HC Deb 23 February 1897 vol 46 cc987-1013
MR. ATHERLEY-JONES (Durham, N.W.)

rose "to call attention to the unsatisfactory working of the Judicature Acts," and to move:— That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying her to appoint a Royal Commission to inquire into the administration of justice under the Judicature Acts, with a view to secure greater efficiency and economy. The hon. and learned Member said he was afraid the subject upon which he had the honour to address the House was not of a fascinating character. Therefore he should endeavour to make as small a demand as possible upon its patience. But although the subject was not fascinating itself it was, he was perfectly sure, a very important one, because it affected the administration of justice, which he imagined to be almost paramount to any other institution in the country. He claimed some right for the Motion which stood in his name for the reason that a period of more than 25 years had elapsed since there had been an inquiry into the administration of justice in this country. Prior to that there were frequent inquiries into the mode in which justice was administered, and they from time to time led to changes in procedure not only in the High Court of Justice but also in the inferior Courts. The different changes culminated in the Judicature Act of 1873, which, with the amending Acts, constituted the procedure upon which the business of the High Court was conducted. It was a remarkable fact that, since 1873, there had not only been amending Acts, but rules piled upon rules, constituting a vast volume of detailed procedure and rules under which justice had to be administered. The following conditions were absolutely essential for the effective administration of justice: that it should be honest, expeditious, economic; and that the tribunals of the country should be popular so far as litigation or judicial proceeding could in any sense be considered popular. With the exception of the first condition, honest administration, he believed that every other condition was absolutely violated. He yielded to no one in his appreciation of the integrity of Her Majesty's justice, but the system was so cribbed, cabined, and confined, and so surrounded with technical and detailed obstructions that the result was very little removed from chaos. The system of judicature in this country, possibly with the single exception of France, was the most extravagantly expensive in the world. On the average every year one in 24 of the population of Great Britain was engaged in litigation.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER,) Isle of Wight

Civil litigation?

MR. ATHERLEY-JONES

said he referred to litigation of a civil character in all the Courts. He believed that percentage was confined to civil proceedings only. They paid to the Law Lords, ex-eluding the Lord Chancellor, no less a sum in salaries than £24,000 a year. The House of Lords as a working tribunal commanded respect, but he pointed out that the number of appeals which came annually before them averaged only between 60 and 70, while the number of appeals annually disposed of averaged only between 40 and 50. Ireland contributed annually only five of these appeals, and the number of appeals sent from the colonies had been steadily decreasing within the last two or three decades. The contrast with other countries, not only in respect of the remuneration paid to the judicial officers, but in respect to the work done, was most startling. He would turn to another tribunal, the continued existence of which was little short of a public scandal—the Railway Commission. In addition to the employment of one of Her Majesty's most distinguished judges on that Commission, there were two judicial officers paid £3,000 a year each, and there was also a staff. The amount of business that was done, however, by that Commission during the last year for which they had a report took only 21 days, and the number of cases disposed of amounted to the magnificent total of 24. He would suggest an immediate reform in regard to that Commission, because they might introduce the system that obtained with the Admiralty—a Judge of the High Court with assessors. The work would then be done at probably one-fiftieth of the present expense. The Attorney General would not deny that the Court of Admiralty performed its work to the satisfaction of litigants. As showing the unpopularity of the administration of justice in this country it was a curious fact, with the single exception of the Chancery Division, there had been an absolute shrinkage of litigious work in all the Courts. On the other hand, the business of the County Courts, which, except in a few isolated cases, did their work with expedition and gave satisfaction, had steadily increased. Going only as far back as the years 1873 and 1877, there was one case in the High Court to every 289 of the inhabitants, whereas now the number of cases had fallen to one in 360. Everybody knew that in the last few years the amount of commercial work had shrank to insignificance, although every effort was made by the High Court Judges properly to encourage commercial work. The universal experience, not merely in the metropolis but throughout the circuits, was that the shrinkage of High Court work was due not so much to the amount of work which had been thrown upon the County Courts, but to the tendency of commercial bodies to withdraw their work from the cognisance of the