AFFAIRS OF MALTA.

HL Deb 27 June 1839 vol 48 cc923-63

The Earl of Ripon

was glad that he had at length an opportunity of drawing the attention of their Lordships to some matters connected with Malta, which appeared to him of considerable importance. He regretted considerably, that some circumstances had occurred beyond his control, which had prevented his bringing this matter under their lordships' consideration at the time he had selected for the purpose; and he should have been very unwilling indeed to press this matter on their lordships' notice if he did not feel that it related to matters which had affected individuals most severely, which had inflicted on them great hardships, great injustice, and great wrong, and if it did not involve principles which he thought were of great consequence as regarded the constitutional relations of the commissioners of inquiry and the executive Government. He had also to state, as another reason why he felt himself bound to proceed with this motion, that there were matters connected with this subject which personally affected himself; and although the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Normanby), when he (the Earl of Ripon) had given notice of this motion, had been pleased to characterise it as "an injudicious motion," he nevertheless felt that he should not be doing justice to the individuals to whose cases he referred, if he did not bring it before their lordships. In what respect it was injudicious he certainly was at a loss to conceive. No doubt it might be thought injudicious in him to suspect the infallibility of the Maltese commissioners, and the propriety of the mode in which they had treated persons of very great consequence. It might be very presumptuous in him to question the infallibility of the conduct of the Colonial-office, or of the Lords of the Treasury, for the way in which they had dealt with those persons; if so, he was very sorry for it. But he trusted he should be able to show to their lordships, that there were just grounds of complaint with respect to the conduct of the commissioners and of the colonial-office on this subject. The matters which he had to lay before their lordships related to the removal from office of three individuals—the chief justice, the Attorney-General, and the collector of land revenues. His object was to obtain certain information with respect to these cases, in order that their lordships might see whether justice had been dealt out. Those Gentlemen had held situations in Malta for different periods; the chief justice for twelve years and a half, the Attorney General for seven years, and the collector of land revenues for something more than five years. They were every one of them cashiered without ever having been heard; no questions were asked of them; no examinations were gone into at which they were present, with respect to the nature of their duties or the manner in which they performed them, with respect to the effect, or the consequences of so depriving them of their situations; all that was done without asking them any one question, or giving them any one opportunity of vindicating their conduct, and showing that the opinion of the commissioners was wrong. They never knew, and they did not know at that moment, who was examined with respect to their conduct; they did not know whether anybody was examined; nothing had been communicated to them of what anybody had said of them. They had never been told whether the evidence given against them was given by some rival, by a personal enemy, or by a subordinate in an office; and they might, for aught they knew, be the victims of persons stating things behind their backs which they had never appeared in open day to confirm. The resolutions taken by the commissioners to recommend the removal of those Gentlemen had been sent home without any communication being given to the parties concerned, that such a recommendation had been given, and they were, therefore, deprived of the opportunity of meeting any impression to be made on the noble Lord's mind by any protest against that resolution. He thought that was a course of proceeding contrary to the first principles of justice, a course never adopted towards any persons with respect to whose offices commissioners had heretofore been appointed to inquire. If, indeed, the duties of these commissioners had been to make inquiry respecting reports, abstract principles, and dilettanti views of society, it might be thought unnecessary to go into inquiries. But when the result of that investigation was to affect the present interests, the individual characters, and the personal feeling of individuals, he did say, that those individuals had a right to expect that they would themselves have been examined, and have been furnished with an opportunity of showing that they were not to be deprived of their situations, and have their prospects in life blasted, and have, as had been the case in one instance, positive ruin inflicted on them, without having the opportunity of showing how unjust such a removal would be. He must confess, that he was astonished that his noble Friend himself was not struck with the unfairness of this course before he came to a decision on the subject, and advised the Crown to adopt this recommendation. He wonder- ed that his noble Friend did not think it would have been just to ask those Gentlemen whether they had anything to say in their own defence. But he had not done that; he had adoped the recommendation of the commissioners, and had cashiered those Gentlemen, and although the commissioners did recommend in the most unequivocal manner that they should not be removed without having a fair remuneration and superannuation, his noble Friend, in a moment of forgetfulness, had removed them without either remuneration or superannuation. This recommendation was to be found in one of the earlier reports, which laid down this general principle—"That it has been the usage in the colonial service to give compensation to persons whose offices have been abolished;" and they went on to say, "unless a provision of that kind were made for such persons, we ourselves should be unwilling to recommend reductions which would cause so much suffering to individuals, and her Majesty's Government would perhaps be unwilling to adopt such recommendation." His noble Friend did partially adopt the recommendation of the commissioners: he transmitted the cases to the Lords of the Treasury; and he no doubt sincerely recommended to the Treasury to consider the situations of these Gentlemen favourably; but his noble Friend ought to have reflected, for he knew very well that the Treasury were governed by strict and inflexible rules— his noble Friend ought to have remembered that there was a robur et œs triplex round the bosoms of those occupants of Downing-street which it was difficult to soften, or, softening, to bend. But, he must say, he did wonder why his noble Friend did not at once say openly and fairly to the Lords of the Treasury, "If you do not give these men compensation, I shall postpone acting upon the recommendations of the Commissioners." This would have been fair to the public, and fair to the parties. But this course his noble Friend did not follow. He thought he had now shown that great harshness had been practised towards the gentlemen in question. They had been deprived of their offices without any previous intimation of such an intention being entertained, and without anything like an opportunity of stating their own view of their case by way of explanation or defence. This was bad enough, but the harshness of which he complained did not end here. When these gentlemen came to England, they were obliged to fight their own battles, to go themselves to the Treasury and represent their case, and everybody knew how hardly parties in such a situation were likely to be treated there, and how unlikely they were to obtain what they were entitled to. He contended, that a grievous injury had been inflicted upon these gentlemen. He should next proceed to state the principal circumstances of each case. The Attorney-general and the Chief Justice of the island were both recommended to be removed by virtue of two several reports of the commissioners, dated respectively the 19th and 18th of April, 1838. But their Lordships would be surprised to learn, that in reality no reports, written at the period of those dates, were in existence, the reports which purported to be of those dates, being, in truth, framed and written at a subsequent period, and antedated for the purpose of giving a proper colour to the transaction. The following were, what he must think, the very peculiar circumstances of this affair. It seemed that the real reports reached the Colonial-office in the month of May, 1838, and immediately engaged the attention of his noble Friend. The result," his noble Friend said in his despatch of November 10, 1838, "of much consideration was to convince me that the recommendations of the commissioners, as originally framed, could not be acted upon without some serious inconvenience. This paragraph, he (the Earl of Ripon) thought might give room for some little doubt as to the propriety of the recommendations upon which, according to the Secretary of State, it was thus inexpedient to act. It also absolved him from the noble Marquess's charge of bringing forward this subject injudiciously. But the despatch went on to say, that his noble Friend, in these circumstances, thought it advisable to wait until the commissioners came to England, then his noble Friend, the Secretary of State, and his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack, in conjunction with the commissioners, proceeded to revise the original reports, and to concoct an entirely new scheme. His noble Friend stated, Various conferences were held between the commissioners and myself, assisted by the Lord Chancellor, whose judgment upon questions of this nature is, of course, entitled to the highest authority. Having received a full statement of the difficulties which had suggested themselves, the commissioners requested permission to withdraw their original reports, with a view of making such amendments, as, upon a consideration of the whole subject, should appear to them desirable. After mature consideration, the commissioners returned their reports to me in the form in which they now appear. The original dates are retained, and the amendments are not distinguished, nor am aware that there was any sufficient motive why such a distinction should be made. He confessed this appeared to him to be a very extraordinary proceeding indeed. This was confounding the relations of the Executive Government and its commissioners. Why were commissioners appointed? And why was power of inquiring and of reporting given to them? Because