The Lord Chancellorsaid, that in rising to move their Lordships that this House resolve itself into a Committee on the Local Jurisdiction Bill, it would not be necessary for him to trespass at any considerable length on their attention, in adverting to a subject which he had trodden over so often. The importance of the question remained undiminished; but in consequence of the explanation which had been given on a former occasion, their Lordships, he had no doubt, were now fully acquainted with the nature of the measure. He must, in the first instance, congratulate himself and the country on the large attendance of their Lordships on this occasion. It showed that their Lordships came down to discuss this Bill, in that calm, temperate, and serious manner which so important a measure demanded. It proved that they meant to give to the Bill their most grave consideration—that they would examine all the principles on which it was founded—that they would investigate all the details of which it consisted—and that every part of it should meet with the deliberate attention which the great magnitude of the question required. So long as their Lordships continued so to discharge their duties,—so long as they persevered in showing themselves attentive to what was 858 most conducive to the interests of their fellow-subjects,—so long as they found it expedient not only to entertain, but favourably to meet, any proposition made for improving the condition of the people, by amending the laws under which they lived, by purifying the administration of justice, and by manifesting a sincere desire to meet the feelings and wishes of their fellow-countrymen, when properly expressed, and when they could do so consistently with their sense of duty and the dictates of their conscience; so long unions might combine, and meetings might assemble, and mobs might rage, and the licentiousness of the press expend itself, all would assail their Lordships in vain; and even those threats which had recently been made would fall perfectly harmless on that high council of Parliament. When he first introduced this measure, two years and a half ago, he stated, as the groundwork and the principle on which it proceeded, the acknowledged defects in the existing jurisdictions of the country, with respect to affording relief to suitors in cases of debt, as well as in many other matters. The expense of the courts in Westminster, and the expense incurred in other legal jurisdictions, amounted in such cases as he had noticed to almost a denial of justice. In support of this position, he could appeal to the experience of many, and to the observation of all. He had, therefore, produced this Bill, expounding, at the time he introduced it, as far as he could, the grounds on which its provisions were founded. It was then suggested by a noble and learned friend of his, that it would be better, instead of carrying the Bill further, to place it (after some alterations had been made in it) in the hands of the Common Law Commissioners, who were then far advanced in their most useful labours, with the view of profiting by their advice on various points, after they had given the subject due consideration. He at once acceded to this proposition. Those learned persons most readily undertook the task; and the Bill having received the benefit of their suggestions, was now again before their Lordships. He should crave leave to arrest the attention of their Lord ships for a few minutes, while he briefly adverted to the facts which had been elicited by the Common Law Commissioners, who had received and examined between 370 and 400 cases. He was, he should here observe, in speaking of those cases, by no means disposed to think, that the evidence furnished by lawyers themselves of 859 various descriptions, and particularly by the practitioners of the law in the country, was less strong in favour of the proposed alteration than the evidence of individuals, who must be supposed to be more unbiassed; for he could confidently say, looking carefully to the evidence, that, with one or two exceptions, the solicitors in the country admitted, as plainly as they could do by language, the existence of defects, which it was the object of this Bill to remedy. One eminent practitioner indeed said, that "he had brought, in his time, thousands and thousands of actions, and he never felt any inconvenience from the delay and expense." It was very probable that he had experienced no inconvenience, but he was not the only party concerned. He added, however, "but other parties are not in the same situation—they suffered more inconvenience. The losing suitor was put to more expense than he ought, and the party who gained the cause recovered much less than he should have done, and in a much shorter period also." The only real objection, however, that he had offered to the projected change was, "that the expense attending those local jurisdictions would be to the full as great, if not greater, than the expense incurred at present." With one or two exceptions, the evidence of solicitors, perfectly conversant with the subject, was in favour of the measure. But there was another class of witnesses, not of the same description—persons who were the subjects or the objects of the law, who were the prey of those who followed the profession. He did not use the word "prey" in an invidious sense. The system, he believed, was rarely beneficial to either, and was generally ruinous to one of the parties. He should now call their Lordships' attention to some of the answers given to the queries of the Commissioners. A respectable banking firm at Trentham stated, "that they had frequently given up debts rather than incur the expense of suing for them." Messrs. Hill and Co., bankers of Abergavenny, stated: 'We know from experience that very considerable inconvenience arises from the delay which in tervenes between the commencement of a suit in the Superior Courts and a trial at the Assizes, and also from the enormous expense attending the prosecution of such suit. We have frequently been deterred, and so have many other persons to our knowledge, from proceeding for the recovery of small debts on that account. We believe an effect very prejudicial to 860 trade, particularly amongst small shop keepers, is produced by the delay and expense of the present system, not only from the knowledge which dishonest debtors obtain of the difficulty their creditors are placed in, but also from the facility and encouragement now afforded to emigration, whereby a fraudulent debtor is tempted to sell his goods, leave the country, and cheat his creditors, there being no summary process by which, under such circumstances, a creditor can secure a debt of small amount.' Messrs. J. and C. Sturge, of Birmingham, say—'From the nature of our business, our accounts are generally considerable where any par tics indebted to us become insolvent; but even in these cases we consider it more to our interest generally to submit to fraud rather than take any legal proceeding; and in a small debt we consider it quite out of the question, unless at a certain pecuniary loss, to resort to it, which in all cases we wish to avoid. Great in convenience and expense arise from having to take witnesses, &c., a considerable distance, and keep them there, which latter is much augmented by want of previous arrangement, when the different causes shall come on for trial. We consider the system through which we are obliged to act little better than one of legal robbery.' Mr. Cort, Chairman of the Trades' Committee at Leicester, answers thus:—'Great inconvenience always arises in actions where the amount to be recovered is under 100l.; and in some cases where the amount is larger, if (which is often the case) the defence is merely to create delay, and the expenses are so great as frequently to deter the creditor from proceeding at all. *** The effect of the system is bad, as it in duces dishonest men, for the purpose of getting into debt, to endeavour to deceive tradesmen as to their means and intention of paying, calculating on the defective state of the laws, by which to evade payment. The losses sustained by retailers, in sums of less than 20l., have of late greatly increased, and the business, instead of being a source of profit, has been, through the defective state of the laws, most un profitable.' The agent of the Colebrook dale Company answered thus—'Believing the enclosed queries are intended to elicit information relative to some improvement in law process, we should have had pleasure in answering them, had our knowledge and experience enabled us to do so satisfac- 861 torily; but that is not the case. The expense of law, and the uncertainty of its issue particularly with dishonest men) are so great, that we are mostly deterred from resorting to legal measures for the recovery of our debts; as such, we are less acquainted with the Courts of Law than many others probably are.' The principals of a highly respectable wholesale house at Leeds said—"The mode of recovering small debts is so expensive and tormenting, that it prevents us from endeavouring to recover them. The idea of going into Court is terrifying." So it thus appeared, that, from one end of the country to the other, the system was equally oppressive. The dislike to it was not confined to one district, but extended over all. But the objection was not confined to the provinces: even individuals living in the capital felt the same repugnance, the same horror of these proceedings. They, in many instances, thought the best thing they could do was to give up their property and to keep out of law. The retail dealers of Fenchurch-street thus answered—"We are incompetent to give an opinion, for we have such a horror of law, that we never have courage to go into a Court of Law." So strong, indeed, was the sense of the injudiciousness of litigating questions about small sums, that numerous cases occurred of per sons paying demands for debts which they did not owe, but which they feared to contest on account of the expense. A man had better pay a demand of 10l. or 12l. than resist it, defeat his adversary, obtain a verdict in his favour with costs, for that verdict would give him less than he would be obliged to expend in his defence in resisting the unjust demand. He could assure their Lordships, that this was frequently, but, of course, not ordinarily, the case; for, if it were, a man might lose his whole property in sums of 5l. at a time. Still, as a matter of gain or loss in a single instance, one had better pay a small demand, though unjust, than to defend an action to resist it. They had the evidence of a learned Serjeant who had, for many years, presided over one of the 40s. Courts in the metropolis, who stated, that it was a common practice with the suitors in that Court to reduce their demands of 5l. to 1l. 19s. 11½d. in order to avoid the expense and delay of suing for the whole. He added, that the proportion of cases where the debts were 5l., and those reduced, was about one-seventh of the whole. "There were," he 862 observed, "many instances in which debts of 12l. and 13l. were thus reduced to under 40s., the creditors preferring to forego the remainder rather than risk the expense of suing, even with a prospect of a verdict in their favour, for the whole; but the cases were common in which claims of 5l. were thus reduced." All these facts had made the Commissioners thus report to his Majesty—"We believe the complaints made by numbers, whose evidence is stated in the appendix to this Report, to be just; that creditors are, from a want of sufficient means to obtain redress, obliged to abandon their just demands; that debtors are, from the same cause, tempted to a dishonest resistance, and that the result is great injury to public morals, and private rights." He did not feel it necessary to detain their Lordships longer on this part of the subject than while he added, that nothing was more calculated to weaken the attachment of the people to the Government, and to lessen their respect for the laws, than the knowledge, that those laws failed to give them that protection to which all subjects were entitled, as well in their property as in their persons. To such a state of things it was necessary that some remedy should be applied. He now came to the consideration of the remedy. The only remedy of which he had ever heard, save that proposed in the Bill now before their Lordships, was the improvement in the system of the Courts. He would except one other which had been suggested—of transferring claims for debts to a certain amount for adjudication to the Quarter Sessions; but, he felt, that it would be a waste of their Lordships' time to enter into any arguments against so wild a scheme as this of transferring to Courts already so overloaded with other business such an addition as this would turn out to be. The other remedy, then, was the improvement in the County Courts; but these were so numerous—so different in their modes of practice—some of them acting on very old practice, and others under the authority of Acts of Parliament; in short, the defects of them were so numerous, that he was convinced it would be much easier—as had once been said of an individual—much easier to make one entirely new than to improve those which were already in existence. The extent of the jurisdiction, the nature of the pleading, the form and practice in many of those Courts, were greatly different from those in others. In some the jurisdiction extended to claims of 863 5l.; in others, in general, it did not go beyond those of 40s. In some the pleadings were as operose, and the whole process as tedious and expensive, as in the ordinary Courts of Law; in others there was frequently a delay of five months between the commencement of the suit and the final decision. In some it happened, not un-frequently, that an