COURTS OF LOCAL JURISDICTION. (Hansard, 2 December 1830)

The Lord Chancellor

said, that in rising to call the attention of their Lordships to a subject of the highest possible importance, involving in no inconsiderable degree the welfare of the country, he could not help feeling that he owed to their. Lordships a very ample apology for having undertaken a matter of so great moment, as well as of so vast extent, considering how 708 short a period had elapsed since he had received the honour of a seat in that House, and more especially considering the circumstances under which he felt himself called upon to introduce the subject to their Lordships' notice. On any other occasion, and under any other circumstances, the feelings which dictated this apology would have prevented him from committing the trespass which, he unfeignedly believed, demanded apology; but circumstances which he was about to state to their Lordships would at once explain the motives which had actuated him in this proceeding, and furnish, at least he humbly hoped they would furnish, a justification of the proceeding, although, at the same time, in troubling their Lordships with the statement of those circumstances, he was perhaps incurring the blame of additional impropriety by obtruding on their Lordships matters in a great measure personal to himself. But it was absolutely necessary that he should slate those circumstances to their Lordships, or he should be precluded from all grounds of apology. On looking at the Journals of the other House of Parliament, their Lordships would find that at a very early period in the present Session of Parliament, —when he enjoyed the high honour of a seat in the House of Commons,—he had obtained leave from that House to bring in a bill of the same nature,—not precisely and in every feature, but essentially of the same nature—with that which he had now to ask the permission of their Lordships to carry forward in this House. Before there had occurred to him the opportunity of availing himself of the permission of the other House, he had been removed to a seat in this House, and thus the progress of the bill was suspended. By a reference to the Journals of the other House, their Lordships would see that in bringing in the Bill two coadjutors had been joined with him. One of these (Mr. Denman) had now been raised to an important office, of which the duties rendered it altogether unreasonable to expect that he should encumber himself with the labour of carrying this measure through the House of Commons; and for his other coadjutor, that Gentleman (Mr. M. A. Taylor), however intelligent, and however willing to undertake the task, was nevertheless not a professional man; and besides the disinclination which he (the Lord Chancellor) felt to impose upon his friend, 709 labours which, as he ought, so he had always intended, to bear himself,—besides this disinclination, he said,—he held it to be quite impossible that any Gentleman who had not practical experience of the proceeding's in our Courts of Justice could prosecute with any thing like a fair chance of success such a measure as that which the House of Commons had given him leave to bring in. For these reasons, therefore,—because it had become impossible for him to avail himself of the permission which the other House had given him, and because it was hardly possible that his coadjutors could avail themselves of that permission for him,—he had resolved to ask that support of their Lordships which the other House had not hesitated to grant him, and with their leave to bring forward the Bill here. The measure was, perhaps, one of such a nature, that it did not belong more to the cognizance of the one House than to the cognizance of the other; or, if it did, probably it belonged more especially to the cognizance of their Lordships. Indeed, if he were asked which branch of the Legislature was the more proper to decide concerning such measures he thought he might say, without any violence to the facts, or without going in search of any fanciful distinction, that this House, which was invested with the highest functions of a judicial character, was the most proper to originate a bill to effect what he was sure would be a great alteration, and he hoped a great improvement, in the administration of justice. In this House, too, he had. what was invaluable to any one who attempted to effect legal Reforms, the benefit of the assistance—assistance which, he was persuaded, would be cheerfully contributed—of those noble and learned persons who had the honour of seats here, whose lives had been passed in the study and in the administration of the laws; many of whom, to their immortal honour, had suggested and carried into effect most important and most beneficial legal improvements; and who, to those advantages, to this learning, to this experience, and to this manifestation of a desire to effect improvements where improvements could be effected, joined what was equally favourable to the end he had in view—full and ample leisure for deliberation. Encouraged by the hope, the confident hope, of aid from those noble and learned persons,—encouraged, too, by his own 710 strong persuasion of the paramount importance of the subject,—and also by his personal professional knowledge of the extent and the grievousness of those defects which he sought by this measure to remove, —thus encouraged, he threw himself upon the indulgence of their Lordships, while he stated, which he should do as shortly and as distinctly as possible, the nature of the evils which had induced him to bring forward this measure, and the nature of the remedies which he proposed to apply to those evils. Before, however, he proceeded farther, he felt it due to his noble friends on the bench opposite [the Ministerial bench] to state to their Lordships, entreating them to bear it in mind, that what he was about to suggest came from himself, and from himself only, as an individual member of that House; that he had had no opportunity to confer with or to consult his noble friends and colleagues in office, upon this subject; and that, therefore, the measure which he was now about to bring under the notice of their Lordships, was a measure proposed by him, as an individual peer, in his individual capacity, and so submitted by him to his peers in that House for their sanction, and for the sanction of the other branch of the Legislature; but not at all a measure either proceeding from, or having in any degree hitherto received the sanction of, the Government. To the Government he addressed the measure, as he addressed it to the rest of their Lordships, and for the support of the Government he was no doubt anxious,—as all their Lordships who had any measure to propose must be anxious, for with that support he might reasonably hope that others would be induced to lend a more favourable ear to the proposition he was about to submit to their Lordships; but he owed it to his noble friends to say, that the proposition proceeded from himself alone, and that it had not the sanction of their authority,—as, indeed, it could not have,—fur he repeated, that he had not had an opportunity of consulting his noble friends upon the subject. With these observations he proceeded at once to explain the nature of the proposition which he had now to make to their Lordships. He believed that those of their Lordships who were conversant with the proceedings of our Courts of Law,—where some of them had appeared in a professional capacity, and others in the less fortunate one of 711 suitors,—would have at least an imperfect, and perhaps dearly-bought, knowledge of some of the particulars, which it would therefore be only necessary for him briefly to remind their Lordships of, as the beginning and foundation of his proposition, which was, that there were many things in the mode of attaining: remedy for wrongs inflicted,—that there were many things in the prosecution of rights withheld,— that there were, in a word, many things in the proceedings of the judicature of the country, which required—he would not say to be swept away with a rude, unsparing hand, but—to be considered with the view of removing them, and of establishing in their stead a cheaper, a shorter, an easier, a more convenient, and a less vexatious mode of acquiring a remedy for wrongs, and of prosecuting rights. He would not detain their Lordships with the hackneyed subjects,—hackneyed, he feared, because cruelly and generally felt,— of the expense and delay of legal proceedings; but, waiving particulars, he would only remind their Lordships of one or two facts connected with the proceedings in our Courts of judicature, which facts alone, he apprehended, would warrant the statement he had made, that there were many parts of those institutions that called for consideration. Their Lordships were aware that by a most salutary provision of the Constitution, all the law proceedings of this land, except where matters of a very trifling value were concerned, must begin and centre in the King's Courts in Westminster-hall. Now from this provision there resulted many great and important advantages, and above all the benefits which arose from it was this invaluable good,—namely, that in consequence of this general control and supervision of the King's Courts at Westminster, it was absolutely impossible that any discrepancies could arise in the system of the administration and practice of the law in various parts of the