the Executive Government had not time, or had not opportunity or other means, to make the necessary inquiries. The Crown therefore stepped in and delegated the necessary power to commissioners, whom it sent out to pursue the investigation on the spot. But what was the duty of the commissioners? They were bound to give the Crown the best of their judgment and suggestions upon the subject submitted to them; they were bound to present to the Crown, not what the Executive Government might please to concoct, but the deliberate result of their own free opinions. But if this were not the duty of commissioners, and if they were to be allowed to concoct their reports to meet the views of the Executive Government, what injury might be done, and what injustice on individuals? He did not say that his noble Friend would permit or abet anything of that sort, he only pointed out the tendency of such a practice; but he did say, and he said it with all respect, that the commissioners, in conjunction with his noble Friend and the noble and learned Lord on the woolsack, had appeared to forget, in these consultations of theirs, the relative situations which they held with respect to one another. But if they thus got hold of the reports of these gentlemen, and then made them take them back and alter them to meet their own views, then his noble Friend opposite and his noble and learned Friend on the woolsack made themselves responsible for the amendments, which probably they suggested on the original reports. They were responsible, in fact, for the whole and for every part of the new reports, and especially had they made them- selves responsible for that part of the report which respected the Chief Justiceship. To this he would now ask their Lordships' attention, although it was the same part to which he had taken the liberty of calling attention formerly; for at that time he did not know, or at least had not adverted to, the remarkable circumstances which attended the making of this report. This is what the report says, after stating that an objection might be made to the abolition of the office of Chief Justice, inasmuch as the presence of an English lawyer, in an official measure, is a useful restraint upon the military government of the island, and imbues its legislation and administration with the free spirit of British institutions:— This objection to the measure is refuted by experience; for though, during some years, the chief legal offices have been filled by English lawyers, the island was not governed, before the accession of the present governor, with the requisite regard to the reasonable wishes of the people. Now he wished to know, upon what grounds the commissioners stated, that till lately due attention had not been paid to the reasonable wishes of the Maltese? Had they inquired into the subject before they made the report? He had been a colleague of his noble Friend, and though he was not called upon to defend other Governments, yet he was bound to defend himself, and he must say, he would like to know what his noble Friend had ever found in his administration of the affairs of Malta which showed that he had not paid every requisite attention to the wishes of the people of the island. He protested against the statement as coming from these commissioners; he protested against it as coming from his noble Friend, who must have had proper knowledge of the real state of the case; but most of all he protested against it as coming from the noble and learned Lord on the woolsack? For what could his noble and learned Friend know about it? It was impossible that he should have investigated the matter. He must say, therefore, that he was surprised and sorry that the noble and learned Lord should have sanctioned such a statement, and he defied him to prove it. The report went on, with its own singular complacency, to contrast the results of the mode of administering the Government of Malta which had been pursued under former governors, with the contrary effects which would have followed had what they themselves now suggested been adopted formerly, and, among other things in which they contrasted themselves with other persons, was mentioned that celebrated law of libel which his noble Friend was so good as to introduce into the island. Now, he had looked into that law, and he did believe, that if he had his noble Friend and his noble and learned Friend, and the two commissioners in the island of Malta, he could convict them all of a libel under their own law, provided only, that he possessed the ingenuity of a pettifogging Maltese lawyer, and shut them up in prison. Telling these loose stories by the commissioners was not the way in which public business ought to be done. But the commissioners recommended the abolition of the Chief Justiceship on the ground that the office was useless, that it was very exorbitantly paid, while there was but little to do; and they went further, and actually laid it down as a principle, that it was a sort of robbery of the Maltese bar that one English judge should be allowed on the bench. This proposition he held it quite impossible to maintain. But he would not have the bench exclusively filled by English judges; nor was it so in fact; there always were several Maltese judges. It was true, that by excluding English judges you might succeed in confining the governor to make his selection of each judge from the small Maltese bar; but it was obvious that, limited as the business of such an island must be, its bar must be too confined a body to select judges from at all times. They would become committed to, and engaged in, the petty party politics of the place, and there might be imagined many circumstances and situations of affairs in which, with such a taint upon him, a judge so chosen would be most unfit to administer justice. It was, therefore, preposterous to say, that no judge should be chosen except from the Maltese bar. In another point of view, this would appear clearly. From the moment that Malta was first assigned to us by the peace of Paris to the present time the efforts of this Government were directed to improve the law of the place—that law which was then by far the most barbarous that he was acquainted with—and to infuse into it the just principles of the British jurisprudence. Incorporated, therefore, as the existing law of Malta was with our system, how could the commissioners expect that we should be able to administer it satisfactorily without having an English lawyer on the bench? There were many others besides Maltese who frequented or inhabited the island, and came under the jurisdiction of the courts. There were crews of British vessels, there were traders and merchants, and visitors for pleasure, and great numbers of English of all descriptions, and he was convinced that they would find the adoption of this principle of doing without an English judge would be odious and impracticable, and it appeared to him extraordinary that any one should think otherwise. But, whatever might be the value of his opinion, there was one to whom this alteration did not occur, and he thought that his opinion was worthy of attention—he meant the late judge, Sir John Richardson. He was a man of high honour and unimpeachable integrity, and it having happened to him to take a voyage to Malta for the benefit of his health, the Government asked him to take up the subject of the state of the law there. He did this for the space of two years, and made several valuable reports, all of which shewed, that he had well considered the object of the introduction of the English law, and of ameliorating the Maltese law; but it had never occurred to Sir John Richardson to suggest hat there should be no English judge. The commissioners had done this; but he thought Sir J. Richardson the better authority. But it seemed the Chief Justiceship was held by these Gentlemen to be useless. He wondered on whose evidence this was said. He was curious to know who was the wise man in Malta who gave the hint to the commissioners. They did not, he supposed, ask the opinion of Sir John Stoddart himself. Such an alteration ought not, however, to have been made without calling upon the individual to state what he could on his own behalf. Was there nothing in his having been Chief Justice twelve years and a half, that made it likely he should be well qualified to give evidence on the state of the administration of justice? Nobody doubted that learned judge's honour, nobody doubted his integrity, and therefore he should have thought it proper that the commissioners should have consulted him. But there was another who had taken much interest in 1830, in conjunction with the authorities of Malta, in intro- ducing an amelioration into the civil code, and the terms in which this person, the Secretary of State, conveyed his sense of he merits of Sir J. Stoddart were highly laudatory of the clearness and ability with which the subject of legal reform had been brought before him by Sir J. Stoddart. He alluded to the opinion which he had formed as Secretary of State, of Sir J. Stoddart's merits, and he did not expect to hear that he was deceived. If that opinion was correct, then he said that Sir J. Stoddart ought to have been consulted, for then Sir J. Stoddart possessed above all men the very qualifications which would have enabled him to render valuable assistance. But his advice they lever condescended to ask, and whoever read that report would be struck with the cold, harsh, manner in which the commissioners spoke of Sir J. Stoddart, as an incubus upon the exhausted revenues of Malta, as an usurper of the rights of the Maltese bar, and as one who ought not to be allowed to retain his situation. That was not the way in which public servants ought to be treated, if they wished the public service to be well done. On the 10th of November, 1838, his noble Friend said, that he wished that Sir J. Stoddart should be informed that from the 31st of December following, his office of Chief Justice should cease and determine, and this was the first intimation that he received of his removal. Yes, the first intimation he had was to the effect that in six weeks from that time he was to pack up his goods and be off, bag and baggage, as though he were a person from whom the Maltese ought to thank God they were relieved. He thought this was very sharp practice. His noble Friend opposite seemed to have been petrified by the coldness of the commissioners, for all the explanation that he deigned to make to Sir J. Stoddart was in a dry notice, that the decision of the Government to abolish the office of Chief Justice after the 1st of January, 1839, had been arrived at solely on considerations of general policy. This was all that his noble Friend opposite had thought it necessary to say to the Gentleman who was