Courts in favour of those domestic tribunals which they had themselves created, although they recognised that in those domestic tribunals the duties involved were not discharged so effectively as they would be in the High Courts. In the Court of Appeal the Judges were paid no less than £31,000 a year. From 1821 to 1825 there were 814 cases in that Court, and from 1891 to 1894, the number had shrunk to 574 cases. The explanation was that commercial men were shunning the High Court of Justice and were more and more availing themselves of the County Courts. So small was the amount of work to be done in the Court of Appeal that it was a common thing to find in the newspapers at least every fortnight the announcement that the Court was not sitting; and that notwithstanding the increase in population and in National Income, there was a great deal of work to be done, and a large amount of arrears of business to be made up in the Courts could not be denied. But why were not the Law Lords, who only sat for 50 days in the year, employed in assisting in disposing of the congestion of business which constantly arose in the inferior courts of the High Court of Justice. He did not think that the Law Lords, who were paid such large salaries, would be callous to any call made upon them of that kind in the public interest. But perhaps the greatest disgrace in our present judicial system was the vacations. What would be said if they were to close all the hospitals in London for nearly three months in the year, and to say that the doors of those hospitals should not be open except for cases of life and death? Yet that was precisely the position in the High Court of Justice. The doors of the High Court of Justice were closed from the 12th of August to the 24th of October, and for that period of three months no suitor could approach the Courts except in a case of utmost emergency, which was dealt with by the Vacation Judge. There was no parallel for such a state of things in any other civilised country. Was it not an absolute scandal that the Courts should be closed for five months during the whole of the year, and that they should remain closed for three months at one particular period? He did not blame the Judges, he blamed the system. No one grudged the Judges reasonable leisure. Their work was arduous, and they were necessarily men who had been called to their positions at a late period of their lives. But it was incumbent upon the Government to abolish this archaic system of long vacation and substitute for it a system of reasonable vacation. Again, the number of days on which the Judges sat was absolutely insignificant. Would the House believe that the Judges who were paid £5,000 per annum each, and in addition to that, £7 10s. per day for every day they were absent from London on Circuit, did not sit in London on an average for more than 115 days in the year per Judge, and that the total number of days they sit on Circuit or in London was less than 200 days per Judge? A Judge of a foreign country to whom he related these facts, said:— Why, we sit in our Courts practically daily throughout the year, and we are not paid anything approaching the remuneration that is paid to your Judges. It was a great scandal that in this country a complete and exhaustive return of the number of days the Judges sat could not be provided, as they were provided in France, and Italy, and Germany. In this country it was quite a matter of grace whether or not the Judges supplied the information. Indeed, two or three Judges absolutely refused to make such a return, and the consequence was that the number of days the Judges sat was mere guess work. He would also point out that this return of 200 days per annum per Judge was rather delusive. A Judge might only appear in Court or in Chambers for half an hour, and still it was put down as a day's attendance. Again, he did not blame the Judges but the system. But he would point out that though the Judges enjoyed this large amount of leisure their subordinates in the offices were compelled to work all the year round, with short vacations, and if they absented themselves from the office for a day they received a severe letter of condemnation, and if it occurred again they were discharged. He now came to a subject which he ventured to say was about the greatest scandal associated with the judicial system of any country of the world—he referred to the Circuit system. The Circuit work of the country had since 1873 decreased 30 per cent. according to the judicial statistics. In 1865 there were 693 cases on circuit. In 1894, with an almost geometrical increase in population and in wealth, there were only 1,124 cases, and of these 864 came from four Circuits, the Northern, the Midland, the Western, and Southeastern, leaving only 261 cases to be disposed of in the remaining five Circuits. The Judge on Circuit fixed the number of days he would attend in each Assize Town. As an illustration of how that system worked out he might mention the recent Assizes at Newcastle-on-Tyne. The Lord Chief Justice was there, and no one would suggest that he was not most anxious to discharge the duties of his office to the very best of his great capacity. His Lordship had only seven jury cases to dispose of, and these he finished on last. Saturday. But he was not due in the next Assize Town until next Friday; therefore, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were spent in enforced idleness by the Lord Chief Justice.

