Lords Sitting of 30 March 1827

FEES ON PRIVATE BILLS.
The Earl of Hardwickepresented a Petition from himself and several other proprietors of land, in the Bedford Level, complaining of the great expense of passing Private Bills, and praying their lordships to institute a committee to inquire into the matter. The petition was presented in consequence of a bill then on its way through parliament for underdraining the South Level. It was of some importance, that undertakings of such a description, which materially benefitted the community, should not be exposed to any unnecessary expense. In this case the petitioners complained, not merely of the amount of the fees levied, but of the uncertainty of what that amount would be. On this bill there were no less than fourteen sets of fees to be paid; so that the parties could not know what the expense would be. In his opinion, such things ought to be a matter of notoriety, so that persons bringing a private bill into parliament, should be certain beforehand what it would cost. In a case which recently occurred to the bishop of Exeter, it was necessary, in order to improve the cathedral, to pull down some houses, and the act of parliament enabling the dean and chapter to purchase the houses to be pulled down cost more than the property was worth. It had been stated by a noble lord, that the expense of passing private bills had been much increased by the practice of appointing agents; but this he did not believe was the case. The agents saved the parties a great deal of trouble, and transacted that business by correspondence, which persons must otherwise come from a great distance to transact.—The noble earl concluded by moving for the appointment of a committee, to inquire into the subject, which was ordered, and the committee appointed.
APPEALS FROM INDIA. The Marquisof Lansdown rose,in pursuance of the notice which he had given, to call their lordships' attention to the subject of Appeals from India. He proposed by his motion to put their lordships in possession, by the information it would cause to be laid on their table, of some circumstances which would show them that a great practical grievance was suffered by that portion of his majesty's subjects who constituted that distant part of the empire. He hoped their lordships would think no apology necessary from him for bringing before them a question, concerning which he did not pretend to have any local information; but it must happen, while the government of countries of vast extent, and at a great distance, was under our sway, that such questions should come before their lordships, and it was their duty to collect as much information as possible on all questions in which the welfare, the happiness and, above all, the administration of justice in that distant country was concerned. He did not mean to say from what cause the difficulty had arisen; but the fact would be proved to their lordships by the papers, for which he meant to move. Ever since the year 1773, when, by the act of parliament for regulating the judicature in India, the duty had been cast on the privy council, of hearing and deciding appeals, a large number of them lay, not merely not decided, but on which no proceedings had taken place at all. The number of these appeals, from one court, amounted to forty or fifty, on which no proceedings whatever had taken place. In one instance, there was an example of appeal, in which the property of the whole Zemindary of Ramnad was concerned; which was an extensive district, containing many square miles, and many thousand inhabitants; and, during the time the appeal was pending, on which no proceedings had taken place, no man could tell what were his rights in the district, and the people were ignorant to whom they ought to pay their rents. He did not mean to impute blame to any person, or to say that these causes had been put off or delayed by any one man's conduct; because he was induced to suppose that the machinery was defective by which appeals were sent from India to England, so that they were not brought under the consideration of the privy council. No man who knew the zeal and ability of his noble friend, the
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president of the privy council—none of thir lordships, who had acted with him on committees, and were aware of his manner of managing business in them, or in that House—could for one moment suspect, that he was to blame for this delay. But it did appear that there existed a great practical grievance—a great delay in getting those appeals brought to a hearing—which defeated the intention of the legislature, when it cast on the privy council the duty of hearing and determining these appeals. The consequences of these delays were most injurious. As long as litigious suitors in India knew that they had a power, by lodging an appeal, of keeping a cause suspended for years, it was a temptation to them to do so, as they were sure of deriving a fraudulent benefit from their injustice; when, if they knew from authority, that such appeals would be heard and decided, they would never bring them. As the number of those appeals increased, which came from courts in distant parts of the country, their effects extended over more individuals, and produced greater mischief. He knew it would be said, that the delay was caused by no agents being appointed; and this was, he believed, the case; but, unless the machinery was provided for bringing these appeals before the privy council, it must be difficult for the native suitor, who employed fakeels as his agents, to find the means of following up his suit. He did not know exactly what that machinery ought to be, whether there should be an officer appointed here to bring forward the appeals, or whether any other measure should be adopted. The fakeels, who conducted business before the supreme court, might be competent to manage the business here; but many appeals came from provincial courts, and in them the suitors were destitute of all means of bringing their cause under the consideration of the council. It was necessary to recollect, that some of these appeals came from persons immediately connected with the government of India: they were transmitted, some to the India House, and some to the Board of Control; but, in many cases, they came from persons who were accustomed to lay their statements before one or other of these bodies, and, after sending in a roll of paper, to wait in silence, and without impatience, for a determination. From whatever cause the difficulty arose, it was due to the people