thus harshly and unexpectedly deprived of his office; this was all the attempt that had been made to soothe his wounded feelings under so heavy a blow. Perhaps, his noble Friend was not acquainted with those lines of Spenser:— Ah! little know'st thou that hast not been [tried What bell it is in sighing long to bide, To pass long days that might be better [spent, To waste long nights in hopeless discontent; To speed to-day to be put back to-morrow, To feed on hope, to pine in fear and [sorrow; To fret thy soul with crosses and with [cares, To eat thy heart with comfortless despairs; To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to [run, To ask, to give, to want, to be undone. He would now call their lordships' attention to the abolition of an office which he had himself created—that of Attorney-general. He had incurred some blame for calling this office into existence. The commissioners asserted that it was a sinecure, but that he confidently denied. He denied it upon the authority of the Attorney-general himself, and he said that they were bound to listen to the Attorney-general's authority, because the commissioners had never asked him a single viva voce question with respect to his office. They had not even thought of consulting the Governor, the Chief Justice, or any other of the great functionaries of the colony. In August, 1837, the gentleman who filled the office of Attorney-general having suffered materially in his health from the climate, obtained leave of absence and came to England. About the end of January, 1838, he reported himself as sufficiently recovered to be able to return to the discharge of his duties. His noble friend opposite, however, desired this Gentleman not to go back, because it was probable that the commissioners would recommend the extinction of his office, and thus, because he was about to be deprived of his office, the Attorney-general was ordered by his noble Friend to stay in England, and deprived of the opportunity of communicating his knowledge to those who were to deprive him of it. But this command to remain in England bore very hard upon the Gentleman for another reason—that during the time of his stay here he would receive only half of his salary 400l. instead of 800l. At last permission was given to this Gentleman to go back, and he sailed in the month of April; the vessel which carried him to Malta leaving Portsmouth about the same day on which the vessel sailed from Malta that conveyed to his noble Friend the recommendation to abolish the office in question. The first news that greeted the Attorney-general on his arrival in Malta was, that the commissioners had written home to recommend the extinction of his office, and there he was left, wounded in his personal feelings, injured in his character, and with his professional prospects blasted. He knew there was not a respectable man in the island who, if called to their Lordships' bar, would not say, that this was the case. He had been induced to create this office from the representations of Sir Frederick Ponsonby, who stated, that he was constantly placed in the most difficult situations from the want of an English legal adviser, and declared that if such an officer were not sent out, it would be impossible for him to administer the affairs of the colony in a satisfactory way. It would have been unseemly that the Lord Chief Justice should have discharged the duties of giving legal advice upon points which might afterwards come before him in his judicial capacity, and he (the Earl of Ripon) had, therefore, thought it necessary to appoint an Attorney-general. Had this office been a sinecure, he might have bestowed it upon some one person out of many who would have been exceedingly obliged to him, and no blame for so doing could have been imputed; but knowing the importance of the office, he had, instead of gratifying any personal wishes of his own, applied to his noble and learned Friend opposite, who held the great seal, and begged him to recommend a man well qualified to fill it. That was a pretty good proof that he did not think the office a sinecure, and the person recommended by his noble Friend was one whom he did not know, and had never seen. Nobody had ever said, that that Gentleman was incompetent to do the duties of the office, or that he did not discharge them faithfully; but he was condemned without a hearing, on the bare assertion of the commissioners, that the office he filled was a sinecure. On returning to Malta, and learning that they had recommended its abolition, this Gentleman was kept, as it were in a state of suspended animation for some months, uncertain what the decision of the Government at home would be. At last he came to England in August to learn what that decision was. Ministers had not yet made up their minds, but at last, on the 17th of October, he received a communication from the Secretary of State's office, containing the warrant for his execution, as it might be termed, which was to be carried into effect on the 31st of the month. The grounds of the decision were never communicated to that gentleman, and he could not, therefore, enter on any defence at the Treasury. At last Ministers took his case into consideration, and acquainted him that on reviewing the nature of the office, and the other circumstances of the case, they had come to a resolution of granting him 300l. So there was a man who had abandoned his professional prospects here to accept an office which he had held for seven years, without a suspicion that he was to be cashiered, who was deemed to be sufficiently rewarded for loss of reputation, and injury to his feelings, for he had suffered all these, by a sum of 300l. It was difficult even to discover from the letter that the sum was to be 300l., and he would recommend the Lords of the Treasury, if they wished their meaning to be clearly known in any future case that might occur, to write English. He must say a few words on the case of the island collector. He had appointed a gentleman to that office in 1832. He knew that it was not an office that would require great labour, but he knew that it would require good sense, honour, integrity, firmness, and resolution, and those qualities the gentleman whom he had appointed possessed. The commissioners who seemed to have taken as their rule of guidance a crotchetty notion that no Englishman ought ever to be employed in the colony, recommended his removal, and, accordingly, this gentleman, whose name was Cumberland, was removed. The loss of his office, for which he was not prepared by any intimation of the intention to remove him, went far to deprive him of the means of subsistence; but he was in some degree consoled by being told that he would have an excellent retiring allowance. What, then, was his consternation, when he learned that the decision of the Treasury was that he should be paid in full the paltry sum of 250l., which was to be considered a superannuation allowance. The sum was expended in removing his family of five or six children to England, and this gentleman was reduced to depend for subsistence on the assistance of his per- sonal friends. The gentleman felt his case to be so hard, that he represented it to the Secretary of State, and from the manner in which he was received, he was induced to hope that that noble Lord would interest himself in it, and procure him a permanent allowance. Months elapsed without any thing being done, and at last, in November last, Mr. Cumberland was told that the papers relating to his case had been lost at the Treasury, which had occasioned the delay. December and January passed in the same way, and at last, in February, his noble Friend opposite was himself cashiered, and he (the Earl of Ripon) believed without being examined. Some dirty anonymous scribbler had insinuated that he had a personal motive in bringing this case forward; he had no personal motive but an honest desire to see justice done; at the same time he would not conceal from their Lordships that Mr. Cumberland was a connexion of his. He recommended that gentleman to make an application to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. Cumberland accordingly addressed a letter to that right hon. Gentleman, which he would take the liberty of reading to their Lordships:— I entreat your personal consideration of my unhappy case, which has been before the Treasury for many months, whither it had been transmitted by the late Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord Glenelg. I held a responsible situation under the Government of Malta, to which I was appointed by Lord Ripon in 1833; and having for then five years discharged the duties of the office, was deprived of it last year upon the recommendation of the Maltese Commissioners, not upon ground affecting my character and conduct, but in order to give immediate effect to the general principle laid down by the commissioners of employing native Maltese, and not Englishmen, in offices such as that which had been intrusted me. The commissioners, however, accompanied their suggestion of my removal, by recommending that I should have an adequate superannuation. All, however, that has been granted to me was a sum of 250l., once for all, the whole of which was absorbed in the inevitable and ruinous expense of moving myself and family to England. I am now left with a wife and six young children utterly destitute, with all the horrors of poverty staring me in the face; I am in fact supported (and as a gentleman you will understand the pain I feel in avowing it) by the bounty of connexions; but that is a resource which cannot last, and upon which I have no right to rely. I appeal, therefore, to your humanity as well as justice, and if you will be kind enough to look into the circumstances of the case yourself, and, above all, if you would permit me to give you any personal explanation upon the subject, I am confident that you will feel that my case is one of hardship, if not of cruelty, as singular as it is undeserved. I feel that I have very imperfectly stated my case; but I could not say more without intruding too long upon your time. At all events, I implore you to obtain for me some decision, even if it be adverse. Such was the affecting language in which this gentleman stated his case. He might inform their Lordships that Mr. Cumberland was the grandson of the gentleman of that name distinguished in the literary world, but whose labours had not enabled him to leave his children independent. Mr. Cumberland had entered the army at a very early age, and he had for a short time the honour of being aide-de-camp to the illustrious duke near him. Mr. Cumberland had the honour of standing by that great man's side at the assault of Badajoz, one of the most splendid achievements which had crowned his immortal career. Although compelled by ill health to quit that arduous situation, he had returned to his regimental duties at the very earliest moment that his health permitted. At the siege of Bayonne he had an opportunity of distinguishing himself, not certainly in a way to be very conspicuously noticed; but he had behaved most gallantly when in command of a picket of guards, who opposed the first resistance to a sortie made from Bayonne, at a time when a detachment of British troops under General Stopford was exposed to great danger in consequence of a failure to carry a bridge. Such had been the conduct of this gentleman, who was reduced to poverty by the recommendation of the Commissioners. Another misfortune had also fallen upon him, which was not unfrequently contingent on such circumstances: he had had born to him, as nearly as fast as possible, six children. Well, Mr. Cumberland returned to England—he sought to obtain from the Chancellor of the Exchequer a personal interview. That interview was not, however, accorded to him. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was unwilling to be hampered with the case—nay more, something or other occurred which prevented the Chancellor of the Exchequer from even sending an answer to Mr. Cumberland's application. The Chancellor of the Exchequer did, however, something for Mr. Cumber- land; for after a lapse of some time, the Treasury thought that the case was a hard one, and gave Mr. Cumberland, as a superannuation, 100l. They admitted, that the sum of 250l. was useless as a superannuation, it having been absorbed in the expenses of bringing his family home; so that for these five years of public service, having been dismissed not for any misconduct, not at his own request, not upon any charge preferred against him, he had the comfort of endeavouring to live, or rather to starve, upon the interest of 100l. That was melancholy treatment for any gentleman to experience, and such treatment as Mr. Cumberland, after his services, ought not to have experienced. It would have been only fair to Mr. Cumberland, that the Secretary of State should have provided for him, before his removal from his office was carried into execution, such a compensation as would have relieved him from the painful situation in which he was now placed. There were one or two other circumstances connected with this case to which he wished to call the attention of their Lordships. He thought the case of Mr. Cumberland so hard, that he wrote an official letter to the noble Marquess opposite, the Secretary of State for the Colonies. In that letter, he recapitulated to his noble Friend as briefly as possible, all the circumstances connected with it. He invited his noble Friend's personal attention to them, and requested him, on public grounds as well as on private, to see whether something more could not be done for this unfortunate gentleman, and to consider whether the recommendation of the Commissioners could not be more effectually carried into execution on his behalf. He had no reason to find fault with the course pursued by his noble Friend opposite in this affair; he believed that his noble Friend had, personally, a friendly feeling towards Mr. Cumberland; but the case had been substantially decided before his noble Friend came into office. He had no doubt, that his noble Friend had made a representation to the Treasury on the subject. That representation, however, had not been successful. On the 9th of April last, the Treasury had written a letter to the noble Marquess opposite, which had been subsequently communicated to him (the Earl of Ripon), declining to do anything more for Mr. Cumberland, and using, at the same time, some expressions which he considered as consummating the injustice with which that gentleman had been treated. You will also further observe to his Lordship, that Mr. Cumberland's removal from the office in which he had been placed at Malta had been recommended by the Commissioners of Inquiry, on the express ground of notorious and admitted inefficiency and incompetency for the performance of the duties of it; and the adoption of that recommendation by Lord Glenelg had, as it appeared to my Lords, evinced his Lordship's assent to the grounds on which it was submitted. The Lords of the Treasury added, that for those reasons they could not grant any further extension of the gratuities which had been already assigned to Mr. Cumberland. At the eleventh hour to come out with a statement of this kind against a gentleman who had never been charged with inefficiency and incompetency, and who had never been examined or heard on such a charge, was, in his opinion, an unprecedented act of injustice. The Treasury had refused to do justice to Mr. Cumberland upon that statement, which alleged a very different ground from that on which the Commissioners had recommended, and on which his noble Friend had authorised his removal. If the Commissioners should undertake, and he had no reason to believe that they would undertake, to charge Mr. Cumberland with inefficiency and incompetency, he would, on that gentleman's behalf, undertake to affirm unhesitatingly, that there was no foundation for such a charge. With their Lordships' permission he would read the terms in which the Commissioners had recommended the abolition of Mr. Cumberland's office. He had experienced some difficulty in finding that recommendation, as it was contained in a report relating to another office. It was thus expressed, and he would read all that the Commissioners had said respecting it:— As nearly the fourth part of the public revenues of Malta is derived from the Government lands, it is obviously very important that the office of collector should be efficiently discharged; and it appears to us, that from his necessary ignorance of the language of the country, and of the details of the management of landed property, scarcely any Englishman would be competent to discharge it. Now, that was clearly no charge against Mr. Cumberland—it was a general reflection against all Englishmen, and a very absurd one too. It would be absurd to suppose, that his noble Friend, the Chief Commissioner of Woods and Forests, would refuse to appoint a gentleman to the situation of collector of the rents of the Crown in Yorkshire, simply because he was ignorant of the Yorkshire dialect, or at least not as well acquainted with the language of its peasantry as he was, who happened to be a Yorkshireman. He verily believed, that when his noble Friend appointed, a few days ago, a young gentleman to collect the rents of the Crown in Wales, he had never inquired whether that gentleman could talk Welsh, or whether he was well acquainted with the details of Welsh agriculture. And yet, because Mr. Cumberland could not talk the barbarous-Arabico-Italico jargon which was in use in Malta, he was to be deemed incompetent for his office. But the report proceeded— We likewise think that the present salary of the collector is higher than is requisite for obtaining the services of a perfectly competent Maltese functionary. We therefore recommend that Mr. Cumberland be immediately superannuated. Now, he would ask the House to consider whether the Commissioners could have recommended that Mr. Cumberland; should have a retired allowance and a superannuation if they had deemed him incompetent to the discharge of the duties of his office? If they had deemed him incompetent, they would have said, "Give Mr. Cumberland nothing;" but this they had not said, and therefore their language ought not to be construed as insinuating that he was incompetent. If the Commissioners were standing before him, they would tell him that they never intended to cast any reflection upon the competent manner in which Mr. Cumberland discharged the duties of his office. He complained, however, of this Treasury letter on another account—it was a recorded bar against Mr. Cumberland's future employment in any capacity in the public service. If Mr. Cumberland should ask for it, the noble Marquess opposite would say, and would be entitled to say, "I am sorry for your case. I feel all its hardship, but I cannot fly in the face of the Treasury report. You have been dismissed once from your situation on account of notorious incompetency. What a clamour will be raised against me in the House of Commons if I should venture to restore you to it after such a declaration. I am sorry, I repeat, for your case; but I cannot do anything to relieve it." So that not only was Mr. Cumberland placed by this Treasury letter in a situation of great distress, but he was also deprived of all chance of obtaining hereafter a situation in the public service. He would not detain their Lordships with any further observations on this case. It was enough for him to repeat, that this unfortunate gentleman had been removed from his office, without being examined or heard in his defence— that no money had been lost—that no job had been encouraged—that no delay had been occasioned—that no circumstance had been alleged against him in the discharge of the functions of his office. Even now he did not know who had been examined against him. He knew that he had not been examined himself. He knew that the Governor of Malta had not been examined; for that officer would have gladly borne his testimony to his zeal and competency. He knew that the Chief Secretary had not been examined, for the Chief Secretary would also have borne testimony to the same effect. He knew that the Auditor-general had not been examined, for he too would have spoken to his competency. If Mr. Cumberland had been incompetent, that officer at least must have known it, as being the person best qualified to decide how Mr. Cumberland had discharged the functions of his office. He therefore said that it was impossible to impute anything to Mr. Cumberland which would have justified his removal from office without a superannuation. The upshot of these proceedings was, that he had been calumniated without being heard, that he had been condemned without proof, and that he had been ruined without redress. He was well aware that this was a case in which the House could not formally interfere; but, perhaps, as a matter of admonition, what he had said that night might not be deemed unworthy of attention. He hoped that it might teach commissioners in future, to examine before they reported, and those who were intrusted with the executive government, to consider that they might not be doing justice in carrying blindly and carelessly into execution the recommendations of their commissioners, and in confirming the injustice to individuals which their recommendations might be calculated to inflict. The motion with which he should conclude was, for the production of the evi- dence taken in this case, and for some other papers connected with it.