expense of 6l. was incurred in recovering a debt of 40s. Then there was the inconvenience of the distance, for the suitors in some of the County Courts had to come a distance of fifty miles to proceed with their claim for the recovery of a debt under 40s. There was, also, the great disadvantage of the want of a Judge. The Sheriff, who was in law the Judge, went out every year. In every case the Sub-sheriff might be, and in many instances was, changed as often, and with each change there might be a change of the assessor; so that there was this radical defect in the system—there was the want of a Judge. But, it might be said, you could place a permanent Judge over these Courts, by appointing some professional man with a good salary, and might change the system of pleading and attachment, for, by the practice of some of the Courts, the moment a suit was commenced an attachment might be issued against him; and if he did not come in, and pay down a certain sum into Court, his goods might be sold even before the cause was tried; but, he repeated, it would be much easier to make new Courts, where they would be unfettered by old customs and different practices, than to remodel the old County Courts. But, in such remodelling, they could not even preserve the name of County Courts. Indeed, in effect they had ceased to be so already, for in the original construction of those Courts the suitors were the Judges, which they had, in most cases, ceased to be, but in the suggestion of the improvement of the Courts it would be necessary in some counties—in Lancashire and Yorkshire, for instance, and even in the West Riding of Yorkshire—to have more than one or two of such Courts, while, in other instances, three or four Courts must be moulded together to be included in the jurisdiction of one Court, which could not thus even preserve its name of a County Court. Now, as to the necessity of the establishment of such Courts as he proposed, it was scarcely needful for him to do more than to point out the vast number of causes which were brought into Court for sums 864 under those over which the proposed Courts were to have jurisdiction. In the year 1827, the number of affidavits of debt in London for sums above 10l. was 93,000, and of these 78,000 were for sums under 100l., and 30,000 of these, again, were for sums under 20l. Out of 830 actions, tried in London and Westminster, in one-third verdicts were given for sums under 20l. He remembered, that, at one Assize for Lancashire, the average amount of the verdicts given was under 15l., the lowest sum for which a man could then be held to bail. The number of causes in the Oxford Circuit, in two years, was 340, of which 160 were for sums under 20l. These instances were enough to show the necessity of dealing with the subject. He was aware, however, that they might operate both ways, and render some noble Lords cautious in meddling with a matter so important and of such extent. But, the amount of actions for small sums should induce their Lordships to apply a remedy to the evil; and allow men to sue for money really due to them so as not to have a prospect of losing more than they gained by a favourable verdict. Their Lordships were not without examples of the good effects which might result from the establishment of such Courts as his Bill proposed. There were some Courts on the same general plan in Lancashire, but though defective in many respects, and capable of great improvement, they had been productive of much benefit. However, as he had said of the County Courts generally, it would be much easier to have new Courts than to remodel and alter these. But they had a much stronger illustration of the sort of Courts he meant, and a better proof of the good which would be likely to result from them, in the Sheriffs' Courts of Scotland, in which almost every action between man and man might be tried, and in a cheap and expeditious manner. Those Courts were, he admitted, capable of being greatly improved, and, he hoped, that the time would arrive when such improvement would be made; but even defective as they were in some respects, and if they were never to be improved beyond what they now were, they were such as Englishmen might look upon with envy from the great benefits they were calculated to confer. The first thing which would strike an Englishman, in looking at the practice of those Courts, was the cheap rate at which justice might be administered. A man 865 might sue there for 12l.; and if the action were undefended, which was often the case, the costs did not exceed 10s. If the case were defended, it would amount to much more—it might come to 5l., which was a great deal too much, and in this respect the Courts ought to be improved. But even here the plaintiff had an advantage which he could not have in England, for after the taxation of costs he would find, that he obtained the sum for which he sued within 5s., while the plaintiff in Westminster Hall very frequently found himself out of pocket in consequence of his costs in recovering a verdict for 15l. or 20l. Now, in Scotland, a man who sued and recovered a verdict for 100l. would not find himself out of pocket more than 20s. The advantage of this system would be further seen in the number of cases decided in the Sheriffs' Courts in Scotland, which, taking the average of three years, ending in 1823, the date of the last Return, would be found to amount to 22,000 above 5l. in each year. Out of these there had been only 117 appeals, and of which not more than one-half had been prosecuted; so that a vast proportion—more than 99 in 100 cases—were finally disposed of in the Courts below. Then, what was the amount of property involved in these causes? Taking the amount as for one county—the greatest mercantile and manufacturing county in Scotland, Lanarkshire, as a criterion—the calculation was, that, in the course of the same three years, the property disposed of in these Courts amounted to no less than 500,000l.; which, taking into account the proportion of the population and wealth of Scotland to those of England, would give the sum of 3,000,000l., as capable of being disposed of, in three years, by the Local Courts he proposed. He mentioned these facts, by way of illustration of the great difficulty under which the suitors of England at present laboured; and he was quite sure it was not necessary for him to say more to induce their Lordships to consider the expediency of giving the proposed plan a favourable trial. He would now say a word as to the question of compensation. If it was intended to raise any objection to the measure on this ground, he should, he hoped, remove it by stating, that there was nothing in the Bill on their Lordships' Table which could create a cause for compensation. It was, indeed, the opinion of the Commissioners, that the small local jurisdictions should be abolished, and in the principle of that 866 opinion he fully concurred. He thought, that such jurisdiction should be gradually merged in the new Courts; but there were considerations which, in his opinion, would render it imprudent to abolish the small local jurisdictions at once. It would be impossible, at first, to know the amount of business which might be done in the new Courts, and until they had some experience in that respect, it might prove exceedingly inconvenient to burthen those Courts by transferring to them the business of the small local jurisdictions. Some of the small debt Courts disposed of 7,000 or 8,000 causes in a year, and one of them even disposed of as many as 20,000; and, therefore, great inconvenience might and would be experienced till the Local Courts were got into train, and till it was ascertained what they could accomplish. When they found what they had to do in those Courts, they might then inquire which of the smaller Courts they should allow to remain and which to abolish; for he did think, that some of the small Courts might be continued with advantage; but, he thought it would be the better course not to touch the smaller Courts at present. At the same time, it was not his intention that the small Courts, and those which this Bill would establish, should have concurrent jurisdictions. He would keep them separate, leaving to the new Courts the jurisdiction in all cases above those of the smaller Courts unless the Legislature should see fit to take further proceedings with respect to the latter. He would now say a word upon a subject connected with this Bill, which more properly belonged to the other House of Parliament—he meant how the Judges and Registrars and Clerks in the new Courts were to be paid. He was afraid, that in dealing with this question their Lordships and the other House would find themselves in a diffculty which they could not easily obviate; and that while they anxiously desired to take one course, they would be obliged to follow another. If there was anything which the public had a right to expect more than another, it was, that the due administration of justice should be at the general expense, and not at that of the suitors. The suitor had already to pay his attorney, his counsel, and the expense of bringing his witnesses. If the principle of regulating those Courts were good, the suitor ought not to be called upon to pay anything more than he could recover by the verdict in his favour; but, un fortunately (and this was one of the strong 867 arguments in favour of the Courts which this Bill would establish, the expenses were so great in our ordinary Courts, that the costs of the plaintiff frequently exceeded the amount recovered by the verdict in his favour. They had, however, now lived to see the day when taxes upon law proceedings, as such, were admitted to be most unjust and impolitic as sources of revenue. Since the time of Mr. Bentham's unanswerable demonstration on the subject, there was, he believed, no sensible man who entertained any other opinion than that such taxes were most unjust. In accordance with this now general admission—an admission now recognized by the Legislature itself—it should follow, that the Judge, the Registrar, and the clerks of the new Courts should be paid by the public, and not by the suitors. Yet when lie said this, he had great doubts, considering the necessities of the State, and the unwillingness of the subject to submit to any new addition on their burthens he feared it would be necessary to have some fees taken in the new Courts; but while he admitted this overruling necessity he must enter his protest against the principle, and insist that any tax, no matter what, for the purpose of drawing the payment from the public rather than from the suitor would be better than fixing it on law proceedings. Another point on which he would say a few words was, the probability that this Bill might be opposed by a band of individuals, whose interests might be more or less concerned; but he trusted, that any appeal from those parties would be made to their Lordships in vain. It would be absurd and unjust to let the petty interests of a few individuals stand in the way of a great measure in which the interests of the public at large were so greatly concerned. Unfortunately, however, it was seen, that important public measures were sometimes greatly impeded by the opposition of such petty interests. It was stated by Bishop Burnet, that when Lord Somers introduced his Bill for the better protection of suitors in Courts of Law, it was "found to affect the clerks and under officers, whose interests were more considered than those of the nation itself." The Bill consequently encountered the hostility of those who had some petty interests involved in the question, and in order to escape their opposition, some of its most important clauses were omitted, and the utility of the measure essentially narrowed. He trusted, that if any such attempts were made with respect to this 868 Bill, they would be defeated. He now came to the last point on which he meant to occupy the attention of their Lordships he meant the changes which be had made in the Bill since its first introduction. In the first Bill the jurisdiction of the Courts was intended to extend to actions of 100l., but ill the present Bill the jurisdiction was not to extend to cases where the sum exceeded 20l. and this he made in deference to the recommendation of the Commissioners, who were of opinion that they ought not to go further at first. Another change was, that it was not intended to proceed at once with the establishment of these Courts all over the country, but the Crown was to have the power to select three or four districts in which such Courts should be established at first, and as they had experience of the operation of these Courts to extend them to other places. If he should be told that this was an experiment, lie should take it, not as an objection to the plan, but rather as a compliment. It was an experiment; and an experiment, too, in which he and their Lordships might have occasion to make alterations as they should see how it worked: for his own part lie did not expect that he should ever be able to present any bill to the House in the operation of which experience might not show—even if passed in the exact state in which it was drawn—that many things had been omitted which ought to have been inserted, and some things inserted which it were better had been omitted. He therefore thought it better that they should proceed at first with caution, and therefore with greater chance of safety; and when guided by experience, they might even in a few months come to a perfect system, or at least to the foundation of a system, so complete as to enable the people of this country to say what they had now no pretension for saying—that they could obtain cheap, effectual, and universal justice. He would now move, that their Lordships should resolve themselves into a Committee of the whole House on this Bill.