SIR FRANK LOCKWOOD (York)

What about crime?

MR. ATHERLEY-JONES

said that Mr. Justice Bruce was there to try criminal cases, which were compartively insignificant in number. On the Welsh Circuit there were no cases at many of the towns, yet judges were sent down to give three or four days of public time to each town. At Worcester there was only one prisoner and one cause, and yet four days were given. Was it not scandalous that judges, who were properly paid high salaries, and who received expenses at the rate of £7 10s. a day, should be sent to these towns on the pretence that there was something to do, and should have to spend days in absolute idleness while the Courts in London were waiting for business to be dealt with, and litigants were driven away owing to the manner in which business was transacted? That the local Member insisted on the dignity of the Assize Town being maintained was no sufficient excuse; probably only a few innkeepers and livery-stable owners were concerned. Their interests did not justify this scandalous waste of public money and time on a system which had become a ridiculous anachronism. He would read from the Judicial Statistics a paragraph which was, in effect, the strongest condemnation of the present Assize system:— More than 55 per cent. of the causes were entered at four towns—Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, and Manchester. About 50 per cent. of the whole number of actions tried were tried on the Northern and North-eastern Circuits. No actions were entered for trial at the following towns:—Huntingdon, Aylesbury, Oakham, Devizes or Salisbury, Welshpool or Newtown, Lampeter and Brecon. At the Winter Assizes only one action was entered at each of the following towns:—Guildford, Lewes, Hertford, Chelmsford, Bedford, Northampton, Reading, Oxford, Merioneth, Dorchester, Taunton or Wilts, Dolgelly, Ruthin, and Mold. At the Summer Assizes only one action was entered at Hertford, Cambridge, Ipswich, Bury St. Edmunds, Northampton, Carlisle, Oxford, Shrewsbury, Dolgelly, Ruthin, Mold, and Haverfordwest. Of the total amount recovered, more than one-half was recovered on the Northern Circuit. The largest number of days on which actions were tried at any town was 55. It had been suggested that it would be possible to group towns for Assize purposes. That would be a good but inadequate change. But what was there to prevent the County Courts from being given an equally extensive jurisdiction with the High Court? Such a system already existed in Scotland. The County Courts would form an excellent tribunal; and it was to be remembered that the High Court did not at present do its Assize work efficiently. The Incorporated Law Society showed by figures, which were incontestable, that the commercial communities in Liverpool and Manchester, although favoured with more frequent Assizes, could not be satisfied with the way in which their business was transacted. During the Long Vacation they had to wait three or four months before they could get a cause on, and when the Judges did come down they always worked at high pressure in order to get back to London quickly. Instead of, as in London, sitting from 10.30 to 4 o'clock, the Judges sat from 9.30 in the morning up to 7, 8, 9, and even 10 o'clock at night. No one wanted a case tried in such circumstances, when everyone engaged was worn out. It was an absolute denial of justice; and the feeling in Liverpool was very strong. The Incorporated Law Society was constantly asking the Lord Chancellor to let a Judge sit continuously in Liverpool, but the only response was to send a Judge for a few days, and the, scramble of business resulted in this—that cases of magnitude the Liverpool solicitors preferred to bring to London for trial. There was no reason why a coequal jurisdiction should not be given to the County Courts. They already possessed power to deal with bankruptcy to any amount, to deal with employers' liability, and with Admiralty jurisdiction up to £500. Yet under the present ridiculous system they were forbidden to deal with a suit for more than £50. One of the grossest scandals of the day was that while the poor man bringing an action of tort for £50 damages must go to the High Court, the defendant might turn him out by summons on the ground that the plaintiff had no visible means. Of course litigants might have the option of going to the High Court instead of the County Court; but if a sufficient number of cases were not notified beforehand for an Assize, the business of one centre should be sent to be dealt with at another. There must also be some revision of the system of costs in the County Court. It cost as much to take out a plaint for £15 in the County Court as it took to issue a writ for £15,000 in the High Court. It appeared in the Judicial Statistics for 1893–4 that, including costs and fees, for every pound recovered in the High Court about 7s. was spent in costs. We had lately established the Commercial Court which, presided over by Mr. Justice Mathew and Mr. Justice Henn Collins, was becoming more and more popular, because litigants knew that they could get their causes tried there without unwarrantable delay, and that their cases would be from the beginning to the end, even in the interlocutory stages, under the control of the Judge himself. In the Chancery and the Probate, Matrimonial, and Admiralty Courts the same system was adopted with, equally satisfactory results. Hut things were very different when they came to the Queen's Bench Division. When a cause was set down for trial before a special jury in that Division, it might be sixth or seventh in the clay's list, with the result that if it were not reached that day it would be announced that no more special jury causes would be taken that week, and the witnesses who had been brought up to town would have to be sent back to the country in order to be again brought to London the following week. Again, when a special jury cause was not reached on a particular day when it was in the list for trial, the Judge of the Court might on the following day have to try prisoners at the Old Bailey, or to try Common Jury Causes, or to go on Circuit. Why could not a Special Jury Court be appointed, which should sit from day to day until every Special Jury Cause in the list for the Sittings was disposed of. Causes which were not reached in a day's list often most unaccountably and mysteriously disappeared from the list, and did not reappear for a long time. Such a state of things was a scandal, and amounted to a denial of justice. Turning to the question of costs, he found that in 1893 causes were tried, in which an aggregate sum of some £500,000 was recovered at a cost to the litigants of £200,000. Then there was our ridiculous system of the taxation of costs. In his opinion solicitors as a rule were not adequately rewarded for the trouble they had to take on behalf of their clients, and the result was that their whole object in conducting causes was to pile up costs by multiplying interlocutory proceedings. The consequence of such a system was that a wretched Taxing Master had to go through bills of costs, item by item, striking off a little here and there, with the result that the solicitors were dissatisfied, while the clients had to pay far more than they ought to do. Under the German system a solicitor was paid a sort of percentage upon the amount re-covered, say £20 for each £100 recovered, and an additional sum for extra work. He was conscious that there were many other matters of detail that he ought to touch upon in bringing forward a Motion of this kind, but he felt that he had already trespassed at too great length upon the attention of the House, to whom he was very grateful for having listened to him with so much patience, while he dealt with this very dry subject. He hoped that his right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General would not reject the very moderate proposal he had put forward, that there should be some inquiry had into this important question. The right hon. and learned Gentleman might, perhaps, think that the particular machinery of a Royal Commission was the best adapted for such an inquiry, but he himself would be content to accept any other form of inquiry which the right hon. and learned Gentleman might suggest as better fitted to carry out his object. What was being done at the present time? They were told that the Rule Committee were preparing a new set of Rules, but the late Master of the Rolls had asserted that every fresh body of Rules cost litigants some two millions before its interpretation was complete. The Rules which had been made since 1870 constituted a huge volume, which would surprise the House if he had brought it with him. And yet it was said that it was necessary to make all those Rules in order to simplify and cheapen our legal procedure, while, in fact, they merely multiplied the difficulties of our legal system. Our legal procedure ought to be simplified by a body of men consisting, not only of judges and barristers, but of members of the lower branch of the profession, and of members of our great commercial bodies. In conclusion, he begged to move the Motion which stood upon the Paper in his name. ["Hear, hear!"]

MR. AUGUSTUS WARR (Liverpool, East Toxteth)