Lord Glenelg

was anxious to offer a few considerations to their Lordships on the speech of his noble Friend. In that speech his noble Friend had made animadversions on the conduct of the Government, on the conduct of the Maltese Commissioners, on the conduct of the Colonial office, on the conduct of the Treasury. Entering, as he did, into the feelings of his noble Friend on some part of the subject, he was not surprised at the warmth with which his noble Friend had expressed himself on some part of his topics. But in the very outset, he begged leave to enter his protest against one species of language which his noble Friend had adopted, because he thought that it was inconsistent with what were usually termed constitutional principles, and with the ordinary experience of official life. He was alluding to his noble Friend's assertion that, when an office was abolished, it amounted to a cashiering of the officer who held it, fixing upon him a rebuke and a reproach, and levying on him a penalty as for some criminal conduct, or at least for misconduct. He was well aware that his noble Friend had not made that assertion in so many express words; but throughout his speech, he had spoken of these officers as being cashiered, and had taken it for granted that, because they had been dismissed, they had been condemned in the eyes of the whole country. Now, that he maintained was an untenable proposition, and he appealed to his noble Friend whether he had ever admitted it, whilst he was in possession of office. He alluded more particularly to the report made by the commission issued by his noble Friend, to inquire into the revenue offices in Ireland, and to the offices which his noble Friend abolished in consequence of that report.

The Earl of Ripon

.—The holders of all the offices then abolished were examined.

Lord Glenelg.

—That was a different question, to which, hereafter, he should have occasion to advert. Certain offices, in consequence of the report of that commission, were abolished in Ireland, and the holders of them lost their places; but it never was acknowledged as a principle, that a stigma was thereby affixed upon their characters. But he must state further, that there were two questions blended together in his noble Friend's speech, which ought always to be kept separated—the first was the abolition of the office, and the next the compensation to the loser of it. He had always maintained, that where for a public purpose a man was deprived of an office, it was the duty of Government, for every reason, to be liberal in their compensation to such a person. That was a principle which, he maintained, rested not less on grounds of public economy, than on grounds of private justice and humanity. The abolition of an office was not intended as a punishment for past abuses, but as a step to prospective improvement. Now, with respect to this case of Mr. Cumberland. He felt for this gentleman's case. He had, he believed, induced the Treasury to reconsider his claim. His noble Friend had alleged, that a great deal of time had been wasted in the consideration of Mr. Cumberland's claim, owing to the loss of his papers. That was owing to the continued illness of the under-Secretary, which had incapacitated him for some time for the discharge of business. However, he had induced the Treasury to reconsider Mr. Cumberland's claim. The last decision of the Treasury upon it had been since his relinquishment of office. He regretted that the Treasury had not been more liberal in the compensation which they had awarded; and he had the less reluctance to make that avowal in his place in Parliament, as he had made it already when in office. His noble Friend had also rebuked him, because he had not said to the Treasury, "Unless you agree to the compensation which I think fit for Mr. Cumberland, I will postpone the abolition of his office." Now, if his noble Friend had never been in office, he (Lord Glenelg) should have felt some surprise at hearing him use such language; but his surprise was almost beyond belief when he heard such language proceed from his noble Friend, after his long official experience. In all such cases, the first question to be considered was, "ought the office to be abolished on public grounds?" That was a very simple question. Assuming that it ought to be abolished on public grounds, what claim could he or any man put in to the Treasury in this form:—" I will not abolish it, unless you meet me on ray own terms on the question of compensation?" With all deference to his noble Friend, he must say, that that was a preposterous proposition, which could not bear consideration for a single moment, and on which no public man had ever yet acted in this country. With respect to Mr. Cumberland, it was a painful task to enter into a consideration of his claims to any one who regretted, as he did, his present situation. But that had now become a necessary task, as his noble Friend had asserted, that he (Mr. Cumberland) was removed without any communication, and without being called upon to defend his conduct. The case of Mr. Cumberland was this:—His situation was that of collector of the land revenues in the island of Malta, which amounted to 30,000l. a-year, or very near it. Those revenues were collected from a multitude of small tenants scattered throughout the country. It was essential to the proper discharge of the duties of the office, that the officer who went among them for that purpose should be acquainted with the language spoken by the Maltese. It was further essential, that he should know something of the habits and manners of that people. Moreover, it was also essential, that he should know something of the tenure of land in that island, and of the mode in which it was generally let. Would any of their Lordships, he would ask, who had large property in Ireland, think of sending to that country to collect the rents due from a scattered tenantry, a foreigner who was unacquainted with their language, their tenures, and their mode of letting and cultivating land? He was sure that their Lordships would not. Well, Mr. Cumberland had accepted this office, and had gone to Malta. He found the duties of his office executed there by a gentleman who was his deputy, who understood the language, the habits, and the laws of the people, and who was practically the collector. This office, then, of 700l. a-year ["No," from the Earl of Ripon, "of 300l. a-year,"] was performed by deputy. It was generally known that the office was executed by deputy. In the Colonial-office there was a letter addressed by the commissioners to him (Lord Glenelg), in which they stated, that they had communicated to Mr. Cumberland their intention to recommend the abolition of his office, and that the manner in which he received the proposition seemed to them to furnish a claim for additional compensation. [The Earl of Ripon: They promised him ample compensation]. There could, at all events, be no doubt of the fact, that Mr. Cumberland was perfectly cognizant of the intention to abolish his office. The statement of the commissioners was decisive upon that point, and Mr. Cumberland had presented no remonstrance on the subject. It had been stated by his noble Friend, that the only reason why the commissioners recommended the abolition of this office was, that Mr. Cumberland was an Englishman; it was not so. The fact was, the office was a sinecure, the person holding it not being able to fulfil its duties, which were actually performed by deputy. That was the reason, and he conceived it was a sufficient reason for abolishing the office. With respect to the Chief Justice and the Attorney-general, it was not only enough to justify the abolition of an office to pronounce it a sinecure, and absolutely useless, it was sufficient to justify its abolition or consolidation, if the duties could be performed as efficiently and more economically. The question of compensation rested mainly and entirely with the Treasury. He had little to do with it, for, it was considered after his retirement from office. Certainly, his intention was, that both those officers should be recalled into the service of the Crown as soon as circumstances would permit, and the Attorney-general had been offered a situation of equal emolument, though not in so favourable a climate, and he believed it was also in contemplation to give some situation to the Chief Justice. The Commissioners maintained that the duty performed by seven judges, including the Chief Justice, in Malta, could be discharged by six judges, and they recommended that a change should take place, the effect of which would be to relieve the revenue of Malta of a large salary of 1,600l., received by the Chief Justice, entirely disproportionate to the salaries of the Maltese judges, who received only between 400l. and 500l. a-year. They recommended, that the Chief Justice should be removed, because the other six judges, with very inferior salaries, could satisfactorily perform the whole of the duty. This arrangement, which had been adopted on the recommendation of the commissioners, had now been in operation nearly six months; the Chief Justice having been removed, and the Attorney-general having also been deprived of his office. It was no longer, therefore, a matter of conjecture, speculation, or argument, what would be the effect of the abolition of those offices. They could already appeal to the result, which had been perfectly satisfactory and exactly what the commissioners had anticipated. Among the papers which had been laid on their Lordships' table to-day was a letter from the Governor of Malta, dated the 7th of May, in which he stated, that the new system was working remarkably well; that the business never was conducted in a more efficient manner, and that alogether the change was most satisfactory. There were no complaints