country, because in all, the system was assimilated, and its uniformity preserved, by the general control of the high courts at Westminster. But together with these advantages, which no man could value higher than he did, and which he should show could be maintained and secured, if not better, at least as well, by other means,—together with these advantages, he said, many evils of a most serious character were combined, and which had arisen from this provision:—As all actions 712 must be tried on records issuing out of the King's Courts at Westminster, it followed of necessity that they could be tried only twice a year, that was to say, when the King's Justices went their circuits: and the consequence of this was, that in whatever part of the county the suits might have arisen,—at whatever distance from the assize town,— and at whatever period during the six months, at the end of which the Judges came,—all must resort to the assize town, and to no other place, for there only did the Judges sit, and they sat there only at stated intervals, —namely, for short periods at the end of every six months. It might happen that the cases were of great importance, involving vast interests, and the suitors might be persons of extensive means. In such cases delay and distance might be of little moment: the distance to be travelled would be nothing to such parties, and the delay that intervened between the time at which the cause was ripe for hearing, and the time at which it could be heard, would not be considered when the stake was large. In such cases, therefore, the delay and the distance might be passed over as quantities too insignificant to be taken into the calculation, because they were nothing in comparison to the result, and because they bore so small a proportion to the interest at stake. But it was far otherwise where the interest at stake was small. To persons in the middling and humble classes of life, who had no large property, out of which to defray the charges of a suit, —who had no time to spare from the occupations by which they earned their livelihood, and whose suits were not of such a nature as to require a long period in which to prepare them for trial, —to such persons a delay of six months in the adjudication of their cause, and the consequent expenses of this delay, as well as the costs of trial at a distance from their homes, were matters of the most serious—he had almost said, of ruinous importance; nor was there, nor could there be, any reason for such delay and expense, except that the law, as it now stood, made it necessary that the cause should be tried at the Assizes, and not before, and at the assize town, and nowhere else. Now, before he called their Lordships attention to the proportion between small and great causes,—that 713 was to say, between causes where the interest at stake was small, and where it was large,—he would stop for a moment to remind some of their Lordships, and, it might be, to inform others, of the amount of the costs incurred in the trial of causes under the present system. He would pass over those costs which must necessarily arise from delay: he would pass over the loss which the same delay must also necessarily produce in the case of at least a certain class of suitors; and he would say nothing about the wounded feelings of men who had suffered the infliction of wrongs, or who beheld their rights unjustly withheld from them; he would pass over these considerations, although delay in the one case must be a cruel aggravation of the injuries under which a man smarted, and although the withholding a sum of money for five or six months might be absolute ruin to many. These evils must be obvious to their Lordships upon the slightest glance at the system, and he was sure that he need not dwell then upon the propriety of removing them. He would, however, show to their Lordships how, practically, the expense of this mode of trying suits, putting the delay out of the question, weighed most heavily upon the suitors, ft was from the expenses of witnesses whom they were obliged to bring into Court, and from their own personal expenses when fetched from their own homes to the assize town, that much of the cost, arose. Notwithstanding the many wise and salutary regulations which the learned Judges had made, it. was still impossible, where the county was of any great extent, and where the cause-paper was at all crowded, so to arrange the business as to preclude the necessity of suitors, their attornies, their agents, and their witnesses, passing several days at the assize town. At York, he had known the Assizes frequently last for a fortnight; and, on one occasion, he had known them last for three weeks all but a day. The excellent regulations made by Mr. Justice Bayley had indeed prevented men being kept there for two or three weeks; but none of those regulations had been found sufficient to prevent the attendance of some for several days, or to prevent that attendance being extremely burthensome to all. He need hardly remind their Lordships of how much importance a delay of only ten days must be to an unfortunate suitor of slender means. Such 714 a man would of course have to maintain himself at the assize town during that period, and to maintain also such of his family as might have accompanied him there; but, as it might not be absolutely necessary that the suitor should bring any of his family thither, such expense might be put out of the calculation. The suitor's personal expenses, however, which in an assize town, and at such time, could not be trifling, must be defrayed. His attorney, too, must be there, and an attorney, if he recollected rightly, was allowed to charge his client two guineas a day for his expenses; that was to say, two guineas a day if he had not more than one cause, and if he had more than one, then he might charge one guinea a day,—being allowed to recover also another guinea from the other party, if he should succeed in defeating him. This was the charge allowed in the Master's office, if his recollection were correct; but then their Lordships were perhaps aware that the attorney received more than what the Master allowed him from his client. Next came the expenses of the witnesses. The witnesses, almost of necessity, were brought from the same part of the county with the suitor: at least it generally happened that a man's witnesses were his neighbours, — persons living near him, who knew him, and who had had dealings with him. How much then did a man's witnesses cost him? Why, by the regulations of the office, witnesses, he believed, were divided into three classes: first, professional men—say physicians, surveyors, artists, and so forth; secondly, master workmen; thirdly, journeymen labourers. The first class were allowed two guineas a day for their expenses; the second, 15s. a day; the third, 5s. a day. This was the allowance recognized by the office, but their Lordships must by no means suppose that these sums were all that witnesses obtained from suitors. He could assure their Lordships that he was stating only what was consistent with his own experience, when he said, that clients were always as sensible of the importance of having a witness in good humour, as of having the Court favourably disposed towards them. Nay this was generally considered absolutely necessary, and more especially so when the witness was such an one as did not come to swear to a matter of fact, but to a matter of estimate; and in such cases the witness always had 715 from the suitor a much more ample allowance than the office would give him, considerable as that allowance was. Of such witnesses, also, the number would be generally two or three. Experience, and knowledge, and practice, had shown the necessity of calling more than one professional man, such as physicians, artists, surveyors, and the like, for these would be called by the one party as well as by the other; and oftentimes it happened that great was the discrepancy of opinion among them; nay, even in matters of measurement he had known this to be the case, as though the extent of measured space was a matter of opinion, and not of fact. It was necessary, therefore, to have enough of such evidence: every man, whether counsel or attorney, knew this, and advised accordingly; and hence it happened that a man, to be well prepared, —that was to say, to be in a condition to meet his adversary on equal terms,—must come, if not with a cloud of witnesses, at least with a parcel of witnesses; and these, besides their allowance of two guineas a day, travelled at the rate of 1s. 6d. a mile. He knew that these details must be very tiresome to their Lordships, and he would trouble them with as few as possible. Their Lordships would see by this statement that 50l. or 60l. might be very easily expended by a suitor, in the costs of attorney and witnesses at the assize town, and before the cause came on for trial, if the suitor should be detained, as was frequently the case, ten days at the assize town. Now, as he had before observed, if the question at issue was the title to a large freehold estate, or a share in some mercantile concern, amounting to thousands of pounds in value, these charges might be passed over as too insignificant to enter into the calculation; but what would their Lordships say when they heard that the costs might still be the same—might still be 50l. or 60l. although the whole sum in dispute did not amount to 50l., nay not to 10l.? This, however, was