Lords Sitting of 27 June 1825

JUDGES' SALARIES BILL.
On the order of the day for the third reading,
Earl Grosvenortook that opportunity of making some observations on sinecure offices. The office of lord justice general of Scotland, though of that description; was still maintained. With respect to the sale of offices in courts of law, he was glad that practice was to be put an end to. He also objected to the unnecessary increase of salaries. The learned lord who approved of the bills on the table must surely wish that they had been introduced ten years ago. He understood, however, that it was not intended to extend the inquiry to the court of Chancery.
The Earl of Liverpoolsaid, that the object of the regulations was, that wherever there was business, the duties should be performed by efficient officers. As to the office filled by his noble and learned friend, the salary derived from it was before the House, and there was no man who knew the duties which attached to that office would think the reward sufficient. The situation of the lord chancellor was different from that of the chiefs of the other courts; for no sale of offices was allowed in Chancery. With respect to the puisne judges, with a knowledge of the labours they had to perform, could any one think them too highly remunerated by 5,000l. a-year?
The Lord Chancellorcomplained of the misrepresentations and calumnies which had gone forth respecting the emoluments of his office, although the amount of its profits had been already given in accounts before the House of Commons. Perhaps it was thought that this mode of calumnious misrepresentation was the way to

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get him out of office: they were mistaken who thought so; he would not yield to such aspersions, nor shrink from asserting what he owed to himself. Had he been treated with common justice, he should not now, perhaps, have remained lord chancellor; but he would not be driven from his office by calumnious attack. Let him only be treated with common justice, and in five minutes his office should be at any body's disposal. From the accounts which had been furnished to him of his emoluments as lord chancellor, by those who best knew the amount, apart from his income as Speaker of the House of Lords, he was happy to say, that the lord chief justice of the court of King's-bench had received a larger income from his office. He quoted from the average accounts of the last three years; and he would further say, that in no one year, since he had been made lord chancellor, had he received the same amount of profit which he enjoyed while at the bar. Strange, then, it was, that he should be attacked, as he had been, by mis-statements and misrepresentation of every kind. Had he remained at the bar, and kept the situation he held there, he solemnly declared he should not be one-shilling a poorer man than he was at that moment, notwithstanding his office. His noble friend (earl Grosvenor) should not have blamed him for not bringing this subject before the House earlier. It had often been brought forward: and it was thought that the emoluments arising from the sale of offices should not be interfered with; because, had they been abolished, the chief justices must have received a compensation in some other way. When the salary of the puisne judges had been augmented from time to time, no augmentation had taken place in that of the chiefs, because they were considered as deriving part of their emoluments from this source. It could not for a moment be supposed that, having entered on the laborious duties of their office under the conviction that its emoluments were to be secured to them by law, they could be turned adrift without any regard to their rights. The noble earl entirely misunderstood the question with regard to sinecure offices. Bills had repeatedly been sent up from the other House for abolishing them; and they had been resisted, because the persons who brought them here did not understand the question. It was insinuated that because the deputy did all the drudgery of the office, therefore the principal
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was of no use. The doctrine was founded on a mistake: the presence of the principal might not always be required, but it was applied on proper occasions; and if his responsibility was not always interposed, the consequences might be extremely injurious to the suitors and the public. He the (lord Chancellor) would pledge himself to be as active as any noble lord in correcting abuses, but he would perform his duty with a due regard to the rights of others. The reason why, in the present bill, there was no clause, regulating offices in the court of Chancery was, that a commission was now sitting on the state of that court. Much misrepresentation had gone abroad concerning his conduct, since he had presided over it; but whatever he might suffer from such calumny and misstatement, he enjoyed the consolation, that he had been incorrupt in his office, and he could form no better wish for his country than that his successor should be penetrated with an equal desire to execute his duties with fidelity. The feelings and fate of an individual were in themselves of small importance to the public, and he the (lord chancellor) might be sacrificed to the insults which he was daily receiving; but he begged noble lords to reflect that he might not be the only sacrifice. If the object was, as it appeared to be, to pull down the reputation, and to throw discredit on the motives and conduct of men in high official situations—if every man who occupied an eminent station in the church or the state was to become the object of slander and calumny—then their lordships might rest convinced that their privileges as peers could not long be respected.
The bill was then read a third time.

RATE OF INTEREST IN INDIA.
The Marquis of Hastingsmoved, that the opinion of the judges be heard on the construction of the act for regulating the interest of money in India.
Lord Chief Justice Bestaccordingly delivered the opinion of the judges in favour of the bill on the noble marquis. The act for restricting the interest of money to 12 per cent was, he said, to be interpreted according to its letter, as it was a penal statute; and by its literal interpretation it was only to be enforced in the dominions of the company. It could not be construed as extended to Foreign states in alliance with the British power. It could not regulate the transactions of borrowers

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or lenders in the dominions of the native princes where British jurisdiction did not extend. If borrowers there suffered from the oppressive acts of those with whom they had money dealings, they might apply for protection to their own government, and not to that of the company. In this construction of the law, he was supported by decisions of the Supreme Court of Bengal.
The bill was read a second time.