from the people of Malta; the only complaint was from those who had lost their offices, who were naturally enough anxious to make out as strong a claim for compensation as they could. He was not called on to prove, that the commissioners were correct in the conclusions or anticipations they had formed, but the result had justified them; he had therefore the strong ground of experience on which to rest, and there he was satisfied to leave the question. His noble Friend had referred to a despatch of his addressed to the commissioners, in a manner which seemed to indicate, that he (Lord Glenelg) should be held responsible for the whole of their report. So far from exercising any influence on the commissioners with respect to their opinions, he had merely said, he was prepared to carry into effect their main recommendation as to the abolition of the offices, but that it was impossible to accede to some of the minor details, which he conceived it would be possible to arrange in a more satisfactory manner. Feeling perfectly exempt from the possibility of any reflection on the subject, he certainly did not consider himself at all affected by the observations of his noble Friend, and he protested strongly against the grave conclusion which his noble Friend had drawn, that he was responsible for the report. The commissioners alone were responsible for its words as well as its matter. He had also been charged with having used the term "misgovernment" as applied to the island of Malta. [The Earl of Ripon: Not by me.] No, but by others. He did not mean to apply that word to the Government at home. Whatever might be his opinion as to the course of affairs in Malta, he admitted, that the wishes of the people of the island had not assumed such a shape as to call for much attention from this country till about 1830. Still there were circumstances in the condition of Malta the continuance of which up to that period he could by no means con- sider creditable. He felt, that this was not immediately connected with the subject under consideration, but, as his opinions had been alluded to on a former occasion, he felt it so far necessary to put himself right with their Lordships, and he was ready at any time to recur to the matter. Reverting to the question before the House, the Attorney-general in point of fact had not been in Malta for nearly two years. He left in August, 1837, and no inconvenience had followed; that proved, that his presence was not absolutely necessary. When that Officer was in England, he (Lord Glenelg) thought it right to inform him, that the commissioners intended to recommend the abolition of his office, and his impression was, that unless English law were to be transferred to Malta, the office of Attorney-general might be dispensed with. It was perfectly competent for him to present a remonstrance against the change, but he took no such step. The Attorney-general returned to Malta, and received from the Governor his full salary, although his office had been recommended to be abolished. He afterwards came to this country, his office was abolished, and he claimed compensation. He did not agree with the principle, which was now laid down for the first time, that when an office was to be abolished the person holding it should first be consulted. The Irish revenue commission, to which he had already alluded, which recommended a very general abolition of offices in the various departments of stamps, customs, and excise, examined the different officers as to the nature and extent of their duties, but never as to the propriety of abolishing their offices. So much the contrary, that those officers for the first time heard of its being intended to abolish their offices when that course had actually been determined on. Although the Chief Justice of Malta had been informed, that there was an intention to abolish his office, and although there did not exist any objection to hear what reasons he could urge against that measure, yet the examination of the Chief Justice was limited to the nature and extent of his duties, and did not at all go to the question of the abolition of his office. An occasion certainly did arise which led to a variety of questions being put to the Chief Justice, and as much information had been elicited from him as if the examination had taken place at a later period. There was another case to which he wished to call the attention of the House, and that was the removal of Judge Burton from the Cape when his office was abolished; and he begged it to be observed, that there was this difference between the positions in which the Chief Justice of Malta and the Judge at the Cape were placed—the former held his; office during pleasure, and Judge Burton had been appointed by patent during good behaviour. It was true, that even though the former held only during pleasure, the idea of his dismissal otherwise than for misconduct had never for a moment been entertained. It being considered by the Government that three judges at the Cape would do the business quite as well as four, the office held by Judge Burton was abolished, and arrangements were made for appointing him to a seat on the bench in Australia. He believed, that it was intended to make an offer of the same kind to Sir John Stoddart. But it was quite certain, that Judge Burton's office was abolished without consulting him, and his removal was a matter against which he strenuously remonstrated. His noble Friend had dwelt at some length upon the importance of introducing into Malta a system of law founded as much as possible upon English law. It would be in the recollection of the House, that Sir Thomas Maitland had made arrangements for that purpose, and courts were established in Malta which proceeded upon maxims and principles of English jurisprudence. He would not say, that they had adopted, or that they ought to adopt, the details and technicalities of our law. It had been shown by Sir John Stoddart, or at least strenuously contended by him, that for the effectual carrying out of this design the presence of an English lawyer was of the very highest importance. He stated, and with perfect justice, that Sir Thomas Maitland had done much to elevate the character of the judges in Malta. They were formerly remunerated principally by fees, and they held their situations during pleasure; Sir Thomas Maitland abolished, fees, and he established the independence of the judges, putting an end to venality and consequent degradation. In addition to this Sir Thomas Maitland appointed a President of the Council, but then he was a Maltese lawyer. The further reforms effected were the abolition of torture, of sanctuaries, an order for the vivâ voce examination of witnesses, the establishment of savings-banks, the independence of the judges he had already mentioned, and to this he had only to add the abolition of the personal immunities enjoyed by the priests. But all these changes might have been accomplished without the aid of any very profound lawyer. Any educated gentleman knew enough of the principles of British jurisprudence to understand the value of such reforms, and it required no practical acquaintance with the law to work them out. The great question here was, by what law Malta should be governed? The recommendation of Sir John Stoddart was, that a new Maltese code should be formed upon the basis of the English law; but the noble Earl, in a dispatch of his, entered into the whole question, and concluded by stating, that although it might be advisable for future generations, that that recommendation should be carried into effect, yet for the existing generation such a matter was hopeless, and the noble Earl, therefore, recommended that the code of France, which had been approved of generally throughout Europe, should be made the basis of the new Maltese code. It had certainly been found, that where laws had been transferred from England to Malta, they had occasioned great perplexities and grievous complaints, as the law of bankruptcy, for instance, which, although it was introduced into Malta, yet this was done with a proviso, that nothing in it should derogate from the law of Malta; and the result was, that both laws were in operation. Trial by jury was also introduced in a law by Sir J. Stoddart, but it was found necessary to issue half a dozen other laws to explain and correct it. Afterwards a commission was formed, consisting of the chief justice and two Maltese lawyers, with directions to form the Maltese code on the basis of the code of France, or rather of the Neapolitan code, which is similar, but the commissioners entered into such disputes, that it was found impossible to proceed. One great cause of dispute was the language in which the new code should be expressed, whether English or Italian, and upon this point the parties could not come to an understanding. That commission was dissolved by Lord Stanley, and a new commission was appointed to carry into effect a new codification. This commission was composed ex- clusively of Maltese lawyers. What he contended for was, that with respect to these legal arrangements the result proved, that, so far as the maxims of the English constitutional law and its general principles were concerned, it did not require the instrumentality of English lawyers to introduce it into any place where the spirit of the British Government existed. He did not think that the circumstances of Malta were such as to require the presence there, for the assistance of the governor, of two English lawyers, and more particularly as from the speedy communication between Malta and this country, any information that the government of Malta might require for its guidance, might easily be obtained from this country. Upon the whole, he thought that the measures taken with respect to the legal appointments in Malta justified themselves.