the fact; and when he called the attention of their Lordships, as he presently should, to the proportion between causes of small value, and causes of large value, their Lordships would be able to judge of the magnitude of this evil, and would agree, he was sure, with the proposition with which he had started,—viz. that the subject ought to be taken into their most serious consideration. Let him also re- 716 mind their Lordships, that if a party, after having gone to the large expense of bringing up witnesses, maintaining his attorney, and defraying the costs of the trial, — all which, in many cases, amounted to a far greater sum than that he had mentioned,—let him remind their Lordships, he said, that if a party, after this outlay, received the judgment of the Court in his favour, he could, by the theory of our law, recover the charges he had been put to from the other party; but that, by the melancholy practice of our law, the successful party never recovered the whole from his adversary. All that he could recover was the amount which the master would allow on taxation, and this was seldom more than two-thirds of what the party had Actually paid. The party, therefore, though successful, must be out of pocket, on account of costs, to the amount of at least one-third of those costs. He had called this the melancholy practice of our law, but he had called it so only in contradistinction to the theory of the law. He did not mean by that expression to cast any imputation on the provisions of the law in this respect, for those provisions must of necessity continue as they were, as long as men were men. To make the practice of our law, in this respect, consistent, with the theory of it, would, under the existing system, be placing in men's hands a most dangerous and destructive engine of oppression; for it would be saying, that there should be no distinction made between the costs which it was reasonable the losing party should defray, and those costs which his adversary might be inclined to make him pay. Their Lordships, he was sure, would readily see what he meant. If a successful party were allowed to recover all his costs, the inevitable consequence would be, that that party, if he were sure to recover against his opponent, would take care to punish the person against whom he had succeeded by multiplying charge upon charge to the utmost of his appetite and ingenuity; and further than this, would not be unwilling to allow his attorney to have his share of plunder, by authorizing him to pursue the same vexatiously expensive course. For these reasons it must be evident that this provision of the law was not to be blamed. But let their Lordships see how this system bore upon causes in which small interests were at stake. Would they tell 717 him whether it was not expedient, and reasonable, and just, to lessen the expense of legal proceedings, which could be effected in no more certain and more effectual way than by bringing justice home to every man's door? He had obtained three bills of costs, with the results only of which he would now trouble their Lordships. The first amounted to 400l. and of this, the Master, on taxation, struck off 200l., that was to say, just one-half. The second amounted to 210l., and of this the Master taxed off 70l., or one-third. The last amounted to 60l. This was an undefended cause; so that the amount spent in the litigation of an undefended cause was 60l., and of this the Master taxed off one-fourth, 15l. Now their Lordships would see, therefore, that in these cases the successful parties had to pay out of their own pockets—in the first case 200l., in the second 70l., and in the third 15l. The sums in question in the first case were large; it was an important case, and probably no cost had been spared in getting it ready for trial. In the second case, the sum at issue was somewhat about 100l., so that the unfortunate suitor, after an outlay of 210l. in order to recover 100l. got at last only 30l. In the third case, the sum at issue was 50l., which it cost the party 45l. to recover; and he need not remind their Lordships that the costs would have been quite as great if the debt had been only 10l. and that also no greater amount of costs could have been recovered against the defendant; consequently, if a poor man had brought this action for 10l., the costs amounting to 60l., and he being allowed to recover only 45l., he would have been 5l. the worse for bringing the action, and obtaining a verdict in his favour. And in this last case the party suing would be placed in the most favourable circumstances possible, for the defendant offered to him none of those obstacles which the law placed within his reach, and by which he might have increased the amount of the plaintiff's costs. The cause would have been undefended, and yet the plaintiff would have lost by bringing the action. Now these facts, he thought, showed the necessity of endeavouring to cheapen and to facilitate the access to Courts of Justice for suitors who had causes to try in which the interest at stake was small. He had promised their Lordships that he would show them the 718 proportion between causes of large amount, and of small amount. He would now do so: for they egregiously deceived themselves who supposed that his noble friend, the Lord Chief Justice, clothed with one of the highest legal offices, and placed at the head of the highest Court of legal judicature, was employed in trying cases only in which property to a large amount was at stake,—in which vast and important interests were involved,— in a word, cases which required the interposition of so high a judicial personage. If his Lordship was oftentimes called upon to try causes of vast importance, involving extensive interests, the title to great estates, the right to sums of money of princely amount, still it did happen far more frequently that his Lordship sat to adjudicate litigated claims of the most trifling—nay, often of altogether insignificant amount. Such was the character of by far the greater number of the causes which were brought before his Lordship. He was about to state to their Lordships a fact in illustration of the vast preponderance of small over great causes. This was, perhaps, an extreme case, for in the whole course of his —unfortunately not very short—profesional career, he had never heard of one similar to it, and possibly—nay, he dared say it was so—his noble and learned friend (Lord Tenterden), notwithstanding his extensive experience, would be unable to supply a parallel to it. Observing, upon one occasion, at the Assizes in the county palatine of Lancaster, that the verdicts were generally unusually low, he had asked the Prothonotary to make him out a list of the verdicts,, and of the amount of them. This was in the Spring of 1826, and he received from the Prothonotary, a gentleman of great intelligence, and whose accuracy might be implicitly relied upon, the amount of the verdicts given in fifty-two causes, which was the whole number of the causes tried. Now, what did their Lordships suppose was the average amount of the verdicts in fifty-two causes, the accumulated litigation of the whole of one half-year in the county palatine of Lancaster, a county containing a population of more than 1,200,000 souls, and of which the vast mercantile dealings were too well known for him to attempt to describe them;—why, the average amount of the verdicts was 14l. 15s., that was to say, a trifle under 15l., a sum less than that for 719 which a man by law might be arrested and held to bail. If the real value of these cases had been entered, probably the value of the property in litigation would appear much greater; for three or four of them were actions of ejectment, and in these the verdict was of course only nominal: but generally this was not the nature of the causes; they were, for the most part, verdicts for the full amount of the property claimed, which amount was generally under 15l. He had stated to their Lordships, as in fairness he was bound to state, that he believed this to be an extreme case; but if their Lordships would refer to that report of the Law Commissioners to which his noble and learned friend (Lord Wynford) had called the attention of their Lordships, in the very able speech he had made the other night in proposing certain legal reforms, their Lordships would see, that the number of causes in which small interests were involved, greatly preponderated over the number of those in which property to anything like an extensive amount was at stake. From that report he would select a few instances, to which he entreated the attention of their Lordships. It appeared from returns presented to the House of Commons, that in the year 1827, the number of affidavits for debt above 10l. filed in the Court of King's Bench, the Court of Common Pleas, and the Court of Exchequer, was 93,375. Of this number not less than 30,000 were filed in cases where the debt was above 10l. and under 20l.; 34,000 were filed in cases where the debt was above 20l. and under 50l.: so that two-thirds of the number of affidavits of debt filed in the year 1827, or 64,000 out of 93,000 affidavits, were for sums under 50l. If they looked at the number of affidavits filed for sums above 100l.,—and he took that sum as a natural limit for those actions which ought not to be removed from the jurisdiction of the superior Courts,—their Lordships would find that they did not exceed 15,000: so