, in seconding the Motion, said that the subject was one which certainly deserved consideration and discussion by that House. Although he did not know that the machinery of a Royal Commission was the best for conducting the inquiry which the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite asked for, still he thought that an inquiry of some kind ought to be instituted into the question. He shared with the hon. and learned Gentleman the opinion that the time had come when the country was entitled to have an inquiry into the working of its judicial system, in order to ascertain whether it did or did not conform to the requirements of the day, and if it did not, what change ought to be introduced into it. Some hon. Members would remember the state of things that existed before the Judicature Acts were passed, and would wonder how it had been allowed to endure for so long. The truth was that the old system, with its old-fashioned system of pleading, and its numerous pitfalls, and the mystery which surrounded it, had become entirely out of harmony with common sense, and was intolerable. And yet, it, was simplicity itself compared with some of the things before the procedure of the Courts were altered by the Common Law Procedure Acts and by, he thought, simultaneous changes in Chancery proceedings. And so again, a time had come round when changes must be introduced into the present system, if it was to harmonise with the views of the people. It was almost inevitable that legal procedure would always, he believed, be in advance of public opinion. Until periodical investigations such as were secured by some process of inquiry, similar to a legal commission or committee, could take place, reforms practically could only emanate from Her Majesty's Judges, who were not, necessarily, in close touch, with the views of the public for whose security and benefit those Courts were supposed to exist. It would be the greatest presumption on his part, and very very far from his desire to speak with anything but unfeigned respect of Her Majesty's Judges. He was certain that it was the desire of the present occupants of the Bench, and especially of those of them who had been accustomed to practise at the Bar in recent years, to do everything in their power to devise methods for the simplification of procedure, for the avoidance of delay, and for the abolition of useless expense. ["Hear, hear!"] But it was evident, that they could only act within the limits of the law, and, above all, they could not add to their number. They had reason to be grateful to them for what they had done. They had introduced two of the most useful changes that had been made in procedure, at all events within the last twenty years. He meant the originating summons and the practice introduced in the Admiralty Division, and since adopted in the Commercial Courts. Under these systems, the procedure was in strict, accordance with common sense. It was encumbered with no useless steps, and the result was that its adoption had been attended with complete success. It was capable of great development, ["Hear, hear!"] There was no reason why the principle of an originating summons should not be applied to any case in which the construction of a will or of any contract was involved, and there was no reason why the procedure of the Commercial Court should not, be widely extended. ["Hear, hear!"] These were improvements which, it would be safe to predict, would certainly result from any form of inquiry. Then, again, there was the Assize system. They in Lancashire had urged for years that that, system was utterly out of harmony with the needs of the times. Every commercial body in Lancashire had said so over and over again, but no real change was made, or could be made without legislation, and they should look for legislation as a result of inquiry. They had been made aware that this question had been the subject of deliberation by Her Majesty's Judges. Unfortunately, they were not permitted to have the advantage of reading the expression of their Lordships' opinion, as he learnt in answer to a, question which he addressed to the Attorney General in this House. He could well believe that the Judges found it difficult to propose changes, which, would give Lancashire what she claimed without infringing upon the privileges of other places, and he could well believe that their views would have been different if they had been considering the disposition of the time, not of their own number, but of an increased number of Judges. They had evidence of the goodwill of one of their number (Mr. Justice Kennedy), a member of the Bench whom they in Lancashire had every reason to respect and admire—["hear, hear!"]—in the fact that he had allowed himself to be constituted what he might call the Lancashire Judge for a, period which they hoped was not destined soon to expire. That advance, however grateful they might be for it, did not bring the administration of justice into harmony with the needs of Lancashire, and left the Assize system still in existence, though they believed it to be obsolete. ["Hear, hear!"] Then, again, the County Court system, to which the Mover had referred, was capable of infinite improvement, good though it was. They wanted to see the County Courts made part and parcel of the Supreme Court of Judicature, so that the, system might be harmonious throughout, and this, he thought, could result only from an inquiry. The subject before the House was not one which, from its nature, could ever command great popular enthusiasm, or be a popular topic on election platforms, but it was nevertheless a subject which very vitally affected the interests of the public for whom the administration of justice should be not only absolutely pure—which it was and always would be throughout the Queen's dominions—["hear, hear!"]—but also be unattended with delay and expense, and in harmony with the views of the times in which they lived. ["Hear, hear!"]

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

said he agreed with his hon. Friend that the aspect of the House did not encourage the thought that great interest, was taken in this matter in the House; at the same time he realised that a, great amount of interest was taken in it outside the House. ["Hear, hear!"] He might say at once that it was not possible for him to accede to the prayer, if he might call it so, of the Motion that a Royal Commission should be appointed to deal with the matter. He did not in any way wish it to be supposed that he thought there was not ample room for inquiry; but, in his opinion, a Royal Commission would be about the worst way of proceeding that could possibly be devised. ["Hear, hear!"] They were not dealing with a single question or a single class of questions, but with a number of different questions, which had to be considered from different points of view. The effect of appointing a Royal Commission would be to hold the matter up, it might be for years, certainly for a considerable time; and, so far as the administration of the law was concerned, no very practical results had come from Royal Commissions in the past. ["Hear, hear!"] His hon. and learned Friend the Member for Durham had travelled over a, great deal of ground, not too much by any means, but he was not sure that it would not have been better if he had confined himself to certain points he had raised in order that hon. Members might have better understood the bearings of the question and the difficulties the hon. Member had to cope with. He was bound to say that he thought his hon. and learned Friend had introduced matters somewhat foreign to the matter immediately before the House, and had rather encumbered the question with criticisms on parts of the system, which, in his opinion, were not open to the attacks he had made upon them. What he had prominently in his mind was the attack made upon the expense of some parts of the system. It seemed to him that they had nothing to do with the expenses incurred in connection with the actual working of the Judicature Acts, and the particular instances the hon. Member had taken did not deserve the somewhat forcible remarks he made upon them. ["Hear, hear!"] The hon. Member started with criticising the constitution of the Privy Council and the appointment of the Lords of Appeal, and he deprecated the expenditure of £24,000 a year which their appointment entailed. He did not hesitate to say that no better reform had been carried out of late years than the establishment of the four Lords of Appeal who sat in the Privy Council and the House of Lords. It was the constant complaint in years gone by that the judicial strength of the House of Lords consisted of the Lord Chancellor and the ex-Chancellors who might be sitting there. Of course from time to time distinguished Judges were created Peers, but it had been a great source of weakness in the House of Lords that there were no Judges there who had been solely trained as lawyers. But that was not by any means the only reason which led to the appointment of the four Lords of Appeal. His hon. and learned Friend the Member for Durham had passed very lightly over the question of appeals from the Colonial and Indian Courts. Formerly there were constant complaints from the colonies, from Canada, and Australia, of the weakness of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and that was the case, notwithstanding the fact that there were available for service on the Judicial Committee a good many learned lawyers who were not available for service in the House of Lords. But the members of the Judicial Committee were often Judges who already had judicial duties to perform, or Judges who had done their work and served their time. Consequently there was not formerly a body of men who could be relied upon to sit at all times upon this tribunal and to strengthen it. His hon. and learned Friend talked about 50 or 60 appeals at a cost of £24,000 a year, and said that the Lords of Appeal only sat 50 days in the 12 months. By some error his hon. and learned Friend had been misled into making an inaccurate statement. The whole number of days on which the Lords of Appeal sat in the House of Lords and the Privy Council would be found to be far more than 50—probably 150 or 160.