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of that country to endeavour to remedy it. If it arose from the constitution of the privy council, the members of which might find some difficulty in determining questions arising from a dispute concerning rights which had to be determined by the laws of India, an obvious remedy ought to be found, by calling to the assistance of the privy council some of those respectable individuals who had filled high judicial situations in India, who now enjoyed pensions for their services, and who might give this assistance for those persons, and which he was sure they would be most willing to give. He did not say whether they should be employed as assessors, or whether his majesty should be advised to place some of them in the privy council. If the difficulty arose from counsel, there could be no difficulty in finding a remedy for it. If it began at the other end of the proceedings—if it arose from a difficulty of preparing and transmitting appeals, and bringing them before the privy council, some provision should be made to facilitate the bringing them before the council, so that they might be speedily decided. At present, from whatever cause it arose, the appeals could not be prosecuted to a conclusion, and the delay amounted to a denial of justice. Many of these appeals had been lying over ten, twelve, and twenty years. They came from different parts of India, and left numberless questions connected with property in an unsettled state. The noble marquis concluded by moving for a return of all cases of appeal which had been transmitted from various courts in India, since the year 1800; and from Ceylon, the Isle of France, and our other Eastern dependencies, since they had been in our possession, stating how they had been disposed of. It had been his intention, he said, to have moved for the return from India since 1773; but on finding that, previous to 1800, the communications on this subject had not been made regular, he had extended his motion only to the year 1800.
The Earl of Harrowbysaid, he did not rise to oppose the motion, to which he could have no objection under any circumstances. His noble friend, who had frequently called their lordships' attention to many important subjects, had undoubtedly a right to call their attention to this; and had he even done it in a manner different from what he had, no feeling of soreness could have arisen in his mind.
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But the manner in which his noble friend had brought forward the subject was calculated to do away any unpleasant feeling, were it possible, which it was not, that any could exist. His principal object in rising was to make one or two explanations, that it might not be supposed that the privy council was the cause of the delay which existed. Their lordships were aware that the privy council was a court of justice, and, like other courts, could take no cognizance of causes unless they were regularly brought before it. It could not hear those appeals, unless the parties were present, or some agent for them. But when the appeals were entered and followed up by the agents, they were heard to an end, and were not delayed. For what passed before the cause came before the court, or before one of the parties made an application to it, the privy council could not be responsible. He believed his noble friend was misinformed, however, as to the number of the appeals which were undecided. He thought the number of appeals, since 1800, had not exceeded nine; and, except in one instance, no step had been taken, no agent had been appointed, and no means adopted for carrying them on. Their lordships would see, that merely sending a petition did not enable the privy council to proceed. Surely the counsel who advised the appeal from India, should have sufficient experience to know, that unless there was an agent here to be answerable for the fees, which went to the public, and to employ counsel, the appeal could not come before the privy council. It could take no notice of it whatever. As far as the privy council was concerned, he could say, that whenever causes were brought before it, there was no unnecessary delay. There were at present only four causes ready for hearing. As to the privy council not being properly constituted as a court, and as to his noble friend's suggestion to have assessors, the council had questions to decide of Dutch law, of French law, of Spanish law, and of the law of every people from whom we had ever taken a colony, and he had not heard any complaints made by the learned and able persons who sat in the privy council, that they could not understand those laws. He was persuaded that they did not find a greater difficulty in deciding such questions, than their lordships had in deciding questions of

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Scotch law. He believed, also, that, by the assistance of counsel, questions of Hindoo or Mahomedan law might be decided in the privy council. It appeared to him, therefore, premature to suggest an alteration in the constitution of the court. He had not the least objection to produce the papers, though he must say, that no primâ facie case had been made out for imputing delay to the privy council.
The motion was agreed to.