that 78,000 out of the 93,000 affidavits filed were for sums under 100l. Thus one-sixth of the number of affidavits filed were for sums above 100l., two-thirds of them were for sums under 50l., and five-sixths were for sums under 100l. As this was an important feature of the case, and as the proposition which he was going to develope to their Lordships was intended to remedy this grievance, he would endeavour to illustrate it more fully by placing 720 it in another point of view before them. At the London Sittings for 1829, there were tried before his noble and learned friend, the Chief Justice of the King's Bench, 909 cases, of which 184 were for sums above 100l., 319 for sums under 50l., and 406 for sums under 20l. At the Sittings for Middlesex, the proportion was nearly the same; and in the two places together more than half the causes tried were under 50l., whilst more than a third of them were under the trifling sum of 20l. The noble and learned Lord then proceeded to read similar returns respecting the number of cases tried at the Spring Assizes in Yorkshire, Oxfordshire, and some other counties, specifying the proportion which existed between the number of the actions brought for sums above 10l., under 20l., under 50l., and above 100l. respectively; and when he had read them through, proceeded to observe, that he thought that he had now sufficiently demonstrated the proposition, with which he had set out, at the commencement of his address to their Lordships,—namely, that a large proportion of the litigation of the country, as it is at present conducted in the highest Courts of Record, beginning in and proceeding from his Majesty's Courts of King's Bench, of Common Pleas, and of Exchequer, and tried by the Judges of Assize in the course of their respective circuits, was of that kind to which he had first called the attention of their Lordships as being so moderate, not to say so trifling, in its intrinsic value, as to make the expense of it out of all keeping to the value of the thing litigated. This being the amount of the mischief, and the evil of it consisting in the expense, in the distance, and in the delay of our tribunals, and in the consequent vexation arising to the suitor from each of these causes severally, and from all of them collectively, the question for the consideration of their Lordships was, how that evil could be most safely, most conveniently, and most expeditiously remedied; and in looking for a remedy, doubtless it was natural for their Lordships to resort to the days of other times, and to the years that were gone by, to see whether they could find in the older institutions of the country any clue to guide them, any analogy which they could apply to the improvement of its present institutions, either by reviving that which had become obsolete, or by new modelling that which had been still left to them in 721 the progress of time, or by founding, but not at hazard or random, but on the analogy of other experiments which had been tried and been found to answer, new institutions in name and appearance, but old and revived institutions in principle and effect. And the first suggestion which would rise up in the minds of their Lordships would be connected with the ancient County Courts. He knew that antiquaries differed as to the original jurisdiction of these Courts, some holding that it was confined to civil causes alone, and others —of whom he was one, though he did not consider his authority to be of much weight —contended that it was an extensive jurisdiction, and had cognizance, not only of civil and ecclesiastic, but also of criminal matters, and that from it branched off the Court Leet and the Court Baron, which had not of themselves any original jurisdiction. That in early times the County Courts exercised an extraordinary jurisdiction appeared from records still in existence, of undoubted authenticity. In the seventh year after the Conquest, there was tried in the County Court of Kent, before the Archbishop of Canterbury and his Peers, a cause in which a natural brother of the Conqueror, Odo Bishop of Bayeux, was a party, and in which a very important question as to his manorial rights over a very extensive property, was decided, after a hearing which lasted for three or four days. The judgment given in the County Court on that occasion was, as many of their Lordships knew, afterwards recognized and confirmed by Parliament. In the 6th year of Edward 1st, when the Statute of Gloucester was passed, it did not appear that the jurisdiction of the County Court was limited to cases in which the cause of action did not exceed 40s. in value, although at that time, as their Lordships were aware, 40s. were of much greater value than at present. Certainly, in less than a century from the time in which the Statute of Gloucester was passed, the jurisdiction of the County Court was limited to causes of 40s. value, though, previously to that time, there could be no doubt that causes of any value, in which a right of freehold was not made a question, could be tried by it. It therefore appeared to him, that the County Court originally was a tribunal for the trial of causes of all kinds and of all amounts, though latterly its jurisdiction had been confined to causes of a civil nature and of 722 a smaller amount. He prayed their Lordships to recollect that this sum of 40s. was computed by Lord Chief Justice Hale to be equal to 10l. of the money of his day, and that his computation had always been considered as very moderate. He therefore thought, instead of taking the measure of increase in the value of money to be merely tenfold, as Lord Hale had taken it, they might now take it as twentyfold; and they might safely say, that in consequence of the alteration which had taken place in the number of shillings coined out of the pound of silver, and of the depreciation which had taken place in the value of money since the discovery of the mines of America, that 40s. of the reign of Edward 1st were nearer in value to 40l. than to 10l. of our money. If, then, the County Court could now, as it formerly did, take cognizance of causes of 40l. value, their Lordships would see how much his noble and learned friend the Lord Chief Justice and his learned brothers would be relieved in trying causes, by reflecting that he had already proved to them that three, if not four, out of every five causes, which the Judges now tried, would go for trial to the local and more convenient tribunal. If it were fitting to recur to former times to have the benefit of experience, it was often no less expedient to resort to the example of other countries, which fortune had placed in a situation similar in some respects to our own. If he could satisfy their Lordships that some measure of the same kind had been successfully adopted in a country which was in a situation similar to our own, and which originally had possessed the very same code of laws;—if he could prove to their Lordships that that country had gone on improving the old system of County Courts, whilst we had allowed it. to fall into desuetude;—if he could demonstrate that no one thing had given the King's subjects in that country a more satisfactory means of redressing their grievances than that system,—he should go a long way to show that, whatever novelty might be attached to the plan which he was now proposing to their approbation, it was not a plan that had been unsupported by experience, or that had been unattended with advantage and success. He alluded to what had taken place in the ancient kingdom of Scotland, of which the laws, in former times, widely as they differed now from the laws of England, were so identically the same with those of 723 this kingdom, that the oldest treatise on law in each of the two countries is said to be a translation from the other, there being a dispute between the lawyers of England and those of Scotland as to which was the original. He was bound, as holding allegiance on a higher tie to the bar of England than to that of Scotland, to say— and he was happy to add, that he could really say it conscientiously—that he believed the treatise on English law to be the original. The treatise of Glanville, who was Lord Chief Justice in the reign of Henry 2nd, was that from which the "Regiam Majestatem" of Scotland was taken—a clear proof that at that early period of our history the principles of the Scotch law were the same as those of our own. In those days the people of Scotland had their County Courts as well as the people of England. But they had not given them up as we had; and he would now proceed to inform their Lordships how they had benefitted by retaining them. The Sheriffs, or rather he should say the Earls, originally elected by the people in the Saxon times, came afterwards, in the progress of years, to be nominated by the Crown. By an abuse of its prerogative, those offices were afterwards rendered hereditary in private families to such a degree, that a noble Duke, a friend of his,— whom he did not then see in his place,— or rather, he should say, the ancestors of that noble Duke, enjoyed as an hereditary office in Scotland, that very situation which his noble and learned friend on the cross-bench now filled in England with so much credit to himself and satisfaction to the public. The office of Lord Justice-general in criminal matters in Scotland was hereditary in the family of the Duke of Argyle, and could, if it had not been entailed, have been