MR. ATHERLEY-JONES

explained that what he had said was that the Lords of Appeal heard some 50 cases only. He did not say that they only sat on 50 occasions.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

did not think that the statement that they heard only 50 eases would be borne out by the statistics; but even if it were, that would not be an unsatisfactory state of things, having regard to the character of, the judgments delivered in the House of Lords. It was absolutely necessary that the highest Court of Appeal should be constituted of men of the highest reputation as lawyers, so that their judgments should command universal respect. The judgments of the House of Lords laid down legal principles and developed, so to speak, our code of law. They formed the foundation of decisions in the United States and in Australia and Canada, and were cited with approval in Continental Courts. Remembering that the Lords of Appeal had to sit in the House of Lords and on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in regular rota, he did not think that their remuneration was at all excessive. The next subject referred to by his hon. and learned Friend had only a very remote connection, if any, with the Judicature Acts. That subject was the constitution of the Railway Commission, and his hon and learned Friend considered it a scandal and abuse that there should be two Railway Commissioners, receiving £3,000 apiece. He had been conversant with the work of this Court ever since its establishment, and it was his opinion that it was not just to measure the work of the Commissioners simply by what was done in court. They had a great deal of work to do in connection with traffic arrangements and in connection with applications that were never heard of in court. But he agreed that the cases that came before the Commissioners for trial would be equally well tried before a Judge and expert assessors appointed ad hoc. The reason why that system had never been adopted was on account of the pressing and increasing demand from commercial litigants that there should be permanent members of the tribunal constituting its popular and commercial element. He was by no means sure that the traders had been wise in making that demand, but it was impossible to connect any failure on the part of the tribunal to transact work with any faults in the Judicature Acts, with which the Railway Commissioners' Court had nothing to do. The Court was established by special Act in 1873, and reestablished in 1889. Dealing next with the Court of Appeal, the hon. and learned Member said that the sum of £31,000 was a great deal for that Court. There were six Judges in the Court, and the sum was £31,000 instead of £30,000, because one of them was now also Master of the Rolls. There were two Appeal Courts sitting continuously during the judicial year. That imposed a severe strain on six Judges. The late Lord Bowen attended on many days when he was not in a fit state to do so; possibly his life might have been spared had he not been so strictly conscientious, and at the present time Judges often went to the Court, although they were in bad health, so strong was their determination to get through the work. His hon. and learned Friend did not suggest that the Judges in the Queen's Bench Division were paid too highly. They received £5,000 a year apiece, and could anyone maintain that the Lords Justices of the Court of Appeal, which stood next in importance to the House of Lords, ought to receive less than ordinary Judges? His view was, that the price the country paid for the services of the Lords Justices was certainly not too much, having regard to their position and the work they had to do. In fact, he was disposed to think that some day or other they might rightly be given higher remuneration. The hon. and learned Member said that there had been several days in recent months when the Court had not sat. That might have been the case in the last few months, but he knew that the learned Judges were making every effort to keep abreast of their work, and if they had found it practicable to sit on fewer days, he was satisfied that they had not allowed their work to get into arrear in consequence. It was a matter for congratulation that the arrears were fewer than they used to be. He remembered the time when it was no uncommon thing to have a huge list of appeals waiting to be heard, but now it was not an uncommon thing to see appeals disposed of within six weeks or two months after their first appearance in the list. Lord Herschell had told him not long ago that he had delivered a judgment in the House of Lords in a case which had gone through the Queen's Bench and the Court of Appeal and in which the writs had been issued within a year of the time when the appeal was heard in the House of Lords. He mentioned this to show that his hon. and learned Friend might have exercised a little more care in his examination of the effects of the Judicature Acts. Great improvements had undoubtedly been made in respect of the expeditious disposal of cases. At the time of his call to the Bar cases often took four and five years in finding their way to the House of Lords; and now they not infrequently took less than two years. The remedy of the hon. and learned Member for the evils which he maintained existed was a very extraordinary one. The suggestion of the hon. and learned Member was that the jurisdiction of the County Courts should be made coextensive with the jurisdiction of the superior Courts, so that any action might be tried in the former. If that system were to be established in this country the practical utility of the County Courts would be doomed. The real object of the County Courts was that there should be a speedy and cheap method of dispensing justice for the recovery of debts and the trial of cases involving no difficult questions of law. If there was a power on the part of the County Courts to take the class of actions confined to the superior Courts they might have the County Courts in business centres like Birmingham, Leeds, and other places blocked for a week or ten days by the hearing of some heavy case which it was thought fit to bring into the County Courts. He was satisfied, having made this subject one of the studies of his life, that they could not possibly engraft on the County Court system any substantial share of the work of the superior Courts. He believed all commercial men would agree that they wanted to have the best Judges and the most expeditious tribunals for the difficult and heavy cases, and that the County Courts should mainly be utilised for the speedy trial of that class of cases which needed a speedy trial and which did not involve great questions of law. The first principle of the County Court should be to do duty as between the poorer suitors and the suitors who required an expeditious remedy; and it would be a retrograde step to provide that the jurisdiction of the County Courts should be co-extensive with the jurisdiction of the superior Courts. It had been urged that suitors were frequently waiting for cases to be tried. He agreed it was necessary that there should be a, better organisation of judicial power and better arrangements with regard to the way in which the cases were heard and the number of Judges that sat from time to time; but a great deal