§ Lord Lyndhurstsaid, that, in pursuance of his pledge, that if he should find this Bill a just and wise measure it should have the best support that he could give it, he had given it his most serious consideration. He had not, however, trusted wholly to his own opinion, but had consulted with those on whose judgments he placed greater reliance than on his own, and the result was, that he 869 could not support the Bill in the shape in which it now stood. In this, he repeated, he did not merely give his own opinion, he had conferred with many persons, much more experienced than himself, and he must say, that in Westminster-hall—from the highest to the lowest—with some, he would admit, learned exceptions, the great body of the learned profession were adverse to the measure. It might be said, perhaps, and his learned and noble friend might be inclined to insinuate, that some of these were interested parties. He would admit, that some of them were; but the great body had no other interest in the matter than that which they possessed in common with their Lordships, and he must add, what he was sure his noble and learned friend (the Lord Chancellor) would admit, that no body of men were ever less disposed than the body to which he referred, to oppose their own interests to any measure which had the public advantage for its object. He would freely admit, that with the multitude, this was a popular measure. Well, it might be so. It promised cheap—it promised expeditious law. Those were plausible topics—topics well calculated to catch the breath of popular opinion. But it should be borne in mind—and he trusted the country and their Lordships would think well upon it—that cheap law did not always mean cheap justice, nor expeditious law expeditious justice. His noble and learned friend had laid some stress on the opinions of the Law Commissioners, to whom the consideration of this matter was referred, and he was ready to admit, that the talents and ability of the learned Gentlemen who composed that Commission gave a weight to their opinions which entitled them to great respect, but he must say, at the same time, that besides the fact that one Commissioner had dissented as to the extent of the jurisdiction of the new Courts, there were men equal in learning and ability to those Commissioners, and far exceeding them in numbers, who came to a very different conclusion on the subject. As the question had been referred to the Commissioners, he had taken the trouble to go through the whole mass of evidence appended to their report, and he must say, that much of it was inconsistent and contradictory. He would, however, pass over that, and come to the opinions given by the great mass of individuals connected with the trading community, who, he admitted, were most interested in this measure; and, amongst these, he found that many seemed 870 to be only anxious for an expeditious mode of recovering their debts. Some were clamorous for the repeal of the Insolvent Law, which would thus place the debtor at the mercy of his creditor; and there were others who required what he was sure would excite a smile amongst their Lordships, or at least on the countenance of his noble and learned friend, for they asked no less than that commercial questions should be decided without the aid of any legal authority, and left entirely to the decision of a number of merchants, who would thus be left to administer the commercial laws of the country. When he found this evidence, so much relied upon, containing matter of this kind, he owned that he was not disposed to attach that importance to it to which Ms noble and learned friend seemed to think it entitled. He was ready to admit the existence of the great evils, and inconveniences, and hardships complained of in our present system, but, unfortunately, those hardships and inconveniences were almost inseparable from any system which could be devised. Justice must be administered upon some general rules, and, in the adherence to those rules, it would be impossible to avoid hardships and inconveniences in some cases. He was sure, that even in the new system which his noble and learned friend proposed it would be impossible to avoid them. But he hoped, that before he sat down, he should be able to convince their Lordships that the difficulties and the hardships of which his noble and learned friend complained, under the administration of justice; as it now stood, might be obviated without I that total dislocation of our whole system I for the administration of justice, which his I noble and learned friend, by the present I Bill, proposed. Before they changed that; system, they ought to examine its principle, and their Lordships would, perhaps, allow I him to direct their attention to the foundation on which it rested. It was admitted on all hands, that the administration of justice in this country was more pure than I that of any other country in the world. It was not only uncorrupted and incorruptible, but it was, he was proud to say, above suspicion. But, when we had this purity in the principle of its administration, should we not be cautious how we put this system to any hazard by a change? He said, that there was no country on the face of the earth, in which greater attention had been paid to the form of proceedings, and to the due administration of justice between man 871 and man, than in our own. Now, why was it that our proceedings were in all cases so clear and definite? Because the great object of our system was to avoid litigation. If contests arose between individuals about their rights, they went at once to consult their legal advisers; and so clear in most cases was our law, that nothing was more usual than for suitors, on their first application, to receive this answer:—"You have no chance of success. You should adjust your difference as you best can, and so put an end to the contest at once." He believed, that out of every fifteen suits commenced in our Courts, not more than one ever came to trial, for the parties, as he had already stated to their Lordships, immediately consulted their legal advisers, and thus obtaining a knowledge of their real situation, without incurring further process and expense, proceeded to adjust their differences in the mode, which, the certainty of the law being decidedly either for them or against them, rendered most expedient. It was the beauty of this preventive part of our system, that their Lordships ought to bear perpetually in mind whenever they were called upon to legislate on projects of this nature. To what was it to be ascribed? And what, above all other things, was the cause of it? It was to be ascribed to the central system of the administration of the law in England. Twelve or fifteen Judges, educated in the same manner—sitting together at one time, and in one place—consulting each other daily, and, if need be, hourly—subject to the criticism of their compeers, subject also to the examination of an acute and vigilant bar—kept constantly alive to the justice of the decisions of the Judges by the importance which they exercised over the interests of their clients—ensured for the judgments of our Judges, a certainty, a precision, a freedom from corruption, and even a freedom from the suspicion of corruption, such as had never existed in any other country. There was, moreover, this further advantage in the system, that the same individuals going as Judges into the different counties of England, and carrying with them the same temper and the same spirit to administer the law in the provinces, rendered its proceedings uniform and universal; and even where any of their number committed on the circuit any mistake, rendered that mistake easy of correction, by reference to their whole number, when again assembled within the precincts of 872 Westminster-hall. He had detained their Lordships at this length, in detailing the principles on which our present system was founded, in order to enable them to decide, with more certainty, whether they ought or ought not to sanction the inroad which his noble and learned friend was intending to make upon them by his present Bill. On an occasion of this importance—for he admitted it to be an occasion of importance, and the full attendance of their Lordships showed, that they considered this question, from its connexion with the impartial administration of justice, to be a question of importance—on a question of this importance, he wished to fortify his own judgment, by the authority of others of greater weight and experience than himself. Mr. Justice Blackstone, in describing the administration of law as administered by our Judges of Assize, used this forcible and elegant language:—'The very point of their being strangers in the country is of infinite service in preventing those factions and parties which would intrude in every cause of moment, were it tried only before persons resident on the spot, and as this constitution prevents party and faction from intermingling in the trial of right, so it keeps both the rule and the administration of the laws uniform. These justices, though thus varied and shifted at every Assize, are all sworn to the same laws, have had the same education, have pursued the same studies, converse and consult together, communicate their decisions and resolutions, and preside in those Courts which are mutually connected; and hence their administration of justice, and conduct of trials, are consonant and uniform; whereby that confusion and contrariety are avoided, which would naturally arise from a variety of uncommunicating judges, or any provincial establishment.' That was the principle laid down by Mr. Justice Blackstone—a principle verified by daily experience, and of the truth of which their Lordships must, from their own observation, be fully convinced. He would next proceed to show their Lordships, that, if they should determine to adopt this Bill, they would be proceeding in an inverse order from all their former proceedings. Formerly, the administration of justice throughout England was by Local Courts and Tribunals. Great inconvenience was found to result therefrom, and the system was abandoned in consequence, and the present system was established in its stead. The Report of the 873 Commissioners alluded to the opinion given on this subject by Sir Matthew Hale. He wished to point out to their Lordships the reasons upon which that learned and excellent Judge rested his opinion, for those reasons were decidedly opposed to the retrograde course, which his noble and learned friend now proposed to them to pursue. Sir Matthew Hale, speaking of the improvements made in our laws from the time of Henry 1st, down to that of Edward 1st, mentioned, that up to the time of Henry 2nd, the administration of the common justice of the kingdom seemed to be wholly dispensed in the County Courts, Hundred Courts, and Courts-baron—Courts which, at that time, were of higher character than they were now. 'This,' said Sir Matthew Hale, 'doubtless bred great inconvenience, uncertainty, and variety in the laws—first, by the ignorance of the judges, who, in process of time neglected the study of English law, as great men usually did.' The learned Judge then proceeded as follows:—'Secondly, another inconvenience was, that this also bred great variety of laws, especially in the several counties. For the decisions, or judgments, being made by divers courts, and several in de pendent judges and judicatories, who had no common interest among them in their several judicatories; thereby, in process of time, every several county would have several laws, customs, rules, and forms of proceedings; which is always the effect of several independent judicatories, administered by several judges. Thirdly, a third inconvenience was, that all the business of any moment was carried by parties and factions. And, although in cases of false judgment, the law, even as then used, provided a remedy, by writ of false judgment, before the king or his Chief Justice; and in case the judgment was found to be such, in the County Court, all the suitors were considerably amerced; which also continued long after in use, with some severity; yet this proved but an ineffectual remedy for those mischiefs. Therefore the King took another and more effectual course; for in the 22nd year of his reign, by advice of his Parliament, held at Northampton, he instituted justices-itinerant; dividing the kingdom into six circuits, and to every circuit allotting three Judges, knowing or experienced in the laws of the realm.' Thus, their Lordships would perceive, that the principle which his noble and learned friend wished to introduce "gain into the 874 system of the country was that very principle which had formerly existed in it, and which had been abolished on account of the inconveniences to which it had given birth; owing, first, to the ignorance of the Judges; next their varying and contradictory decisions; and, lastly, to their permitting all business of importance to be carried by parties and factions. To obviate these inconveniences, that great Monarch, Henry 2nd, had adopted the system of justices-itinerant, nearly in the same form in which the system existed at present; and to revive those inconveniences, nothing more appeared to him to be necessary, than the enactment of this project of his noble and learned friend. Their Lordships would perhaps think, that he was treating this part of the subject too seriously, for they might suppose that the extent of the jurisdiction which the Bill of his noble and learned friend would create was more limited