taken in execution by any person who had gained a judgment against, him. In case any of the Dukes of that family had been traders, it could have been taken under the bankrupt laws, and as it would have passed by sale, his assignees could not have been prevented, if they had thought fit to exercise their legal rights, from sitting and acting as Lord Justice-general of Scotland. Neither had this privilege been allowed to fall into desuetude: for on one occasion, where a Campbell was on one side and an individual of a different clan was on the other, his noble friend's ancestor came unexpectedly forward to assert his privilege, 724 and actually attended the circuit where his clansman was to be tried, in order to try him in person for his life. Similar privileges were exercised by different noble families in Scotland for some years after the rebellion of 1715, but they were all abolished, as such abuses deserved to be, by an act of Parliament passed in the year 1745, although the act of Union was cited for the express purpose of showing that these heritable jurisdictions were specially reserved to their several possessors, but cited with the same want of success as had attended it on various occasions,—a fact to which he called their Lordships' attention for objects of a very different nature from those connected with this bill. When these jurisdictions were abolished, Sheriffs Depute were substituted in their stead. Now the Sheriff Depute retained the jurisdiction of the old county courts, little shorn of their ancient splendor and authority. He was the judge in ordinary of each district in Scotland,—he was also the judge in the first instance in those tribunals in which all actions may be, and are habitually, brought. He exercised all his jurisdiction,—he heard all cases at the door of the suitor, not at stated intervals, but daily throughout the year, his door being always open to the suitor, redress being in the hands of the suitor at every hour from his tribunal, without delay, without expense, and without the vexatious process of waiting long for his remedy, and of going into another part of the country to seek it. He need scarcely inform their Lordships that the Courts of the Sheriff Depute, in the first instance, were the favourite Courts of the people of Scotland. He would now proceed to show their Lordships to what extent business was transacted in those Courts, as by so doing he should be able to show them how much the experience of Scotland was in favour of his plan, and how likely that similar results would take place in England should a similar system be adopted. Upon an average of three years, there had been in all the courts of the Sheriffs Depute not less than 22,000 causes—he was not speaking of actions brought—tried—and disposed of in the course of a year. If he were to take the amount of similar causes which would be tried in England, supposing a similar jurisdiction should exist in it, at six times the amount of those tried in Scotland—a calculation which he made on the propor- 725 tion existing between the numbers of the population of the two countries—there would be 130,000 causes tried and disposed of every year in England; and yet he had already informed their Lordships that out of 80,000 causes annually commenced in England, the numbers tried were only 7,000. So that in England, which was six times more populous than Scotland, and incalculably more wealthy, there were tried only one-third of the number of suits which the Sheriff Courts of Scotland dispose of in a year. Their Lordships might now, perhaps, be desirous of knowing what proportion of these causes found their way into the superior Courts of Scotland by way of appeal. It was only right to inform their Lordships that the Court of Session exercised a superintending power over the Courts of the Sheriffs Depute, in order to keep the principles of the law the same in all parts of Scotland, and to prevent different practices from prevailing in different parts of it. There was, therefore, a right of appeal from these Sheriff Courts to the Courts of Session; but the number of appeals was very small. It was only one in every 117 actions commenced, and only one in every fifty-three cases brought to trial. He ought also to inform their Lordships, that the Sheriffs Depute had a deputy, who was known by the title of the Sheriff-substitute. An appeal lay from the Sheriff-substitute to his principal, the Sheriff Depute. The former was in general a solicitor or writer to the signet: the latter must be a barrister of five years standing. That the people of Scotland were satisfied with the decisions of this officer and his deputy, was evident from the fact that in forty-nine cases out of fifty there was no appeal made against them, and that only 400 cases out of 22,000, which they disposed of annually, ever gave any trouble to the superior Courts of that country. Their Lordships would perhaps also wish to know the amount in money of the matters disposed of in these Courts. Now, if he founded his calculations upon the returns which had been received from the opulent county of Lanark, half a million of property must be disposed of annually by those Courts, in a manner so satisfactory to the suitors as to give rise to scarcely any appeals, and what was no less material, at a very inconsiderable expense. He found that in undefended causes which were tried be- 726 fore the Sheriffs Depute, the expense of a suit, where the cause of action was of the value of 12l., was only 10s.; where the cause of action was of the value of 25l., it was 15s.; and where the cause of action was of the value of 100l., it was 20s. He likewise found that when the cause was defended— "and here" added the Lord Chancellor, "I must observe, that our countrymen, though they are not prone to litigation, being once involved in it, are not prone to yield [a laugh] they are prone to carry on their cause as vigorously as the law will permit them, without caring or seeking for compromises; for there is no country in the world in which so little reference is made to arbitrators as in Scotland,"—he found, he said, that the whole expense of this costly litigation, where the cause was defended as far as it could be,—where every thing was done to; create delay, except placing a plea on the record to carry it as an appeal to Edinburgh, was 5l., where the property in dispute was of the value of 12l., and was 13l. where the property was of the value of 100l.; and of this 13l. only 1l. can be; taxed off by the officer who is the auditor of the Court. Now, these are the results of the experience which the people of Scotland have of their Courts of Sheriff Depute. They proved two propositions to his mind most incontestably. The first was, that in the Local Courts of judicature in Scotland, an immense mass of litigation was annually disposed of,—the second was, that the mode of dealing with it was satisfactory, because it was at once easy, expedient, and cheap. He therefore ventared, with great deference to the better judgment of their Lordships, but at the same time with that confidence which, humble as he was, he had a right to feel in a system which had been tried elsewhere and found successful,—he ventured, he said, with great submission, to propose to their Lordships the expediency of listening to the suggestion whether they might not a little retrace the steps by which they had wandered from the system by which the people of Scotland had held so advantageously, and whether they might not safely and beneficially adopt, to a certain extent, the system of County Courts. He would not trouble their Lordships with the reasons which induced him to prefer forming a Court, new in its kind, but modelled upon ancient principles, to refitting for 727 present use our ancient County Courts. The conflicts which they would have to wage with the Sheriff's—the necessary offence which they must give, in the course of such conflicts, to a body so respectable as that out of which the Sheriffs were selected—the prejudices and partialities which they would have to overcome—these all formed part of the argument against the course which he had last mentioned. It was evident, from all the attempts which had been made to recall the ancient County Courts into existence,—and none had ever been made with more zeal and learning than that which had originated with a noble friend of his in the other House of Parliament, who had endeavoured to make them available for the recovery of small debts,—a plan seconded and afterwards taken up by a distinguished personage, who then most fortunately held a high situation in his Majesty's Councils, and to whose enlightened and useful exertions, in patronizing the reforms of the criminal code of his country, it was impossible for that country to feel too grateful;—it was evident, he said, from the opposition which had been made to such plans, taken up as they had been once and again, by individuals who had examined most anxiously into their feasibility, that they must, abandon the ancient County Courts as incapable of being now modelled to suit the wants of the country. And, after all, they would abandon nothing: for if they had accomplished the object which they had in view, they would have kept, the name, but not the thing—they would have clasped the vision, but not. the substance—they would have gained an institution in its nature different, though in its form of the same aspect, and, without, retaining the old