had been done in that direction of late years, and no one was more alive to that necessity than the Lord Chief Justice. There was one matter lost sight of by all persons who spoke on this subject without, he thought, sufficient study of the question—that was the power now given to suitors of fixing their venues wherever they liked. He thought that this most unfortunate rule came into vogue at the time of the Judicature Act, that if the place of trial was not specified the suitor came to London. The consequence was that a great many solicitors and many suitors combined in believing that a visit to London was not so unpleasant after all. But many of these cases might just as well have been tried at many of the circuit towns. This point had not been recently overlooked by the Judges, and one of the reforms which was about to be tried and to be brought speedily into force was in connection with a summons for direction taken out in every case. The Judge who dealt with the matter should have the power of ordering where the action should be tried and not to leave it to the discretion of the plaintiff whether it should be tried in Middlesex or not. No one who had studied the circuit system could be ignorant of the fact that there must occasionally be a waste of judicial strength. At times it undoubtedly led to the necessity of Judges sitting early and late; in his own experience the Court had sat from 9 in the morning until half-past 11 at night in order to finish a case; but this fact showed that the Judges did not spare themselves in order to get through the business. The real fact, however, was that, whichever way they looked at the question, the circuit system was ingrained in our judicial life and ought to be maintained in our judicial work. The Mover of the Resolution said that the persons who were mainly interested were a few innkeepers who desired that the towns should still be occupied with those cases. That was not so. In the first place, there had been an increasing demand for more frequent assizes, not only from Liverpool and Manchester, but from many other centres—first for more criminal assizes; and, secondly, for more opportunities for civil business. The House could not, therefore, disregard what were the wishes of the towns distant from London; and, although they might be very desirous to establish an ideal system of circuits, they could not overlook the natural desire of the towns where the business of assize had been discharged for a great many years to maintain what they believed to be their privilege in this matter. The demand from all parts of the country to have the circuit system maintained in their towns could not be lightly set aside, and he hoped the control which the Courts would exercise in the future over the venues where cases should be tried might have some good effect in restoring to those towns some of the business which had been diverted to other centres. If he was right in this view, then they would hear less of cases being brought to Middlesex; and, if the statistics were examined for the last two or three years, he believed there would be found to be considerably less delay in hearing cases sent down than had been the case four or five years ago. Then it must not be supposed that they were not improving the position. He believed that they had been materially improving their system from the point of view of expedition and facility in getting cases heard. The hon. Gentleman had drawn attention to the Commercial Courts. It was an excellent system—nothing could be better; but the House should remember that they could not apply that system throughout the whole of our procedure. There were many barristers and suitors who would like to see a. Court for Crown Paper cases and railway cases; but the moment they began to break up their system into a number of special Courts they ran the risk of encountering other difficulties and dangers which were extremely embarrassing. In dealing with great commercial cases they not infrequently required the attendance of those who might be captains of ships and witnesses from foreign countries; and it was extremely important that there should be an expeditious method of trial. But while the example of the Commercial Court had been cited, he did not believe that in the interests of the suitors or of our judicial system the High Court of Justice should be broken up into a series of tribunals, a Judge for each, hearing a special part of the case. The effect of this system would be to narrow and dwarf the minds of the Judges and prevent them from becoming the all-round men we had at present. It would be like living on a perpetual diet of the same food, which was one of the most unhealthy courses that could be followed. The hon. Member had further cited the German system of remuneration as one to be followed by us. If a sum of £100 was recovered in an action the solicitor was to have a percentage of it. Then he could go to the Court and say, "I have had a great deal of trouble; give me something more." The Court had then to fix how much extra should be granted; but what was to happen in the case of the solicitor who appeared for the defendant? He did not see what share of the proceeds in this particular instance the solicitors in that case were to have, and he did not know how they could get by a rule of thumb at the work that had really been done—as, for example, scientific investigations and careful inquiries into antecedents. He had hoped his hon. and learned Friend was going to advocate a system of costs which would represent an indemnity to the successful party, controlled, of course, by superior authority. If he would advocate that kind of reform, his hon. and learned Friend would find in him a hearty supporter, but he could not think it a step in the right direction to make a trial of the German system, which was to give the solicitor a certain percentage on the amount recovered, and then by arbitrary rule of thumb to give him so much more if the case had been a particularly troublesome one. Why was it thought, in the language of the Seconder of the Motion, that the circuit system had become obsolete? Lancashire itself was now benefiting largely from the existence of the circuit system. It was the circuit system which enabled Judges to go to Lancashire more frequently than to other parts of the United Kingdom, while at the same time the causes were tried by High Court Judges with a direct appeal to the Court of Appeal. Only in the possible development of that system, he thought, were they likely to satisfy the demands of large centres such as Leeds, Bristol, and other places. ["Hear, hear!"] Before a Royal Commission could come to a conclusion upon the various grievances dealt with in the speeches of the Mover and Seconder they would be at work for two or three years, and they would produce' a Report which might itself be obsolete, having regard to the length of time over which their inquiry had extended. The method of remedying existing defects by the tribunal of Judges might not be altogether an ideal one, but he was satisfied it was far better than a Royal Commission; and, while he joined in the hope that there might be prompt inquiry and a speedy improvement into some of these matters, he submitted that the purpose would not be served if the House were to accede to the Motion.