than, in point of fact, it really was. He was therefore anxious to show their Lordships the extent to which this Bill would transfer the business now transacted in Westminster-hall from the Courts there to the local tribunals which this Bill was intended to establish. He had himself made many inquiries upon the subject, and he was bound to say, that they fully confirmed the statement of his noble and learned friend on the woolsack. He had found, by reference to the business of the circuits which he had himself attended, and by inquiries which he had made of those who were most conversant with the state of business in Westminster-hall, that by this Bill full two-thirds of the business now transacted in the Courts of Westminster-hall would be transferred to these local tribunals. One thing, of which their Lordships ought never to lose sight in the course of this discussion, was the great, he might even say the enormous, extent of the measure proposed by his noble and learned friend—a measure which would unquestionably detach from the Courts at Westminster one-half, if not two-thirds, of the business at present transacted within them. This was not all. There were some inquiries for which these local tribunals were certainly not adapted, and which, by some strange fatality, were in future to be monopolized by them. The jurisdiction of these local tribunals was to extend to all cases of libel, where the plaintiff' laid his damages at 50l. Now, as the amount of damages must, in all cases of libel, be uncertain, and as it was to be enacted, that if 875 a plaintiff, trying his cause in Westminster-hall, did not recover a certain amount of damages, he was not to be entitled to recover any costs, it followed almost as a matter of course, that after the passing of this Bill, all actions for libels in which the amount of damages was uncertain, would be tried before these local tribunals. What! try a libel by six common Jurymen under a judge residing on the spot, living among the parties, knowing the witnesses intimately, influenced perhaps by their local prejudices, and thus acting so as to create a feeling, or if not a feeling, a suspicion, that he was acting partially? Would their Lordships let such a measure have their support, merely because it emanated from the liberal spirit of his noble and learned friend? There were a great number of similar cases, which, by this Bill, would be transferred from the Courts of Westminster-hall which were competent to decide upon them, to local tribunals, which would possess no competency at all. All actions of false imprisonment, where the damages in the first instance must of course be uncertain, must, as matters of course, for the reason which he had already stated, be tried before these local tribunals; so that every Magistrate who unknowingly transgressed the law, or was guilty of any technical violation of it, would be liable to have an action brought against him, and to have it tried, not before a Special Jury, but before this narrow tribunal of six common Jurymen, on whom party prejudice and every other narrow feeling was likely to operate, under a Judge who was living on the spot, and who might be, in consequence, either the enemy of the Magistrate against whom the action was brought, or the enemy of the party who brought it. He mentioned these circumstances to give their Lordships an insight into the real nature of this Bill: for, when noble Lords said, that this was a Bill to enable individuals to recover the amount of their just debts at a low rate, they were only taking a very partial view of it; and he would illustrate this, by calling to the recollection of their Lordships what the argument was which had been used not very long ago for the abolition of the wish Judicature. What, he repeated, was that argument? Was it not that the same Judges always went the same circuit, and that partiality, influence, and corruption were supposed to prevail there in consequence? He should never forget the speech which he had had the good fortune 876 to hear made in the other House of Parliament by a noble Earl who was then leaning against the Table, The noble Earl, upon that occasion, after referring to the opinion of Blackstone, which he (Lord Lyndhurst) had already quoted, and after stating that the results in Wales had been exactly what Blackstone had predicted as likely to follow from an opposite system to that which he had been describing, asked: "Is it possible to describe more accurately the state of Wales? We have the despised jurisdiction, the suspicion of partiality, the conflicting practice." That was the ground upon which the noble Earl pressed upon the other House of Parliament the necessity of altering the constitution of the judicature of that part of the British empire. On that occasion, as he had already told their Lordships, he was present in the other House of Parliament; and then he heard another individual argue the same question exactly upon the same principles. These were his expressions:—'The first objection to the system of Welsh Judges was, that they never changed their circuits: to whatever circuit they were appointed, over that they continued to preside; and thus it happened that they became acquainted with all the landholders of the neighbourhood, with the gentry—nay, even with the very witnesses who came before them. The names, the faces, the very characters of these persons soon became familiar to them, and out of this grew likings and prejudices which never did and never could cast a shadow of shade over the twelve Judges of Westminster-hall.' He need not mention to their Lordships the name of the individual who used that phraseology; their Lordships were already well acquainted with his style, for they were in the habit of listening to it almost every night with mingled feelings of delight and instruction. Abolish the twelve or the fifteen Judges of Westminster-hall, because they become, by going their circuits twice a-year, liable to partiality, or, what is almost as bad, the suspicion of partiality; but establish, at the same time, a set of Judges who are to be going for years, and for several times in each year, the same narrow circuit who are to reside constantly within it, and who by residing within it, are likely to become ten times as familiar as the present Judges with the faces and characters of the parties between whom they have to decide, and of the witnesses whom they have to examine. Could 877 their Lordships, if they had not seen the present Bill, have believed, that his noble and learned friend on the Woolsack would have consented to propose to them the reintroduction of a system which was pregnant with evils, even ten times worse than those which he had always been so active in denouncing and remonstrating against? His noble and learned friend on the Woolsack had said, that this Bill was only an experiment. Now, it appeared to him to give to his Majesty's Ministers the power of establishing as many of these Local Courts as they might think fit. The Bill formerly introduced on this subject was precise and definite, and that very circumstance led him to believe, that there was more meant by this enactment than his noble and learned friend publicly and openly avowed. The operation of this Bill was formerly to be confined to the county of Kent, and to one of the northern counties; and after the experiment had been tried and found to succeed, application was to be made to Parliament for its extension to other parts of the kingdom. But now let their Lordships mark the difference. Abandoning the principle of this old Bill, his noble and learned friend now proposed to give a power to his Majesty's Government to establish as many Courts at any time and at any place as it might deem convenient. When he saw, that the former provisions of this Bill were abandoned, that greater powers were given to the Government in their stead, he could nut help looking at this Bill with greater jealousy than perhaps he ought otherwise to have done. He could not help thinking that it was intended at once, and without trying any general experiment, to establish this Bill in full operation. But his noble and learned friend had pursued his argument still further. In the course of it, his noble and learned friend had referred to the existence of Local Courts in other countries, and to their operation in those countries. Into that part of his argument he readily and willingly followed his noble and learned friend. That system, as their Lordships were well aware, had for some time past been established in France. He requested their Lordships to take up any book that had been written by French lawyers on that subject, and after reading it, to form an idea of the practice of those Courts, and of the nature of their system; influence, partiality, corruption, or the suspicion of corruption, were the prevailing features in it. Establish the 878 same system here, and might not precisely the same consequences result from it? "Oh, no," said his noble and learned friend," we have tried this system in Scotland, and nothing of the kind has happened there." To that assertion he (Lord Lyndhurst, frankly replied: "No, you have not tried that system. I admit, that Local Courts are at present established in Scotland, but you, the highest law authority in the country, have told us, that those Courts must be purged and purified before they can become all that you wish them." That Local Courts had been established in Scotland he readily admitted; but that they worked abominably he would prove by the admission of his noble and learned friend himself. He well recollected, that on certain petitions being presented from the inhabitants of Scotland by Mr. Cutlar Fergusson, his noble and learned friend had expressed his feelings respecting those Courts in the following terms:—'It had frequently happened, as the law at present stood, that a delay had taken place of two years, and in some instances of five years, before a cause could be finally adjudicated before this officer. In causes concerning accounts such delays were frequent. The written pleadings from the two parties went on for a long time, and amounted to an immense mass of papers. The Sheriff-substitute had to go through them all, and in the fulness of time he gave his decision on the matter. It might then be brought by appeal before the Sheriff depute, who might reverse the decision, or order it to be referred to the Court of Session, and from that Court it might finally be brought by appeal to the House of Lords.' There were stages, too, he recollected, in these appeals from the Sheriff-substitute to the Sheriff-depute; and he recollected well, that his noble and learned friend had told them, that the usual course on those appeals was for the Sheriff-depute to affirm the process of the Court below by taking the papers and by writing upon them, after he had read them, the word "adhered." In some county or other it was much doubted whether the Sheriff-depute ever perused the papers that were sent to him by way of appeal, and in order to discover that fact, some rose-leaves were placed between the pages of his brief. The papers came back with the word "adhered" endorsed upon their back, but on examination it was found that the rose-leaves, to use his noble and learned friend's phrase, remained unruffled. He 879 used this circumstance to prove, that this, experiment had not been tried successfully, in Scotland. At present the practice of the Scotch Courts was admitted to be a nuisance. Whether when the written pleadings should be abolished, and the vivâvoce evidence should be admitted in their stead, the nuisance would be abated, was another question, into which he was not called upon to enter on the present occasion. There was another country, besides Scotland, in which this system had been tried, and he would now read to their Lordships the opinion which Captain Hall had published regarding its operation in the United States, desiring them continually to bear in mind that the habits of Americans were, with some slight exceptions, the habits of Englishmen. He would apologize to their Lordships for detaining them at such length, were he not conscious that he was now only following the path and treading in the steps of his noble and learned friend in order to make good his position. Captain Hall said:—"The principles of bringing justice home to every man's door, and of making the administration of it cheap, have had a full experiment in America, and greater practical curses, I will venture to say, were never inflicted on any country." Speaking of the state of Pennsylvania, he adds:—'They have done away with nearly all the technicalities of the law; there are no stamps, no special pleadings, and scarcely any one is so poor that he cannnot go to law. The consequence is a scene of litigation from morning to night. Lawyers, of course, abound everywhere, as no village containing above 200 or 300 inhabitants is without one or more. No person, be his situation or conduct in life what it may, is free from the never-ending pest of law-suits. Servants, labourers, every one, in short, on the first occasion flies off to the neighbouring lawyer or justice of the peace to commence an action. No compromise or accommodation is ever dreamt of; the law must decide everything. The lawyer's fees are fixed at a low rate, but the passion for litigating a point increases with indulgence to such a degree that these victims of cheap justice, or rather cheap law, seldom stop while they have a dollar left.' Then there was another testimony to the same effect in