all lengths; and then the hon. Member for Tyrone had got up to oppose his old Friend the Prime Minister, on behalf of the 62 Members who had signed the requisition, not half of whom had really known what it was about. He was proud to say that he had killed two of the most objectionable Bills which had been brought on during the Session—the Sunday Closing Bill and the Bankruptcy Bill as it was proposed to be extended to Ireland.
    MR. FINDLATERsaid, he must deny that the opposition to the Bill had been promoted by a clique of Dublin lawyers. He had opposed it because he conscientiously believed it was fraught with injury to Ireland.
    MR. O'BRIENsaid, that there was one consolation, at all events, in the course the Government had taken, and that was that it would show the Irish people what power even half-a-dozen

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    determined men had in that House. He only hoped that the hon. Member for Dublin and his Friends, who had distinguished themselves by their prowess in upsetting these clauses, would expend as much energy in the cause of Ireland as they had in saving the Dublin Bankruptcy Court.
    MR. BIGGARsaid, the reason he signed the requisition to the Prime Minister was because he received a Memorial to that effect purporting to come from the Town Commissioners of Cavan; but he subsequently found that the Memorial really came from the chairman of a local bank at Belfast. Then he examined the Bill for himself, and came to the conclusion that it would not be desirable to extend it to Ireland, and that the opinion in favour of that extension was a manufactured opinion. He had to complain, further, that the conduct of Business with respect to the Bill when before the Grand Committee was unsatisfactory. One hon. Member was threatened that if he were to raise any difficulty on Report he would never get on a Grand Committee again. An hon. Member found that all his Amendments were opposed by the President of the Board of Trade, and he was outvoted; but the moment that hon. Member put down Amendments in the name of somebody else they were immediately accepted by the right hon. Gentleman.
    MR. LEAMYsaid, he was bound to complain that the Irish clauses were not pressed on the Grand Committee. Those Members who signed the Memorial had every reason to believe that the Government would carry out their promise, and bow to the wishes of the majority of the Irish Members. The blame of the present failure rested entirely with the President of the Board of Trade. It was certainly within their rights for those who objected to the extension of the Bill to Ireland to give it all the opposition in their power—he himself would do the same if he were opposed to it—but if the President of the Board of Trade meant to extend the Bill to Ireland, why had he kept it back till the last moment, when he must have known that it would encounter opposition that would destroy its chance of passing?
    MR. MARUMsaid, he was opposed to the extension of the Bill to Ireland,
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    although he had put no Amendments on the Paper. He denied however, that the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman was opposed solely by half-a-dozen Dublin lawyers.
    Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
    Order for re-committal of Bill discharged.
    Bill, as amended, to be considered upon Monday next.
    House adjourned at a quarter before Nine o'clock till Monday next.