system, they would have hampered themselves with all its inconveniences to an extent which they would have found intolerable. He, therefore, thought it better to take a new name with a new subject, and to found a new Court, under the name of a Court of Local or Ordinary Jurisdiction. He had detailed at great length in the Bill to which he now solicited the favourable attention of their Lordships, the whole particulars of the plan, which, after long meditation in his own mind, after much consultation with members of every branch of his profession, he now brought forward as the result, he would not say of his own studies, but of the studies of those who were better qualified than himself to deal 728 with this subject He had thrown together in the Bill, not only the general principles on which it was founded, but also the particular details by which it was to be carried into effect. He founded the Bill on two or three principles, which he considered as quite cardinal. The first was, to make no change in the fundamental law of the land; the next was, to make no change in the practice of the Law, which was not in strict and rigorous conformity with established principles; and the third and last was, above all things, to fence and guard all the arrangements of this measure in such wise as to take ample security, by means of a superintending power, vested in the highest Courts of Record in Westminster-hall, against the possibility of the law being changed in those local judicatures, and becoming various in various parts of the country. How these matters should be settled,—under what circumstances appeals should be allowed,—under what restrictions saved,—how the jurisdiction should be limited in amount and kind,—to what controlling power it should be subject, and how that controlling power should be exercised,—were details with which he needed not. to trouble their Lordships at that moment, as all he wished to do then was, to introduce his Bill to their favourable consideration. Suffice it, then, to say, that he now proposed,—and if they saw any apparent defect in his proposition he hoped they would supply it; and if they detected anything objectionable he hoped that they would remove it—suffice it to say, that he proposed that there should be, when this measure should generally be put in practice—and he intended to begin his experiment by establishing those two Courts in two counties only, in order that they might be armed with some experience before they extended them all over the country—suffice it, he repeated once more, to say, that he proposed that there should be in every County or Riding, or in every Half-riding, where the Ridings were as extensive as the West-Riding of the county of York, a Judge to be called the Judge Ordinary. He should not sit twice only in every year, as of necessity the Judges of Assize sat when they went their respective circuits, but he should sit after the manner of the ancient county Courts, every month, from month to month, throughout the year, with the exception of one month in Autumn, to be allowed him for necessary recreation. He should pro- 729 ceed at the commencement of each calendar month, and their Lordships knew that the ancient County Courts went not by calendar but. by lunar months, to hold his Court. Before him in that Court, if the parties to an action chose to prefer cheap law to dear law, a near tribunal to a distant tribunal, and speedy justice to delay, they might bring their cause, no matter as to its amount, by certain statements called pleadings, which were laid down in the schedule to the Bill. He was happy to have an opportunity of acknowledging that on this part of his measure he had availed himself of the profound learning and ingenuity of the Law Commissioners, who had dealt so ably with the subject of pleading in their second report. The Judge Ordinary he intended to invest with jurisdiction over the following cases:—All actions of debt, trespass, and trover, where the sum sought to be recovered did not exceed 100l.;—all actions of tort, as for assault, libel, seduction, and the like, where the damages to be recovered did not exceed 50l.;—and all actions for breaches of agreement, where the damages to be recovered did not exceed 100l.; subject, however, to an appeal from his Court, whenever any title to freehold, leasehold, or copyhold property came in question in course of the issue. He would propose, moreover, that the Judges who should preside in these Courts should be men of character and weight in the profession; and not, as had been too often the case, with what were erroneously supposed to be inferior legal appointments, —men of little or no experience in the Courts of Westminster-hall. It was a vain and a most, pernicious mistake to suppose that what were called moderate or trifling (in a pecuniary point of view) causes, could be satisfactorily disposed of by Judges of moderate ability and experience. There was nothing cither in the theory or the practice of the inferior judicial establishments of the country to warrant such a mischievously absurd proposition. There were, in this part of the United Kingdom, some 240—perhaps he should be more correct in saying some 280 —Courts of Conscience and Courts of Requests, and other inferior local tribunals for the adjudication of cases involving interests of comparatively minor importance; which Courts, he was free to admit, were felt by the country, and justly too, when they took into consideration the evils 730 consequent upon what he might, for the sake of brevity, term the higher litigations, to be comparatively great blessings. But still, whosoever was acquainted with the machinery and proceedings of these Courts would, he was sure, admit, in fact, could not doubt, that, comparing their results with the wants of the suitors seeking in them redress for their grievances, they were imperfect and inefficient, and, what was more, by no means, all things considered, uncostly; they were, in truth, in a great national legislative point of view, of little benefit, and might, with great advantage to the public, be absorbed,—he meant ultimately absorbed,—in the more efficient, better adapted, because better constituted, and not more expensive, Courts which his bill proposed to establish. Two species of action were usually tried in the Courts of Conscience and of Requests, —one for debts or claims for sums under 2l.; the other for sums not exceeding 5l. Now it was meant to leave both in a great measure to the ordinary jurisdictions until such time as the functions of both Courts were absorbed, as he had stated, into those of the proposed local tribunals. It would be left to the suitors to choose between the new County Courts and the ordinary jurisdictions up to 5l., as it would be left to the suitors to choose between the County Courts in causes falling within their adjudicatory powers, but involving, as it might happen, complicated and important interests; but it would be compulsory (so we understood the noble and learned Lord) on all litigants in causes for 100l. by way of debt, or 50l. by way of tort, to seek redress in the proposed County Courts, and not to go elsewhere to the higher tribunals, unless, as he had stated, the case involved questions of freehold, or tenure, or other complicated interests incapable of a quick decision. This would be the more easily effected, it struck him, on account of the condition which he had laid down for the appointment of the Judges of the County Courts, —namely, established ability and experience as a lawyer. And here he trusted their Lordships would permit him to remind them of a principle or fact which should never be forgotten when attempting to legislate with a view to facilitating and rendering more cheap the means of justice —that the amount of the sum at issue between litigants,—that is to say, that what was called a moderate action, involving 731 comparatively but little pecuniary interest, was no standard of the ability and knowledge required in the presiding Judge, was no measure of the importance, the intrinsic paramount importance, to the parties engaged in the suit, and therefore was not to be got rid of hastily by some member of the profession of but little skill or experience. It might, if their Lordships would, be a matter of but little or secondary moment, whether justice were brought home to the very doors or' suitors— whether, for example, a suitor should have to go from a distance in the county to Lancaster, or from Huddersfield to York; but still, if the sum at issue were but 20l. —nay but 10l.