Faux's Memorable Days in America. Faux says:—'Litigation frequently arises here from the imaginary independence which one man has, or fancies he has, of others; to show which, 880 on the least slip, a suit is the certain result; it is bad for the people that law is cheap; as it keeps them constantly in strife with their neighbours, and annihilates that socialibility of feeling which so strongly characterizes the English.' Having referred to these instances, he would now call the attention of their Lordships to the manner in which it was expected this Bill would work. First, with regard to the practitioners of English law. He contended that to no set of men did the liberty of England owe more than it did to the members of the English Bar. They had been, on the one hand, the safest guardians of the people against the assaults of arbitrary power, and he had no doubt that they would prove themselves on the other, the strongest barriers of the throne against democracy and republican usurpation. Now, this Bill was, in his opinion, destructive of the independence of the English Bar. As soon as the Provincial Courts were established, which were to take away from Westminster-hall two-thirds of the business now transacted in it, they would have an immense body of provincial barristers. Many of the barristers now practising in Westminster-hall must necessarily abandon their town practice and convert themselves into provincial barristers. Need he tell their Lordships that such barristers would be inferior in learning, would be inferior in talent, would be inferior in intelligence, would be inferior in all those great and glorious qualifications which had so long distinguished the bar of England? Let their Lordships look again to the mode in which this Bill would operate on the bar. It would take two thirds of the ordinary business from the Assizes, where young men recently called to the bar went to learn experience, and to form themselves to the practice of the Courts, and to succeed to those vacancies in their profession which the death of some and the elevation of other members of it were daily opening to their hopes and to their ambition. The business done at the Assizes would be so small in consequence, that young men would cease to go the circuits, and the little business that was left would be absorbed and monopolized by the provincial counsel. Now, it ought to be recollected that from the members of the bar, the Judges and the Lord Chancellor must of necessity be selected. Let their Lordships remember how deep an interest they had in upholding the character and maintaining the dignity of that class of men from whom the future Chancellor 881 must be selected. Again, the Judges who were to preside in these Local Courts were to be barristers of ten years' experience, and men of irreproachable character. Now, he would tell their Lordships that if they sent such a man to live by himself in the country, and not to associate with his equals in legal knowledge and character, the chances were that in the course of five years that man would degenerate into a mere drone. He would ask their Lordships whether a man of such a character, ay, or of such a class, was a fit person to be Lord Chancellor? He had looked at the former bills introduced on this subject by his noble and learned friend, and at the table of fees which those bills sanctioned; he had found those fees to be so low, that none but very needy attornies would work for them. The effects of the Bill, therefore, would be to place in the lower department of the profession a set of men on whose honour and integrity you could place no reliance; you would have them promoting chicanery and encouraging litigation, for no other object than to recompense themselves by the multitude for the small amount of their fees: and thus you would degrade the legal profession from its highest members to the lowest, by involving judges, barristers, and attornies in one common poverty and ruin. If he (Lord Lyndhurst) had been fortunate enough to possess the powers of eloquence which belonged to his noble and learned friend, he would have placed before the eyes of their Lordships a picture of such hideous deformity on this topic as would have caused them to turn from it with shuddering and horror. But he would ask their Lordships was the cost nothing in this proposed alteration of the law? Let one-tenth part of the cost which this Bill would occasion to the country, be applied to the improvement of their present system, and all the defects in it, which his noble and learned friend deplored so vehemently, would be done away with for ever. According to the calculation of his noble and learned friend, a sum of 150,000l. would be necessary to form this new establishment: but he should not be acting fairly to their Lordships, if he did not acquaint them that he had been informed by practical men that the cost of it would be somewhere between 2,50,000l. and 300,000l. He admitted that neither their Lordships nor the country could pay too much for clear, precise, and accurate justice; but to pay such a sum as he had just mentioned for vague, indefinite, and uncertain justice, was an 882 absurdity too gross for either House of Parliament ever to sanction. There was not, in his opinion, the slightest necessity for this measure: and, he would ask their Lordships to consider what was the mode by which his noble and learned friend arrived at the conclusion that this Bill would establish cheap justice. From what arose the necessity to detach from Westminster Hall the causes which were to be transferred to these new tribunals? What were the different stages of a suit? There was process—then came the interlocutory proceedings—and lastly, the trial itself. Those were the three stages. Now, let their Lordships mark how his noble and learned friend arrived at the first of these stages. "I'll have no process and no plea," said his noble and learned friend; "I'll merely have a notice inserted in the schedule." Now, if this were a wise mode of proceeding in causes of small amount, why might it not be successfully applied in the Courts of Westminster-hall to those cases where the cause of action exceeds 20l? If there should be neither process nor pleading in the progress of actions in Westminster-hall, process and pleading would undoubtedly cost nothing. If, then, the plan of abolishing them in the local tribunals were wise—though he did not mean to say that it was wise—why might it not be grafted on the plans now adopted in the Courts of Westminster-hall? As to the wisdom of the plan, one word might perhaps be quite sufficient. Their Lordships had recently passed a Bill giving to the Judges of the Courts in Westminster-hall the power of drawing up the pleadings in such a manner upon distinct points, that each of the parties knew what the other intended to prove upon the trial and thus was prevented from carrying to the Assize town a number of unnecessary witnessess. Now under this Bill there were no pleadings, there were no distinct points to be proved upon the trial; and thus it compelled the parties to the suit, and the witnesses, all to go to trial—the one not knowing what was to be proved against them, and the other being ignorant of the points to which they might be called to give their evidence. He had now called the attention of their Lordships to the first step in the suit. The next was the interlocutory proceedings. He was now addressing himself to some noble Lords who were themselves lawyers, and was speaking in the presence, and in the hearing, perhaps, of some of the ablest men of the profession, and he took upon himself to aver 883 that interlocutory proceedings were more cheaply conducted through the medium of the Post-office in London than they could be in any district where the suitor had to follow the Judge, either in person or by his attorney. The interlocutory proceedings must often be taken upon the spur of the moment. An attorney hi these Local Courts would often be compelled on behalf of his client to take horse and follow the Local Judge as fast as he could ride; whereas now he wrote to his agent in London to attend at the Judge's chamber without any additional fee to his client—for the fee of the agent and the fee of the attorney were all one, the two parties dividing it equally between themselves. This part, then, of his noble friend's plan would increase, not diminish the cost of an action at law. Now as to the trial; half the expense of the trial consisted of fees paid to the Court and to its officers. Let these fees then, be abolished; let no fees be paid either to the Court or to its officers. All the fees taken in Courts of Justice are now the property of the public. The public had a right to abolish them; for, if he mistook not, a Bill was recently introduced into Parliament enabling the Government to abolish the fees taken in Courts of Justice, even without making any compensation to the present receivers of them. "But then," said his noble and learned friend," these Local Courts are to be established in small districts, and therefore the witnesses will not have the trouble and expense of travelling so far as they travel at present." Was it necessary for his noble and learned friend to go all the lengths of this Bill to effect that saving, when there was already introduced into the other House of Parliament another Bill, enabling the Crown to subdivide counties, and to hold the Assizes in different places within those subdivisions, in order to prevent these very evils? Why was his noble and learned friend guilty of these exaggerations? He knew the school in which his noble and learned friend had been brought up. At every Assize held at York there were 200 causes, and out of those 200 causes his noble and learned friend had generally had 150 briefs. At York the witnesses were generally kept a week, sometimes a fortnight, before they were examined. All this had perverted the mind, and blinded the judgment of his noble and learned friend. In the smaller counties of England this was by no means the case, but even if it had been the case, the new Bill to which he had just referred, 884 would obviate the difficulty, for counties might be subdivided, and the Assizes held, in as many places as his Majesty, with the advice of his Council, might be pleased to appoint. But then, said his noble and learned friend: "Witnesses are kept at the Assizes a long and indefinite time." Here again his noble and learned friend was misled by his own theatre of action. At York and at Lancaster the Assizes might last ten days or a fortnight; but on the circuit which he had himself gone—as, (or instance, at Nottingham, Derby, and Leicester—all the causes were generally tried in two days, and thus the public were put to no great inconvenience, inasmuch as a great part of the witnesses were dismissed at the end of the first day, and the rest at the termination of the second. There was one difficulty, but that not an insurmountable difficulty, with which he (Lord Lyndhurst) felt, that he had to contend on this occasion; but it was his duty and the duty of their Lordships to struggle to surmount difficulties rather than adopt this monster of a Bill. At present there were only two circuits of the Judges in the year. Now, he admitted that in the interval between the summer and the spring Assizes a creditor might be prevented for eight months from getting judgment against his debtor. To remedy this evil let there be three Assizes in the year, and let the Judges be compelled to take upon themselves this additional labour rather than the country be compelled to submit to the mischievous alteration of its laws now projected by the noble and learned Lord. He had thus stated a brief outline of the plan which he would propose to their adoption in lieu of that proposed by his noble and learned friend. He would also give a summary jurisdiction for the recovery of debts of a small amount. He thought that that principle was applicable in many instances to which it was not at present applied, and he would therefore extend it throughout the country, providing fit tribunals to superintend its operation. He would frankly avow that he would extend it beyond 5l. He had hitherto considered the principle of his noble and learned friend's Bill. He did not wish to enter into its details at present, lest he should fatigue their Lordships; but he must mention to them two or three of its details as a sample of it as a whole. Nothing was more easy than to throw out a general idea of legislation, nothing more difficult than to carry into effect a plan which should remedy de- 885 fects existing in the laws, without creating greater defects than those which the plan was intended to remedy. For instance, under this Bill an individual conceives that he has a good cause of action for 30l.; he brings his action accordingly in the superior Courts; but during the proceedings preparatory to the trial one of his witnesses dies, or at the trial fails to attend; the consequence of this is, that he gets a verdict for less than 30l. and thus loses all his costs. That was an injustice arising out of this Bill, and owing its existence to its very principle. Another point was, that the Commissioners had recommended one thing, and that his noble and learned friend had adopted another, with regard to this lull. It was a clause in this Bill that every action should be brought in the place where the party resided.
The Lord Chancellor.—That is a mistake in the printing of the Bill. A line has been dropped in the copying, and entirely altered its meaning.