SIR FRANK LOCKWOOD

cordially agreed with the Attorney General with regard to the undesirability of dealing with the matters in question by such a cumbersome piece of machinery as a Royal Commission. The facts were not in dispute. What was the good, then, of subjecting very intricate legal machinery to a long, exhaustive, and probably useless inquiry by Royal Commission? There was no matter upon which the House of Commons had a better right to express criticism, or to exercise its judgment upon than the administration of justice, and they might depend upon it that in calling attention to the necessity for reform time was not being thrown away. Those who were responsible for our legal machinery could not be said to be perfect, and this Debate would probably do them good as well as anybody else. [A laugh.] He hoped it would not be supposed it was the Judges he was speaking of—[laughter]—although perhaps it might be said that even they would be the better for a little prodding. ["Hear, hear!"] Take the criticisms upon the circuit system. Frequently it happened that the Court was called upon to sit for an unconscionable number of hours. He had himself defended a man for murder at 12 o'clock at night. That was not good form either for him or the Crown. [Laughter.] Who was responsible for that? It was the most ridiculous system with regard to the detention of jurors on trial for felony. This was done out of mercy to the jurors. Judges hesitated to keep those men away from their homes all night, and rather than do so they would sit late in order to finish a case. He should like to see the counsel who would have the hardihood to object to sit late in these circumstances. [Laughter.] The criticisms which had been made were in the main criticisms upon administration. Take, again, that most important question to all lawyers—in which he admitted, however, clients had some secondary interest—the question of costs. [Laughter.] He quite agreed with the Attorney General in making costs an indemnity to the successful litigant. He had heard of one of Her Majesty's Judges—not now on the Bench—who was excusing the present system, and when it was pointed out to him how hard it was that the successful litigant should have to pay in respect of his successful litigation, said, with a reminiscence of the sports of bygone days, "Well, you see, even the winning cock loses a few feathers." [Laughter.] He happened to know that the present Lord Chief Justice of England was strongly for making costs an indemnity. Of course lawyers were all for making the Courts as popular as possible—in other words, for increase of business—[laughter]—for that was what his hon. and learned Friend suggested. He did not see that a Royal Commission was needed to determine that point. He did not quite agree that the dealing with costs in the manner suggested by the Attorney General could be done by rule, though it might very well be done by legislation; and he thought the Attorney General might possibly introduce a clause to that effect in one of his Bills dealing with proceedings in the High Court of Justice. Then with regard to the Circuit system, did his hon. and learned Friend propose to abolish it? He only knew that he should be sorry to advocate any such proposal in his constituency. ["Hear, hear!" and laughter.] He believed there was a strong feeling in the country in favour of serious legal questions being tried by Judges of the High Court of Justice. ["Hear, hear!"] It would be monstrous to suppose that all such cases should be brought up to London, and if they could not bring up those local cases to London, then the Judges must go down to the locality to try them. As to the arrangement of the time at the disposal of the Judges, his hon. and learned Friend said that witnesses might be brought up to London in a special jury case, and the next day the learned Judge concerned might announce that he had to do duty at the Old Bailey. He felt perfectly sure that if his hon. and learned Friend could bring any such instance to the knowledge of the Lord Chief Justice he would make every effort to prevent such a thing occurring again. With all deference to his hon. and learned Friend he did not think that such a circumstance had happened in, the Courts lately. Under the direction of the Lord Chief Justice great pains had been taken to prevent such things happening. Generally speaking, the subject was one on which they were all agreed, and he did not think his hon. and learned Friend, on reflection, would come to the conclusion that in this matter, the facts being ascertained and criticised, a Royal Commission would be a serviceable mode of dealing with the difficulties and anomalies to which he had properly and most effectively drawn the attention of the House. ["Hear, hear!"] Therefore he would suggest to his hon. and learned Friend whether he should not be content with having drawn attention to the subject and with the discussion he had elicited. The hon. and learned Member had certainly rendered a service to the country by directing the notice of Parliament to matters which were, unquestionably, of great public interest. [Cheers.]

*MR. W. F. LAWRENCE (Liverpool, Abercombie)

thought the hon. Member for Durham was entitled to the thanks of the House for having brought forward this subject, which was a matter that came home to a great many suitors. He was sorry that the Attorney General dealt so lightly with what Lancashire thought was a very serious grievance. He endorsed all that his colleague, the hon. Member for the Toxteth Division had said as to the strong local feeling in Liverpool and Manchester with regard to the time now occupied in hearing of commercial cases. The Attorney General thought he gave them some consolation in saying that, in future, there would be a summons for direction as to the venue where a case was to be tried, but the result would be that the grievance of Lancashire would be increased. Their grievance at present was that their cases were so congested in number that an adequate time was not given to each. In Liverpool, in 1894, 144 cases occupied 56 days in consideration, whereas in London these cases would have ocsupied 75 days of the Courts. Therefore, a Lancashire case had only two-thirds of the time given to a case in London. If cases were to be sent back from London to Lancashire, then there would be more hasty consideration at the hands of the Judges. The House would be surprised to hear that it had been known that new cases had been undertaken in Liverpool, sometimes after six o'clock in the evening. Such a state of things was altogether preposterous. ["Hear, hear!"] In London the Judges sat about five hours a day, whereas in Lancashire they sat six or seven hours a day. He submitted that they could not get proper consideration for their cases so long as that was the case. Another grievance arising from the foregoing circumstances was that there was no fixed time for the meeting or rising of the local Courts, and that additional expense was sometimes thereby caused to the suitors, who often had to wait about the Courts uselessly for a long time. He did not entirely associate himself with the opinion of the hon. Member for the Toxteth Division that the Circuit system was obsolete, but undoubtedly it required amendation. As to the Attorney General's argument about the feeling that would be raised if the Circuit system was taken away from the old towns, he would remind him of what was done with the Parliamentary representation of old towns, and would submit that they should consider, not only the feelings of a small community, which had the privilege of the visits of Her Majesty's Judges, but also the legitimate claims of places which had become large centres of business. ["Hear, hear!"] In Liverpool at one Assize the Court sat until past seven o'clock on eleven days, and at another until past nine o'clock on nine days. Hon. Members would see from these facts that it was not merely from a desire to have a Judge to themselves that Liverpool felt so strongly on this question, nor was it from a desire to emulate London, but that there was a real need for this legal business to be transacted in a proper way. ["Hear, hear!"] He assured the Attorney General that he did not speak on this subject in any way from a mere professional point of view. ["Hear, hear!"] He spoke for the commercial men of Liverpool, for the Chamber of Commerce, and for the Corporation, all of whom felt that their interests were prejudiced and expense needlessly incurred by a necessary reform being so long delayed.