—it was as much to a poor i man, and its loss was as great a loss to him, and the sense of injustice rankling in his bosom from its being withheld from him, and from the difficulties placed in the way of his obtaining redress, whether those difficulties were of distance or expense, or delay, with all the consequent anxieties and sufferings of mind—were as great, he said, to the poor man, as many thousands to most of their Lordships, and were, therefore, as well worthy of consideration to Parliament, acting in its great national legislative capacity, and on the great national legislative principle of equal laws and equal protection from those laws —that is, of equal justice. It was then,; he would say, the bounden duty of the Government, be its members who they may, to have the law administered so that the poor man might obtain redress for his grievances as expeditiously, and to him as cheaply, as the richer suitor, and not, as was too much the case at present, owing to the defects of our legal institutions, that causes involving smaller interests were to be regarded of little moment, being, as it were, of little public importance. He contended they were of great public importance, as it signified much to the poor man that he should have his just grievances promptly and cheaply redressed. It was no objection that those minor causes — minor so far as money was concerned — would take up as much of a Judge's time, as one in which 20 or 100 times the amount might be involved. His objection to the present system was, not that the cause in which 10l. or 20l. was the amount in dispute would occupy as much time and skill on the part of the Judge as one for 100l. or 1,000l.; but—and this was his deep regret, his grief—that the small case 732 was attended with great and most unproportioned and most unnecessary expense and delay. It was not to the litigation, but to the expense and delay that he objected, for he felt that the line between cases of comparatively little, and of great pecuniary moment, which they were bound to observe, was that of expense and delay, and not the qualification of the Judges, so far as inferiority and superiority in either case were concerned. It should be borne in mind, too, that the great bulk of the suits which came for decision before the ordinary tribunals originated with the middling and poorer classes of society, to whom, he again and again repeated, the interests involved, be they great or be they small,—be they for pounds or shillings,— were as dear and as important as matters of greater moment to persons in higher and wealthier stations in society, rendering it still more necessary that the law should be generally accessible, and expeditions, and cheap. Nor were they to take the measure of litigation as a guide to the measure of the wants of the litigants; from the number of causes annually disposed of—say, at the Assizes, or in Westminster-hall. When he said, that many causes originated with the middling and poorer classes, he was not to be met by a reference to the number disposed of. For example, it must not be supposed that because but fifty causes were set down for trial at Lancaster in 1826, or but seventy-six in York in 1829, that, therefore, there did not exist more complaints unredressed in those districts,—that these were the measure of the demands of justice, and that, as a consequence, any greater facilities than those existing would only tend to stimulate the disposition of the public to vexatious and needless litigation. By no means; what the people wanted was, that the law should be, he repeated for the hundredth time, easy, accessible, and cheap. Make it so, and they would have the suitors more numerous,—in other words, they would have the law effecting its legitimate object of redressing the grievances of every man who himself obeyed it. And here he begged leave to combat a very general allusion, in which, not only many respectable persons out of doors partook, but he feared, also, many of their Lordships,—namely, that litigation should be more discouraged than otherwise. This was an idle common-place assertion, which could not bear the test of a close examina- 733 tion. This complaint was, not that we had, under our existing system of law, too many suitors, but that we had too few; and for this reason,—so long as wrongs were committed and rights withheld, so long there was necessity for litigation; and as it was vain to assert that inferior causes required Judges of inferior knowledge and ability for their decision, so it was vain and preposterous to take any standard for the necessity of providing for the wants of the less wealthy suitors in courts of justice than that he had then named,—the amount of wrongs committed, —the amount of rights withheld,—that is to say, so long as justice was denied to any portion of the public. So long as justice was denied, litigation was necessary, and so long had the people a right to demand a more accessible and cheap administration of justice than the present means afforded; and be that justice denied by force or by fraud, or by the oppression of the rich, or by unnecessary and vexatious expense, so far and so long were the subjects of the King of England denied what they were entitled to under the great charter to which the King had sworn,—namely, that he should "neither sell nor delay justice." And justice was sold so long as suitors had to pay three times more than was necessary for it; it was delayed, so long as they had to wait a single unnecessary week,—nay, day,—he might say hour, for it; and it was denied, so long as the price of obtaining it placed it beyond the reach of any class of his Majesty's subjects. And it was because he, after much consideration and conference on the subject, had felt that, under our existing legal tribunals, justice was sold, and delayed, and denied, that he ventured to submit his present measure to the consideration of the Legislature, entreating their Lordships to bestow upon it their most serious attention, as one involving principles of paramount importance to themselves and to the public. Without then entering into a statement of the details of his Bill—a proper opportunity would shortly present itself—he begged leave to point out to their notice, especially to the notice of those noble and learned Lords practically conversant with the subject, two of its provisions; the one investing his proposed local jurisdiction with a somewhat of Equitable functions in certain cases of legacies for sums not exceeding 100l.; the other investing them 734 with a jurisdiction similar to that exercised in those Courts (in force in some foreign States, presently to be mentioned) called "Courts of Reconcilement." With respect to the first of these provisions, it was well known to two noble and learned Lords near him (Lords Eldon and Lyndhurst) that nothing was more common than for the executor, in cases of 60l., and 80l., and 100l. legacies, to become insolvent, or to have suffered a distress, before the legatee had derived any advantage from the will of the testator; and, as those noble and learned Lords, from their experience in the Court over which they had so ably presided, knew, there was no remedy for the legatee save a suit in Equity,— a remedy, the very sound of which, unfortunately, usually scared away the grieved party from all means of redress, it being considered as an evil which even the temptation of a legacy could not induce the less wealthy classes,—those to whom his observations, it was evident, then particularly applied,—to encounter; and thus persons whose circumstances in life rendered them the less fitting victims of this defeat of the good intentions of testators, were but too often deprived of even the chance of recovering legacies, should the executor chance to be insolvent, or even simply fraudulent. It might happen in these cases, that the executor had the money in his pocket,—that he did not deny the rights of the legatee to its possession, but refused to give it up, on the idle pretence that he did not (eel himself relieved from the responsibility of other claims; and the legatee had no redress but to bring him before the Lord Chancellor, or file a bill of discovery; or the executor might admit the possession of the money, but deny the right of the legatee; or he might deny both, or admit both, but contend that he did not exercise his trust, because, as an insolvent, all property in his hands ceased to be his; and as before, there was no remedy but the tedious, expensive, and, as the poor suitors believed, most uncertain process, of a suit in equity. As a remedy to this great grievance, he proposed by his Bill to invest the Judges of the local jurisdictions with the power of compelling the executors in such cases, for legacies' not exceeding 100l., to pay into the Judges hands the money willed; only, of course, to be taken out on the production of proper receipts and vouchers; and by this means 735 he was persuaded much of the evil to poor legatees, which he had just pointed out, would be avoided. While he stated this, his own conviction, he was bound in fairness also to state, that he had had much conference on the subject with many hon. and learned friends—eminent authorities in the Courts of Equity, and that many of these most respectable individuals had declared a great repugnance to his proposed change, founded on apprehensions of serious difficulties from its accomplishment; but that many others of his learned friends, equally competent to give an opinion, had, on the other hand, evinced no such repugnance, but, on the contrary, had approved of it, and were apprehensive of no material inconvenience or difficulty from its adoption. As there existed this difference of opinion, he trusted he might be permitted to recommend the point to the serious consideration of their Lordships, particularly to his noble and learned friends near him, whom professional experience had rendered the most competent judges of its merits. The next provision of his Bill, to which he begged leave to invite the attention of the House, was the other species of jurisdiction with which he proposed to invest the new Local Courts' Judges,—he meant that jurisdiction founded on the practice known in some of the Continental States, in what were designated "Courts of Reconcilement." To make what he had to say in recommendation