§ Lord Lyndhurstsaid, as such was the case, he would not press his objection on that point any further. Again there was a clause in the Bill by which the defendant was to have the right of summoning the plaintiff or plaintiffs to attend before a Judge, and to be examined as to the cause of action. Now, he would state very briefly the hardship of such a regulation. He would suppose, that a House in Liverpool furnished goods to a tradesman in Surrey, and that the Liverpool house was obliged to bring an action against him for the recovery of their value. Suppose the defendant to claim his right to examine the plaintiffs, and each member of the firm as a co-plaintiff in person before a Judge; in that case all of them must attend upon pain of an arbitrary penalty. In such a case would not the House at Liverpool prefer to sit down content with its first loss rather than incur a second loss of 10l. or 15l. for each partner, on occasion of his journey to London? Would not the members of the firm say, "we had better abandon our cause than all of us take a journey to London? Again, the judgments recovered in these Local Courts were to be liens on land. Now, when a judgment is recovered against an individual in the Superior Courts it is signed and docketed, and everybody knows where to look for it; but when these Local Courts are established, where are you to look for the charges on a man's estate? You must find out every place in which a man 886 has resided, and examine the Court-rolls there before you can find whether he has or has not any charge upon his estate. Proceeding onwards to execution, we find that a defendant can assign his lands to the plaintiff for the satisfaction of his debt; but in the clause giving the defendant that power there is no arrangement made, that the plaintiff shall hold the surplus of the land above his debt for the benefit of the defendant, and that he shall afterwards give the defendant a full and true account of it. From this circumstance it was evident, that his noble and learned friend had not drawn up this Bill himself, but that he had employed some great bungler to arrange its parts and adjust its clauses. There was another point in which he considered that this Bill would be very prejudicial. What was the great cause of the frauds so often detected by the Courts of Justice? Fraudulent assignments. A creditor obtains judgment against a debtor, and then a whole day is often occupied in investigating whether the debtor has not executed a fictitious assignment to defeat the just claim of his creditor. Now, the Bill of his noble and learned friend would facilitate these fraudulent assignments in a most extraordinary way. The property of a debtor is, by judgment of these Courts, to be vested in the creditor; the consequence will be, that to neutralize this clause a fraudulent debtor will get himself sued by a fictitious creditor, judgment will be hurried on between them with the greatest rapidity, the property will thus be transferred into the power of the fictitious creditor, and, at the conclusion of the transaction, the real creditor will find himself deprived of his only source of remedy. The means by which he is to get rid of this fictitious assignment are not mentioned in this Bill. There were other matters of detail into which he might enter; but he thought that these were sufficient to prove his proposition that nothing was more easy than to point out faults in an existing system of legislation, and nothing more difficult than to remedy those faults, without introducing into it evils still more dangerous and diffusive. He had little more to address to their Lordships, unless it were a word or two upon a visionary scheme for erecting a Cour de Reconciliation. As his noble and learned friend had said nothing about any such a Court, he supposed that he had abandoned it as a part of his project. His noble and learned friend knew well that such a Court had been tried in France, in Switzerland, 887 in Belgium, in Holland, in Geneva, and that it had been abandoned in them all, because it had signally and lamentably failed. The only casein which it had succeeded was in Denmark and Sweden, and even in those countries accounts had been given of its success which had entirely misled his noble and learned friend. His noble and learned friend had told them that in those countries so many causes went into Court, so many were adjusted, and so many came out of it and proceeded to trial. Now, he was informed that you could not go to trial in those two countries without suing out a writ of reconciliation, and he understood that in those two countries, as elsewhere, one-fifteenth of all the actions commenced were settled upon that first step. He had now done. He thanked their Lordships for the calm and dispassionate attention with which they had listened to his statements. In this question he had no personal feelings to gratify, no personal interest to serve. This question could not in any point of view be considered as a party question, and he was quite sure, that none of their Lordships would deal with a proposition affecting the impartial administration of justice as such a question. He had told his noble and learned friend some time since, that he should consider this Bill with candour and fairness. To the best of his ability he had so considered it, and he now thought its principle so mischievous that he felt himself bound, in discharge of the duty which he owed to his country, to Westminster-hall, and to himself, to arrest its progress at this stage. He should therefore propose, that this Bill be committed on this day three months.
§ The Amendment was put.
The Lord Chancellor, after a short pause, said he felt it necessary again to occupy the attention of the House, in consequence of the statement just made by his noble and learned friend—a statement which his noble and learned friend seemed to consider perfectly fair and candid, and which he (the Lord Chancellor) would not say was wanting in fairness and candour; but this he must be allowed to state, that a statement more completely overlooking the facts of the case—more completely overlooking the provisions of the measure to which his noble and learned friend professed to have paid so much attention, and of the recommendations of that Report, which he likewise professed deeply to have studied, and on which the present measure was grounded—a state- 888 ment more full of unintentional omissions and unintentional disregard of facts, he had never yet heard, either from the noble and learned Lord himself or from any other person. He must confess, that the first part of his noble and learned friend's statement had staggered him considerably—but, before he proceeded he begged to apologize to their Lordships for speaking at the present moment. He believed, that by the practice of their Lordships' House, the mover of any Bill was, by courtesy, allowed the privilege of a reply; but all the advantage of this privilege would be lost to him if, upon sitting down, he should be replied to by any of their Lordships. He should, however, proceed at the present moment, upon the supposition that none of their Lordships desired to speak on the subject before the House, inasmuch as a pause had ensued after the putting of the Amendment, and the question seemed about to come to the vote. He, therefore, thought it right to avail himself of the ordinary courtesy extended by their Lordships to individuals in his situation; and he now considered that he was making his reply. To return to the point at which he broke off; he repeated that he was greatly staggered by his noble and learned friend's statement, that the learned Commissioners were not unanimous in their approval of this measure, since one of them dissented from the rest with respect to the provisions of this Bill. Now, if his noble and learned friend had condescended to cast his eye upon the signatures appended to the Report, he would have found—
§ Lord Lyndhurstsaid, that he was aware that the Commissioners had affixed their names to the Report, but what he had stated was, that they did not approve of many of the provisions of the Bill.
The Lord ChancellorWas, he then, to understand that such a grave charge was meant to be brought against those learned personages, whose names and seals were appended to that Report, that they did not approve of the Bill, at least so far as it followed the suggestions contained in their Report? [Lord Lyndhurst, No!] The whole five of the Commissioners approved of all the recommendations contained in the Report; and therefore they must, of necessity, approve of the provisions of the present Bill, because, as far as regarded its main principles, it only went to the extent of those recommendations. The rest of the Bill related to matters of trifling importance—such as limiting the jurisdiction of 889 the Local Courts to sums not exceeding 20l.; allowing the right of appeal in certain cases; giving them jurisdiction in various matters with certain exceptions, which exceptions were precisely the same as those stated and recommended by the Commissioners in their Report. Indeed, he had not gone as far as the Report. The trial of an action of ejectment by a landlord against his tenant, in cases where the rent did not exceed 20l., he had purposely omitted from the jurisdiction of Local Courts, though recommended by the Commissioners, in order that the Bill might contain nothing which would in the slightest degree interfere with its principle—that no question should be allowed to be raised in these Courts which could by any possibility have any reference to the right of freehold or copyhold property. He had also fallen short of the recommendations of the Commissioners in another point. They had recommended that an equitable jurisdiction should be given to the Local Judges on questions of legacies. He, for reasons which he had stated on a former occasion, had not embodied that suggestion in the present Bill. Their Lordships, however, on reading over the Report, to which the Commissioners had attached their signatures and seals, could have no doubt that every one concurred to the fullest extent in the leading provisions of the Bill establishing Local Courts with a certain amount of jurisdiction. There might be a difference with respect to the questions of execution and reconcilement, but they were insignificant and not essential parts of the Bill. Their Lordships might make any alteration they pleased in Committee with respect to those parts, if it was to them that the learned Commissioners objected, and yet the measure might still stand, and in every one essential particular be carried into execution according to the Report approved of by those learned personages. His noble and learned friend then urged an argument which astonished him almost as much as anything that had fallen from the noble and learned Lord in the course of his speech that night. The noble and learned Lord said—"Look to the evidence to which the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack referred, particularly that given by bankers, merchants, and tradesmen, and you will find it so tainted by deep-rooted prejudice, and so full of objections to various parts of the law (one witness advocating the establishment of a commercial tribunal such as existed in France, to take cognizance 890 of disputes arising out of mercantile transactions; another objecting entirely to all insolvent acts) that no reliance whatever can be placed upon it." Excellent well would this argument have been if ever for one moment he had relied on the opinions of those tradesmen, those merchants, and those bankers—if he had ever dreamed of placing any dependence on their views of Law Reform, and on their sentiments of what ought to be done by the legislature to remedy those defects at present existing in the practice of the law. But this was not the purpose for which he had referred to the evidence of these persons. He had over and over again described them in their capacity of sufferers, as objects of prey, and he wondered that that expression did not fix itself in the mind of his noble and learned friend, who was so sensitive to any attack on the profession of which he was a distinguished Member, and that in the exercise of his candour, on which he so much piqued himself, he had not been candid enough to recollect the object for which he (the Lord Chancellor) referred to that evidence. If the noble and learned Lord had recollected that he (the Lord Chancellor) had designated those persons as objects of prey, he could not have failed to have had the candour also to recollect that he (the Lord Chancellor) treated them, not as legislative advisers, but suffers, as persons who could speak as to how much they suffered, as to what they lost, and what they did not gain, as to what they endured, and what they said they could not endure, because of its being absolutely intolerable. And who such good witnesses as those who so suffered, and who declared that they were tired of suffering, and that the point of endurance had been passed? Every one of those witnesses—the pettiest tradesman of them all—however ignorant he might be of the law, however prejudiced against the Insolvent Acts, and however ill-qualified to give counsel as to the proper tribunal to be established; every one of them was ten thousand times a better witness to the fact to prove which alone he had resorted to their evidence than his noble and learned friend, or that galaxy of talent and honesty to which the noble and learned Lord bad referred, and of which he was the favourite, if not the chosen advocate—namely, that disinterested body of men, the lawyers in Westminster-hall; the barristers, both town and provincial, high and low; everything, in short, that belonged to a Court of Justice, from the registrars 891 down to the clerks, the mace-bearers, and the purse-bearers of the Judges; and particularly the solicitors and attornies, and the solicitors' and attornies' clerks. This was the body to which his noble and learned friend referred, and which was notorious for nothing so much as talent and skill, dexterity, professional acuteness, nimble-ness in getting out of difficulty themselves, and getting others into it if they could. It was not, however, for these qualities which the community at large allowed them one and all to possess in an almost unlimited degree, that his noble and