The Lord Chancellor

felt bound to trouble their Lordships with a few observations before this matter was disposed of. A charge had been brought against him, as he understood, of having been a party to, if not the author of, some censure against his noble Friend's (the Earl of Ripon's) colonial administration. He could assure his noble Friend, that of all the acts of his life there was no charge of which he was so entirely innocent. The charge rested entirely upon some communications which he had had with the Maltese commissioners when they came over here. He would call his noble Friend's attention to the circumstances that occurred, and his noble Friend would see, that never was there such a jumping to a conclusion as in the charge brought against him. The result of much consideration convinced him that all the recommendations of the commissioners could not be acted upon without serious inconvenience. Various conferences took place between the commissioners and himself, and having discussed the difficulties that suggested themselves, the commissioners requested permission to withdraw their original report, with a view to make such amendments as, upon reconsideration, should appear desirable. That original report his noble Friend had never seen, and the revised report he had not seen till it was laid on their Lordships' table. He had been obliged to take the, report of the commissioners into consideration, and he had done so; some parts of that report he approved of, other parts he did not approve of; this was all he had had to do with the report, and this was the only ground upon which he could be supposed to be the author of anything that reflected upon the colonial administration of his noble Friend. If the question before their Lordships were, whether he had concurred in advice coming from any quarter to the effect that the offices of Chief Justice and Attorney-general should not be continued, he should never regret having said, that they ought not to be continued, and he must say, that he approved of the opinion expressed by the commissioners on those points. However valuable the services of those two gentlemen might be, they had to look at the price that was to be given for those services. With regard to the Chief Justice, he found, on looking at the report, that it was there stated what the nature of the office was, what were the services performed, and what was the remuneration received. The titles of the Chief Justice sounded very magnificently, for he held five judicial offices. He was President of the Court of Appeals, Senior Member of the Supreme Court, First Commissioner of the Court of Special Commission, Judge of the Vice-Admiralty Court, and Member of the Court of Piracy. He thought that the three last offices required some observation. The third was the only criminal jurisdiction that was exercised by the Chief Justice, and in that department the average of the indictments appeared to be four per annum, or one case a quarter. In the Vice-Admiralty Court, there had been no case for six years, and in the Court of Piracy, there had been no case for five years; so that, with the exception of one indictment per quarter, in three out of five of these judicial offices, the duties came to nothing. However, the other two offices were not of this character. In those two, namely, as President of the Court of Appeals, and as Senior Member of the Supreme Court, it appeared that, in the course of the year, the Chief Justice sat 115 times—he was about to say days; but these Courts only sat three hours a-day, which, according to the estimate of a day's work in this country, amounted to but half a day. The result was, that the whole of the duties of the Chief Justice were confined to fifty-eight days, at the rate of six hours a day, or less than two months out of the twelve. He would not say that the office was a sinecure; but when he found that the Chief Justice was paid 1,600l. a-year, whereas the highest of the native Judges was not paid more than 400l. a-year, he thought that some very great advantages ought to be derived from the office before the people of Malta were called upon to pay so large a sum for services which might be as well performed for a quarter or a sixth part of the sum paid to the Chief Justice. The case of the Attorney-general was even stronger. It appeared that he had only 800l. a-year. He had various duties to perform, indeed three classes of duties. He had to assist the Governor and Council in making ordinances and framing proclamations; he had also to give his advice upon all questions of law, and, as Attorney-general, he had to represent the Government in all proceedings in the courts in which the Government was concerned. The number of laws, ordinances, and proclamations, everything that came under his eye, amounted to twenty-four in six years. This was not a very laborious duty. With regard to his other two duties, he being an English lawyer, he had to give his opinions respecting the Maltese law; and he had further to advocate the cause of Government in a language which he could not speak. These were the duties of the Attorney-general. He said nothing against the individual; he might have performed all these duties in the most exemplary manner; but his office was an absolute sinecure, while the Chief Justice had little to do. The question was not whether these gentlemen performed their duties well, he would not enter into that discussion, or whether they had received that indemnity for the loss of their offices which they ought to have received; he would not enter into those questions; but he must say, that he had come to the conclusion that it was extremely hard to call upon the people of Malta to pay 1,600l. and 800l. a-year for such services, when they could have those services performed quite as well for a much less sum. It appeared to him that the services of those two gentlemen were not such as would justify them in taxing the people of Malta to so large an amount. He had merely risen for the purpose of exculpating himself from the charge of having censured the Colonial Office, and having, as he hoped, done that effectually, he would only observe, in conclusion, that in his opinion the removal of those officers, under all the circumstances, was a measure that was perfectly justified.