SIR HENRY FOWLER (Wolverhampton)

said he thought there was one branch of the subject presented by the hon. and learned Member for Durham which had not received the attention it deserved, and which lay at the root of many of the reforms he had suggested. He referred to the present condition of the County Courts, and to the necessity for a, wide extension of their jurisdiction, and of very drastic reform in a great deal of their forms of procedure. The hon. Member who had last spoken had mentioned the opinion of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce on this point of the extension of the powers of the County Courts, and he believed commercial men generally were in favour of such a reform. In Scotland, where the administration of justice was far in advance of that in England, a, much better system prevailed, and he believed that properly qualified Judges of the County Courts in England were quite capable of dealing with many of the cases now dealt with at Assizes. ["Hear, hear!"] The County Courts ought to be something higher and better than mere debt-collecting machines. ["Hear, hear!"] The number of County Court Judges at present might be less numerous. What was wanted in those Courts were men of a high class, with better remuneration and a wider jurisdiction. Reference had been made to the number of days Judges had sat in the year—one Judge had not sat more than 100 days, and others only 70 or 80 days—but power was given that help should be rendered by one Judge to another. He did not think any practical good had resulted from that, simply because the clause had really not been put into force. He should very much demur to the appointment of a Royal Commission. He did not think that the appointment of Royal Commissions, at all events as they were at present constituted, were a very encouraging means of procedure. Royal Commissions used to be bodies of a judicial character—men with unpledged minds hearing evidence and coming to what they thought was a sound conclusion. Royal Commissions nowadays had degenerated into a gathering together of a number of advocates on both sides. Interests were supposed to be represented and not the public—["hear, hear!"]—facts were not to be ascertained, but theories were to be proved, and he should be very sorry to let loose; the administration of justice in this country among a body of that description. The precedent had not been encouraging. He did not think he was exaggerating when he said that the result of the Judicature Acts, which were the product of a. Royal Commission, had been to enormously increase the cost of litigation in this country. The practical question was whether they could do anything to utilise and to better employ the great machinery which their High Court gave them. ["Hear, hear!"] He thought there was a great waste of power in the appropriation of time. He was not going to quarrel with the local sentiment to which the hon. Member for Liverpool had alluded, but he did not think it was necessary to waste all the time that was wasted in what was called the opening of commissions and the other paraphernalia which characterised Circuit life. ["Hear, hear!"] There was another point—he knew he was not treading on very dangerous ground—and that was, Was it not possible that rather too much time was devoted to vacations? ["Hear, hear!"] He certainly thought the Courts of Justice in this country should not be closed for something like 12 or 13 weeks. He thought a readjustment could be made without entrenching on the rest which, of all men, the Judges were entitled to, or on the recreation and rest which the members of that most laborious profession, the Bar, were entitled to have, and, at the same time, without shutting the doors of the Courts of Justice in the face of the whole community. He was under the impression until that Debate that the hours of sitting of the Courts had been very much abbreviated.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

They have in London.

*SIR H. FOWLER

said he would not express his own opinion on this point, but he would venture to tell the House what a very distinguished Member of that House, who now occupied a high judicial position in this country, once told him. "If," he said, the Courts of Justice sat at the same hour at which they sat when I was called to the Bar, and rose at the same hour, and if they did not have such very long adjournments in the middle of the day, it would be equivalent to two additional Judges. ["Hear, hear!"] All these were minor questions, but he thought that if the attention of Parliament were drawn to them perhaps the attention of other high dignitaries might be drawn to the fact that judicial time was public property, and that the public were entitled to have a just use made of that judicial time. ["Hear, hear!"] He spoke with very great respect of the Lord Chancellor; but he also thought that he might assist the wide feeling for improvement in the administration of justice in this country, in facilitating its progress and in lowering its cost, by means of Rules, if his Lordship and the Rule Committee would devote their time, their attention, and their determination to those Rules. ["Hear, hear!"]

MR. C. J. MONK (Gloucester)

agreed that County Court jurisdiction might be advantageously extended, even beyond the limit suggested by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton. He thought a remedy for the congested state of business in the country might be found in a revision of the County Court Circuits, and probably by the appointment of what he might call a superior class of Judges in those circuits. They would relieve the Judges of the High Court, and would render unnecessary their absence from London. It was a matter which would require very considerable attention, and would necessitate legislation. He had brought in a Bill with regard to County Court jurisdiction, and he hoped that during the present Session an opportunity would be afforded of considering that Bill and of sending it to the Standing Committee on Law.

MR. ATHERLEY-JONES

said he did not desire to press his Motion to a. Division. He thought the Debate had been a satisfactory one, and he would ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.