learned friend had eulogised them. The theme of his noble and learned friend's panegyric was their purity, their disinterestedness, their self-denial, their entire abrogation of all feeling of self. The noble and learned Lord said—and he somewhat embarrassed him (the Lord Chancellor) by appealing to him to countenance the doctrine, which he wished to God he could have done—that "the moment you propose a reform of the law in any one of its branches, which would have the effect of diminishing the profits of professional men, or of interfering in any way with their interest, that very instant you may lay your account that you will not find—nay, that it will be impossible for you to find (if you went about, like the philosopher of old, with a lantern to search for the thing)—alawyer resisting the change you propose, because that change will be prejudicial to his own interest. On the contrary, the first thing you ought to expect is, that the whole of Westminster-hall will rise up, not in arras to resist the alteration, but with open arms to embrace it—to hail the improvement with gladness, and to felicitate themselves on the glorious era opening to the country, when the profits of lawyers would be diminished, when cheap justice, and near justice, and speedy justice would be disseminated over the land, and none would have to pay for it but the harpies of the profession." The noble and learned Lord had professed to deal candidly with him (the Lord Chancellor), and he, in return, would really deal candidly with the noble and learned Lord; and whatever advantage it might be to the noble and learned Lord's argument and detriment to his (the Lord Chancellor's), he would at once admit that the profession of the law was subject to a great deal of obloquy on the score of paying too much regard to their interest, and for other things to which they were nut entitled. They were much too frequently and lavishly censured for this as 892 well as other failings; but this, he must add, as the result of his long experience, his constant and uniform observation (and he never was more convinced of the justness of any conclusion to which his experience and observation had brought him) that the great body of the profession of the law—he would not say, that there were no exceptions—but the great body of the profession of the law, he repeated, were against any change in the law until change was forced upon them; and uniformly and without exception they were behind the rest of the community—they Jagged after the age they lived in in their views of jurisprudence and of legislative improvement in jurisprudence. But though this feeling of disinclination to any amendment of the law existed on their part pretty universally, it was not shared among them equally and distributively; but those highest in the profession had the largest proportion of this bad thing as they usually had of the good things of the law, and, generally speaking, the Judges were those who possessed the most deep-rooted prejudices against any amendment of the law. He did not blame those learned personages for this: he did not even wonder that they possessed such a feeling. It was natural to suppose that men who had been educated, and who had grown up, in the study of a particular system, must be adverse to anything which rendered their previous reading in part useless, and made it necessary for them to begin to learn the law anew. He merely stated the fact, that this feeling of hostility to any amendment of the law was strongly fixed in their minds—and that no one could deny who had either lived in the profession, or had worked, or attempted to work, in the thankless and often-time barren vineyard of Law Reform. His noble and learned friend had made some observations on the great advantages of the present system, and the mischiefs which the present Bill was calculated to introduce by changing it; and he particularly alluded to that which he called "centralizing judicature," in consequence of the Superior Courts in Westminster having a control and superintendence over all Law Courts. He entirely agreed with his noble and learned friend in thinking this to be a great advantage, and which ought not to be sacrificed; but would not any one have believed, from the course of argument adopted by the noble and learned Lord, that he (the Lord Chancellor) had introduced a bill for the purpose of insulating as well as localiz- 893 ing the Administration of Justice—for studding the whole country over with Courts of Justice unconnected with each other, and placed beyond the control of the courts in Westminster-hall? If his noble and learned friend had read the part of the Bill relating to this matter with the same industry which he appeared to have bestowed on one or two clauses, he would have found, that an appeal was allowed from the local courts to Westminster-hall, in all matters relating to law; and no man would ever dream of allowing an appeal on matters relating to fact, least of all his noble and learned friend, who knew, not only that this was not necessary for the object which lie seemed so ardently to desire—the maintenance of a uniform system of law—but that it was not allowed as the law was at present administered. It was a rule of law in the higher courts not to allow any Motion for a new trial when the matter in dispute was under the value of 20l., and that rule had been adopted in mercy to the applicant, as he could only obtain leave for a new trial, on the payment of costs, and they would amount to more than the value of that which was litigated. On the same principle the learned commissioners, having limited the jurisdiction of local courts to sums not exceeding 20l., allowed an appeal—not in matters of fact, but in matters of law—and in case of misdirection on the part of a Judge, so that he would be kept under the superintendence and control of the Courts of Westminster, by which their supremacy would be maintained, the uniformity of law secured, and the possibility of the occurrence of that mischief which the noble and learned Lord apprehended, prevented. His noble and learned friend had next talked about the great defalcation of business in the superior courts and in the Assizes which this measure would occasion, and had assumed, that two-thirds of the whole number of causes would be carried away from the superior courts and Assizes, that Westminster-hall would be robbed of its business, and the more respectable part of the Bar injured. He (the Lord Chancellor) had already said, that the number of writs issued for debts above 10l. amounted to upwards of 90,000, and one-third of them only were for debts under and equal to 20l. Therefore the noble and learned Lord was incorrect in saying that two-thirds of the causes would be removed from those courts. [Lord Lyndhurst said, he had spoken of 894 the causes actually tried.] He was aware whom he had to deal with. He knew if he had given in another account than that which he had just stated, it would be said that that was only an account of the number of writs issued, and not of the causes actually tried. He, therefore, had taken the trouble to obtain a return of the number of causes tried, and he found that the proportion of those for sums not exceeding 20l. was still about the same. It appeared from the last return published in 1830, for London and Middlesex, that the number of actions was 819; of these 313 were for sums not exceeding 20l., being a proportion of little more than one third; so that, instead of two thirds of the business being abstracted from Westminster-hall, little more than one-third would be taken away, even supposing that the removal of every action for sums under 20l. would leave a blank in those courts. This, however, he would presently show not to be possible. In the Oxford Circuit there were 340 causes tried, and less than one half—namely, 160—were for sums not exceeding 20l. These were returned, which had appeared in different reports of the law commissioners, founded on authentic documents laid before Parliament; and the result was, that in Middlesex and London the number of causes tried for sums under 20l. amounted to one-third of the whole number; and in the Oxford Circuit the number was something greater but he utterly and distinctly denied that it was anything like two thirds of the whole amount. But he contended that the establishment of local courts would not cause a defalcation of business in the superior courts equal to the number of causes which would come under the jurisdiction of the new tribunals. What was it that now prevented many men from bringing actions in Assize Courts? The risk, nay, the almost certainty, of great expense, and the chance of the cause not coming on for trial at all. His noble and learned friend knew, that dining the first day or two after the commencement of the Assizes the business was done with great attention and care. He did not mean to say, that some attention and care was not paid to the business as the Assizes drew to a close; but it was undeniable, that a very great difference was observable, not on the part of the Judges, but of the professional men, in the way in which the hitter portion of the cause-paper was got over. In consequence of the pressure of business, and the disinclination 895 on the part of suitors to incur more expense, references, more or less voluntary, began to be agreed to. A great tendency-was shown to get through business, well if possible, but at all events to get through it; and if any remanets were left, so much the worse for the parties concerned. If, then, the cause-list was relieved from the trumpery 10l. 15l., and 8l. causes—if they were sent to be tried before Local Courts, an abundance of time would be given to the Assize Courts to try causes of importance. By relieving the cause-paper of trash, a door would be thrown open for questions of real importance, well deserving to be made the subject of discussion before a Judge and a Special Jury. His noble and learned friend had justly said, and no one agreed in the observation more than he did, that any improvement of the law would be most dearly purchased if it tended to degrade the profession, and made justice bad while it made it cheap. His noble and learned friend had laughed at the idea that ten years' standing at the Bar was any security for talent or ability. Why, the term of ten years was the minimum, and had been fixed upon for the purpose of ensuring on the part of the Judge a certain degree of standing and experience in the profession; but would it be any defence for any Minister who appointed a local Judge to say, that though the man was unfit in other particulars, he was qualified in respect to his standing at the Bar? Any man who looked at the Bill with any fairness must admit, that a certain standing at the Bar was not intended to be the only qualification for a local Judge. The person chosen for a Judge must be selected for his learning as well as his standing—he must be a man of unsullied honour and unimpeached integrity—above suspicion as to deficiency in skill and experience, and such as Westminster-hall would approve of; and no Minister, be he ever so powerful or headstrong in behalf of a favourite—be he ever so little watched (if it were possible that a Minister could live a single instant, day or night, without being watched; this he knew to be impossible; and he thanked God, that it was so) would dare to appoint any man to be a Judge, whom the approving voice of the Bar did not recommend to his choice, or at all events sanction when chosen. The noble and learned Lord said, that the residence of the local Judges within the bounds of their jurisdiction was liable to the same objections as had been 896 urged by him (the Lord Chancellor), and others against the expediency of permitting the Welsh Judges always to travel the same circuit. He, as well as the learned Commissioners, had given all their attention to this subject, and they had com; to the conclusion of adopting what they considered the lesser evil of two. If it were possible that the local Judges could be resident and non-resident at the same time—if they could be in two places at once—if it were possible for them daily to administer justice in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and attend the Courts of Common Pleas and the Exchequer, undoubtedly it would be a great advantage. But they were driven to a choice of evils; and if their Lordships looked to the 21st page of the Report, they would find, that this subject had not escaped the notice of the Commissioners; and after mature deliberation and balancing of the advantages on both sides of the question, they had determined to recommend the residence of the local Judges as the least evil. His noble and learned friend, in speaking of cheap law not always being good law, had referred to the Sheriffs' Courts in Scotland, and had observed that certain observations which he (the Lord Chancellor) applied to those Courts in another place were inconsistent with his present argument. He had a perfect recollection of the nature of those observations; and his recollection would, perhaps, be considered as fair and as candid as that of the noble and learned Lord, who did not happen to be present when they were uttered. He would venture to say, that there never was a greater perversion of fact committed by any combatant in the zeal of debate than that of which the noble and learned Lord had been graciously pleased to be guilty on this subject. What he (the Lord Chancellor) had stated on the occasion alluded to by the noble and learned Lord was, that the local jurisdiction in Scotland was capable of great improvement—that the administration of the law was cheap, but that it might be made greatly cheaper—that those courts possessed many advantages, but that they also had many disadvantages and defects; and he recommended—what he was surprised his noble and learned friend, if he wanted a subject for attack, did not recollect—the issuing of a Commission of Inquiry. How was it that his noble and learned friend did not call on the Government to issue a Commission in the present case? He was sure that his noble and learned friend took 897 a note of those words, and that he was ready to make the attack, but his noble and learned friend knew, that he could not at the same moment attack him (the Lord Chancellor) for approving and condemning the Sheriffs' Courts of