of this practice the more readily understood, he would observe, that if the suitors who daily thronged the Courts of Common-law had, instead of consulting a counsel or an attorney, or any other person equally interested in the actual existence of an action, the advantage of a previous conference with a conciliatory Judge, he would not say that nine cases out of ten, but certainly two out of three would never be brought to trial, and the plaintiff or the defendant, as it might be, saved the time, and expense, and anxiety of a protracted, but most, uselessly contested suit. At present a man went to law, so to speak, blindfold. After having incurred great expense, and lost much of his valuable time, he is, perhaps, on the very eve of the day of trial, informed by his counsel or attorney, what they ought to have informed him of long before—that he was throwing away his time, and patience, and money, for that a verdict would be inevitably recorded against him, according 736 to the common course of justice. To prevent as much as possible the great waste of time and money, and this greater abuse of trust and justice, he proposed to invest the Judges of the Local Jurisdiction Courts with the functions, in certain cases, of the continental Courts of Reconcilement. Did their Lordships seek for proofs of the excellent results of these institutions, let them examine the legal records of the continental States in which they have had a fair trial. In Denmark—he admitted a most favourable selection for his argument— Courts of Reconcilement had been established in 1795; and it would be seen that the fruit, the beneficial fruit, which they had produced was, that the number of causes tried in the ordinary Courts in that kingdom in 1797 was actually reduced in the proportion of three to one. He was, however, enabled to appeal to much more recent results, having been favoured with a return of the numbers of causes submitted to the Courts of Reconcilement in the Danish States in the year 1823. From that, return he found that the number of causes brought before these Courts in that year was 31,000. (And here he begged leave to parenthetically observe, that according, to the principles which he had a few minutes before laid down concerning litigation, he did not think this number too great for the population of Denmark, as compared with the population of this country—as circumstances of a very different nature might exist in both countries, which might occasion a necessity for litigation in the one which could not apply to the other, and vice versa; so that no inference with respect to the amount of litigation in this country was warrantable from the mere comparison of numbers.) Of these, not less than 21,000 were disposed of in the Courts of Reconcilement without further delay or expense: and of the remaining 10,000 referred to the usual tribunals, 600 and odd were abandoned; and of the remaining 9,426 referred to the other Courts, but 2,355 were decided on that year; bearing out his statement, that not less than two causes out. of the three, which in this country would most probably have gone to a needless, and dilatory, and most expensive trial, were, in the Danish Courts of Reconcilement, disposed of conciliatingly, without this great waste of time, patience, and money. Such were the leading features of the Bill which he was about to 737 lay on their Lordships' Table. In stating them he had done what he had proposed to himself in the commencement of his address. It remained for him only to express his own deep sense of its importance, and to again express his regret, that, owing to the accidental circumstance at which he had glanced in the early part of his speech, he should be compelled thus early to trespass so long on their Lord- ships' most patient attention. "My Lords," continued the noble and learned Baron, "I deem it a duty of the highest importance that the Government should take care that the laws be loved and respected. I know, too, that there are times and seasons when a change, however slight, in those laws, constitutes no part of the duty of the Government. Such I deem seasons of foreign wars, periods of domestic distress and commotion, casting a cloud over the prospects of the country, and, above all, times in which intestine commotion concentrates all public care on the means of preserving tranquillity. But when tranquillity prevails abroad, as, thank God, it does now; and when—and I thank Heaven I can say so—there is every reason to pronounce the disturbances which disfigure some parts of this country to be but as a passing cloud over the fair face of our general prosperity, — and when men's minds have been, as they have of late years, so influenced, and directed, and echoed by the great organs of the public voice as to be lifted up with one loud and unanimous acclaim for law reform—when all these so unequivocally conspire towards the one object, it appears to me, much revolving on these matters, that this is the most appropriate time, and this the appointed season for us all, my Lords, to join in undertaking the great work. And if all times of general tranquillity are fitting for such an undertaking as that I now propose to you,—and if this be the appointed time and this the appropriate season,—I say that this week,—nay, that this very day is more especially so. Unhappily, owing to the temper which the disturbances that disfigure certain parts of the country too clearly evince, it has been found necessary, by his Majesty's Ministers, to provide extraordinary measures, with a view to have the laws obeyed. Within a few days from the time I am now addressing your Lordships the sword of justice shall be unsheathed, to smite, if it be necessary, with a firm and vigorous 738 hand, the rebel against the law. My Lords, it is the duty, the great office, the high function of the Government,—it is the King's most sacred duty,—it is all our deepest interests, that the law should be obeyed. It is the no less sacred, and high, and paramountly important duty of your Lordships, as legislators, to take care that the laws be loved: and when the Ministers resolve, on the one hand, in their executive capacity, with a determination from which no threat shall make them swerve, when no supineness can make them slumber, when faithfully performing their duty to themselves, to their King, and, if possible, still more faithfully to the King's people, by enforcing the laws as the greatest mercy to the deluded offenders against them, let me pray your Lordships, on the other hand, in your capacity as law-givers in this most fitting moment—on this most graceful occasion, —to take care by making the laws better, that you make them the more loved. I counsel you to leave no means unattempted befitting your high station,—and to let no pride of place prevent your earnestly setting about this great work. And let neither your station nor pride be offended when I tell you that a feeling has gone abroad of disrespect towards both Houses of Parliament, which, fortunately, both Houses have it yet in their power to allay. The ties which should bind the several orders in the State to each other, particularly the people to the Parliament, should be, as they have been often said to be like those of domestic union; and if unhappily—to continue the simile— there should arise domestic jars between the two parties, possessing so deep and intimate a common interest, if one party should be temporarily alienated—I would not counsel you to practise unworthy artifices to remove that alienation, far less would I counsel you to condescend to meretricious blandishments, to allure those who stood aloof from you: No, I would say, 'Maintain your own rights, preserve your own dignity, but take care and do your duty to yourselves and the alienated party, by proper attentions, and removing all just grounds of complaint.' Trust me my Lords, the road to duty, the door of reconcilement is open to you; and it will be exclusively your own faults if again the language of disrespect is addressed to you from any portion of the King's subjects. What, I repeat to you, the people 739 want and love, is cheap justice. What they hate and rail against is, expensive, and tardy, and uncertain litigation. And can there be a duty at once more pleasing and more befitting your high stations— one, too, the exercise of which is just now of such all-importance to the integrity of the institutions of the country in Church and State,—than when you show the people on the one hand that you are firmly resolved to resist lawless aggression; and on the other that you are willing listeners to their complaints—readily sympathise with their wants, and that by amending the laws, while by so doing you the better preserve them, and make them the better worth preserving,— you satisfy the people with respect to the institutions they are living under, and thus conduce to render them more worthy of their love and confidence? By doing this, and doing it, too, this night, this moment, you will do more towards allaying the ferment of the public mind than all that the declamation of the greatest orator could devise, or the sagest lawgiver frame, or the most conciliatory Government adopt,—more than by any other means towards preserving unimpaired all the institutions of the country to your latest posterity,—more towards connecting your high names with after ages by the noblest tie—that of the rights, and liberties, and happiness of a great people."