Scotland, and he felt, therefore, obliged to make his election of which of the two weapons he would employ. Admitting that abuses existed in the Sheriffs' Courts of Scotland, yet it could not be denied, that they were useful institutions; and with all their defects, he could not, as an Englishman, help envying the people of Scotland the inestimable benefits they derived from the Sheriff's' jurisdiction. His noble and learned friend had assumed another fact, that the Sheriffs' jurisdiction did not exist in Scotland. When it was destroyed he did not know, but he had stated to their Lordships that during three years, ending in 1823, the number of cases tried in their Courts amounted to 22,000. But it was said, that appeals were made from these decisions to the Court of Session and the House of Lords, and in some cases he admitted that such was the fact. But out of the enormous mass of 22,000 causes decided in the Sheriff's' Courts, only 117 had been carried to a higher tribunal. His noble and learned friend then pronounced a deserved panegyric on the character, honour, and talents of the bar; and concluded by cautioning their Lordships not to agree to any amendment of the law which should have the effect of lowering their character and lessening their independence. But if he had satisfied the House that nothing but the most incorrect and exaggerated statements of the probable effects of this measure could lead to the supposition that it would reduce the business of the superior Courts to one-third of its present amount—if he had proved to their Lordships that the inevitable tendency of the Bill was, to keep important business before the high tribunals, and take away trifling motions, with which those tribunals ought never to be burthened—if he had satisfied their Lordships that the Local Courts, instead of being under no control from the Courts in Westminster, would be constantly and perpetually superintended by them, then he must be permitted to say, with all the feeling of deep respect and attachment which, from long habit and daily and hourly intercourse, he had imbibed for that renowned body the Bar of England, that this was a measure which might be patronized and carried into execution, without the slightest fear that it would 898 lower or degrade that virtuous and illustrious body. His noble and learned friend had been pleased to be merry on the subject of reconcilement, and had called it a fancy—a crotchet. [Lord Lyndhurst: I called it a fanciful project.] He thought it of very little consequence whether the noble and learned Lord used the expression fanciful project, or crotchet. The former, in his opinion, was a very good definition of the latter. The noble and learned Lord had called the question of reconcilement a fanciful project, because nothing of the kind existed in England. He admitted it, but was it the part of intelligent and rational men, looking into the institutions of other countries, at once to reject whatever had been tried there, though it might have succeeded, because it was foreign and not English? In the adoption of the plan of reconcilement there could be no harm or danger, because, supposing that any parties would not be reconciled, they stood in no worse situation than before. In the course of eighteen years, no fewer than 724,000 cases had been carried before Courts of Reconciliation on the Continent, and of these cases 448,000 were settled without further litigation. To this he would add, that in 1823, 31,000 cases were brought into the Courts of Reconciliation, and of those 21,000 were settled. But his noble and learned friend said, that these cases never would have come to trial if the process of reconcilement had not existed; but his noble and learned friend must surely forget an account which he (the Lord Chancellor) had read, and which entirely destroyed the whole of his argument. The very year, in which Courts of Reconcilement were established—namely, the year 1796, the number of actions tried in Courts of Law was immediately reduced to one-third. He was sorry to detain their Lordships so long, but he felt placed in a very peculiar situation. He felt bound, not only to defend the present measure, but also to vindicate the learned Law Commissioners, who had been attacked in a very unsparing manner by the tendency, if not by the intention, of the noble and learned Lord's argument. They were men, let him be permitted to say in passing, who were not overmuch given to change; they were very far from being of a rash or innovating spirit, and their principles of Reform, with the exception of one of them, were wholly confined to the law. Perhaps that might recommend them to some of their Lordships; but, at all events, it ought to recommend them to his noble and learned 899 friend, who seemed afraid of dangerous and rash innovations. If the hon. and learned Commissioners had a tendency to a little Law Reform, he would venture to say, that they were as cautious, scrupulous, not to say timid, Reformers of the law, as ever had the name of Law Reformers, save and except one or two of their Lordships, who were always describing themselves as disposed to the amendment of the law, though no plan ever yet proposed to effect that object was found to suit them. The learned Commissioners had given the utmost attention to all the evidence which was tendered to them; and they explained the reasons for recommending the plan contained in their Report, and the principles of the present measure were in perfect conformity with that plan. But this at least showed one circumstance fully—that his noble and learned friend (Lord Lyndhurst) must have been deceived by some of the information which had reached him, and which had led him at the outset of his speech to declare that all the lawyers in Westminster-hall, and all those who had been consulted upon this subject, were opposed to the present measure. This was undoubtedly very strong, and it was nevertheless very strange, that amongst these men of Westminster-hall there should be found persons of the first eminence, and persons, too, who, according to the language of the day, were firmly opposed to anything that might be called an ultra-reform experiment, and that still it was not amongst those who had investigated the subject, and examined its details, that the opponents of the measure were to be found, but, on the contrary, the hostile opinions had been given by those who neither had inquired nor examined, nor been members of the Commission. And then who were those that were for this measure, and of a different opinion from those Gentlemen who had not examined it? Why, they were the very men to whose judgment he had been challenged to submit it upon its first introduction, and to whom his noble and learned friend had agreed to refer the whole question. He (the Lord Chancellor) had said upon that occasion "agreed, there cannot be a more respectable body," and the reference had been made to them accordingly. It however, now appeared, that his noble and learned friend would not agree to be bound by the award, as in common cases, but wished to take up a different ground. He might then say to his noble and learned friend: "Well, this may be according to your information; bat, at all events, it has met 900 with support in Westminster-hall, from one branch of the illustrious profession you desire so much to uphold, and from the very men by whose decision you expressed your willingness to abide." All he (the Lord Chancellor) need say for himself and for the Commissioners was, that he thought by their opinion his noble and learned friend ought to be bound, saving always to his noble friend such exceptions as he might have to particular clauses. It would be in vain for him (the Lord Chancellor) to deny that Westminster-hall should flourish, and that the circuits should have full business; they ought, and they would flourish. But this was, at all events, required, and it was but common justice to ask for this, that the shame and the scandal, and the opprobrium should be removed of men coming forward, not to give advice, but to state the result of their sufferings under the system; and the result of all that had been brought forward was, that for debts of small amount, the subjects of the Crown found themselves in the courts of justice barred of their rights; that the justice of which so much was boasted was only a mockery, and that it was not possible for any one to have it if he had not money in his pocket; that if a man had a debt of 18l. due to him, he must pay twice as much to recover it; and that if be failed, however just his claim, he not only lost that, but had enormous costs in addition to submit to. When it was known that in the County Courts, as now constituted, a case had occurred, that for a pound of butter, value 8d., 30l. costs were incurred—when in another case, in the county of Sussex, a man was summoned thirty miles from his home to the County Court, to answer for a debt of 5s. which he had paid, and which he paid again sooner than go. But this was nothing, for there was no doubt that many would pay and had paid 5l., rather than submit to expence and inconvenience. Many might think this a small sum, and no doubt so would his noble and learned friend, but a small amount of pounds was great to a poor man; and, besides all this, there was another and a much more serious feeling: there was the feeling of wrong done, and of wrong suffered, and a feeling rendered a thousand times more exasperating by these people being told: "Come here and you have your remedy—you have here judges who are dignified by long practice—you have an illustrious bar to advocate your rights: these are the Courts you should come to, and here are the men who can assist you;" while their experience tells them the result 901 will be: "You are ruined instead of redressed;" and, what was infinitely worse than ruin, men felt themselves most grossly insulted by the infliction of a double wrong, where they ought justly and particularly to expect right. This was the wrong he wished to redress, and this was the object for which his judicial reforms were introduced. He was not the first labourer in this course, and he hoped in God he should not be the last. He was not the first who had endeavoured to draw the attention of the Legislature to the poor man's wrongs. His noble friend, now Chancellor of the Exchequer, had to this great object long devoted his time and his talents. That noble Lord had some years ago brought in a measure in some respects different from the present, but which also was in several points similar. That measure the noble Lord gave up, from the hopelessness he then felt of one not connected with the Government being able to succeed. He gave it up to a right hon. Baronet (Sir Robert Peel), who was in a situation to feel himself so responsible that he considered he would not do justice to the country if he left the law no better than he found it. That right hon. Baronet did not find himself in a position to carry the measure, but he adopted it, improving it also by his own study; and when it was subsequently propounded to the Legislature in 1830 in the other House of Parliament, leaving out many parts of the former measure, according to the recommendation of the Commissioners, it met, if not the entire, at least the general and the cordial assent of that right hon. Gentleman. He recollected the right hon. Baronet saying, that he would resign the conduct of the Bill to him. If he had detained their Lordships, as he felt he had, too long, it was solely because, in defending himself, he not only defended the Law Commissioners, but every other noble and right hon. person who had been willing to agree to the details and principles of the present measure, and against whose practice and principles, if he (the Lord Chancellor) were not in office at the moment, every invective and every sneer as to monsters and fancies, and all the point—wherever there was point—in his noble and learned friend's (Lord Lyndhurst) declamation, and every weight in his noble and learned friend's assertions, were, or might be, levelled with equal force at their principles and measures of legal reform, as they were at the Bill then under the consideration of The House. In conclusion, he would say one word 902 as to the extent to which it was proposed to try these Courts; whether in the measure proposed by the right hon. Baronet, or in that brought forward by his noble friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, it had always been designed to confine the experiment to one or two counties; but if his noble and learned friend thought it any improvement (though in his opinion it would be none), that the Act should name the very counties to which it should be extended, he (the Lord Chancellor) had no objection to restore this declaration. His reason for being of a contrary opinion was, that it was not possible to ascertain, without examination, what divisions of counties it might be best to select, as well as that on inquiry it might turn out there were parts of neighbouring counties which might conveniently be transferred to these divisions. He hoped that his noble and learned friend had never thought that this Bill was or could be introduced with any idea of its becoming a source of patronage to the Government. [Lord Lyndhurst: I never insinuated or thought of such a thing.] He was sure his noble friend had never entertained such an idea, and the notion of it as possible had occurred from his noble and learned friend's having spoken of the exercise of the power of the Ministers of the Crown. Noble Lords would, however, see that when he was out of office, and when the idea of filling the situation he then held was the last that could occur to him, he was anxious for this Bill, and last April, when he brought it forward, he had proposed to begin with one or two counties, and if the experiment were successful, then to extend it to England generally. Therefore there was nothing new either in his advocacy of the principle or in the details of the measure. He ought once more to apologize to their Lordships for occupying so much of their time, but he felt it to be absolutely necessary that he should not allow the debate to close without assigning his reasons for introducing the measure to their Lordships' notice.
§ The question was put, but no division took place, and the Bill was committed pro formâ.