Lord Brougham

was astonished at the confidence with which his noble Friend behind him (Lord Glenelg) had declared that the letter from the Treasury to Mr. Cumberland did not amount to a personal censure. Why, what could be a more cruel censure than to dismiss a man on a charge of gross inefficiency and incompetency? It might so happen that they were bound to abolish the offices upon public grounds, but surely they were also bound to grant compensation. When he was attempting to carry his Chancery reforms in 1831 and 1832, he felt that unless compensation were granted, he could not carry his bill a single step. No doubt those offices ought to have been abolished long ago; but to abolish them without giving the holders compensation would be cruel and unjust, and not only cruel and unjust, but the worst possible economy, because it was ruinous to the public service. The commissioners did not recommend the abolition of this place without superannuation. But this gentleman was more than ill-treated; he was calumniated. The Treasury had issued a most untrue, a most false and defamatory libel against Mr. Cumberland, and if any person, non-official, had printed such a libel he would have been liable to be sued for damages, or to be prosecuted. They not only ruined this gentleman and his family, but they defamed him to boot. He thought that this was a case of extreme hardship, and he hoped the Government would see this Gentleman righted. The Treasury was placed in an awkward situation; they had to perform their duties to individuals and to the public, and sometimes they neglected both. He could give an instance. In 1832 certain offices, to the number of about fifteen, were abolished; some of them were offices of 9,000l., 10,000l., and even 11,000l. a-year, and not one of less than 1,000l. a-year. One office, that of Clerk of the Crown, was held by Lord Bathurst, and was abolished, thus causing a saving of 2,500l. The office was a sinecure, the duties being all performed by a deputy for 700l. They transferred to the deputy the whole of the responsibility and the work, for be it recollected, there was connected with this office a considerable receipt of money, as well as the superintendence over writs and returns. One would naturally have supposed that the two offices having been consolidated, and a saving to the public of 2,500l. having been caused, some little addition of salary would have been given to the gentleman who was formerly deputy but was now principal. No such thing. Not only did they not give more, but they took off 200l. a-year from what he before had. The consequence was, that the next time he brought in any act abolishing an office, he should first inquire what compensation the Treasury meant to give. As to the offices at present in question, the commissioners had reported that these offices should be abolished. The charge against the commissioners was, not that they recommended the abolition of these offices, but that they did not inquire of the holders of them in order to inform themselves of what they knew nothing about; namely, the nature of the offices, the amount of duties, and the persons who were fitted to perform those duties. He was astonished to here his noble Friend (Lord Glenelg) say that this was not usually done. He never knew it otherwise. The Chief Justice, in page 22 of the papers on the Table of the House, stated that the only circumstance in the nature of examination that he recollected, related to an incident that had taken place connected with his office in a matter that had nothing to do with the duties of the office, and which could cast no more light upon the duties of the office than if he had been examined upon a matter of civil law, and that he had never been examined in any one particular with respect to the nature of his duties, the amount of work, the number of days he sat, or the number of hours each day he sat. The noble and learned Lord on the woolsack stated that this gentleman only sat 115 days in the year. This happened in a year when the cholera was very prevalent; but in the next year it would be found that the days of sitting amounted to 188. Thus these most astute and learned commissioners, these most learned Thebans, were no more than ordinary mortals able to find out facts, without taking the usual means of informing themselves by examining people who knew more then they themselves could possibly know. To show that this was not confined to the cases he had mentioned, let them look to what had been done by other commissioners, and by committees on similar subjects. On the committee for abolishing sinecure places, of which Mr. Banks was chairman, they would find that from the highest to the lowest, every human being was examined touching the duties of the office he held; and yet the duties of some of those offices were as notorious as the sun at noon day. Nor was the examination confined to the holders of the great offices. This examination was just to the individual, and most convenient to the public. He had shown what kind of examination the Chief Justice had undergone, and it was a mere pretence that the Attorney-general was examined at all. No one spoke to him on the subject, and he first heard of the abolition of his office from his noble Friend, when he was over in this country. Then, as to the number of days the court sat. The chief court in Scotland only sat five months and a half in a year of five days in a week. They did not sit on Sunday and they kept Monday holy as many men in this country kept that day as a saint's day; and the whole of their sittings would not amount to any thing like so much as 115 days. The judge of the High Court of Admiralty in England did not sit 115 days; he did not sit more than twenty-eight days; and the Vice-Admiralty Court in Malta, though it might have nothing to do now, was not a sinecure court in time of war; if they might judge by the number of prize cases sent over to the judicial committee in this country, it would seem then to be a well employed court; but to have an efficient court in case of war, it was necessary to keep it up in peace as in war. In England the Admiralty Court was now little occupied, and yet they did not abolish the court, because in time of war it was necessary. The Chief Justice was also President of the Appeal Court in all civil cases, and was it of no importance to have such an officer to control and to keep in order all the other courts? Although there might be few cases brought before it, it was necessary to have such a court, in the first place to secure attention by the other courts to the causes brought before them, and in the second place as a security for honest and incorrupt proceedings; and if there were six judges of different courts in Malta, and those judges Maltese judges, he was not the man to say that it was not necessary that their proceedings should be checked and controlled by an English judge in a court of appeal. If this proposition were true in most circumstances, it was doubly true, and infinitely more important, when they had been constantly for the last twenty-five years going on introducing more and more of the English law into Malta; in the course of that time not less than twenty or thirty ordinances had been passed, introducing various branches of the English law. Again, the English judge would be peculiarly useful in cases of trial by jury. Trial by jury with us was an ordinary matter; but let any one take a foreign lawyer, versed though he might be in his own judicature, well acquainted as he might be in practical law—far more versed in practical law than these commissioners, who were totally ignorant of it, and had never held a brief in their lives—from France, from Germany, or from Italy, and let that foreign lawyer be conducted to the Court of Queen's Bench to see a trial by jury, and the first five minutes would convince him, that we had been accustomed to this Form of proceeding; but were he not aware of its nature—the difficulties he would point out, the doubts which he would raise, would impress on his mind what an anomalous system it was. And yet the commissioners said, that there was no difference in the duties of a judge in trying a prisoner with a jury, and without a jury. There was the greatest difference that the wit of man could tell between the functions of the judge in the two cases. This was one more of the consequences of sending out speculative men to report on practical matters. It should be recollected also that the trial by jury was not yet wholly introduced into Malta. It was only used in certain criminal cases, in which life would be sacrificed, or where the punishment was working in the gallies for life. It was not introduced at all in the most difficult of all cases for its introduction— civil cases. It must, however, be introduced sooner or later in all civil cases, and who was to work it if it was not to be done by an English judge? It had been tried for some years to be introduced in civil cases in Scotland, and though in that country it had long obtained in criminal cases, and though it had the assistance of his respected friend, the Lord Chief Commissioner (Baron Adams) who was well versed in English law, they all knew the difficulties that had been experienced there. Another reason why, as he thought, the appointment of an English judge was of great importance, was, that he owned he had more confidence in the professional skill, in the learning, and in the professional habits of a wellbred English lawyer, coming from Westminster Hall, than in any six Maltese lawyers. It was said, however, by his noble and learned Friend, that the cost of the English judge might be too great, but justice never could be bought too dear. He denied that it was absolutely useless for the judge in Malta to have a knowledge of English law, and that English lawyer could not know the Maltese law; first, because one-half of the law in Malta now was English law; and, secondly, because the part which was not English was grounded substantially on the Justinian code. Indeed, Sir John Stoddart was as accomplished a civilian as any Maltese lawyer could be. The only original jurisdiction of the Chief Justice was criminal, and they might as well say, that the House of Lords, or the Lord Chancellor, could not decide, and decide properly, appeals from Scotland, in many cases involving nice points of Scotch conveyancing, because they had not been brought up in the Scotch courts, or that the Privy Council could not fitly be trusted to decide upon the many different points of colonial law brought before them, as that an English lawyer, or ah English civilian, could not preside in the Appeal or Vice-Admiralty Courts in Malta. There was no possibility that, in England, a Judge could be tampered with, or justice polluted; there was no man purer than an English lawyer; and was there any lawyer on the Continent—even in the best parts —that could be compared to him? That an English lawyer was necessary in Malta was to be seen in the trash sent over here as a libel law, imprisoning one man for twelve months for a very trifling offence, and another man for six months for no offence at all; and would they have had such trash if there had been an English lawyer in the council? It was said that the new system had had six months' trial, and if there were no appeals to the judicial committee, it might be said that it had succeeded; but in six months there had been no time to determine whether there would or would not be appeals. He could well understand why the Governor should not object to the abolition of the office of Chief Justice. He had never known a Governor and a Judge together, that they had not, sooner or later, come into collision. Young gentlemen of little experience were sent out, who were apt to entertain too high a notion of their own degree of importance: they had seen this to be the case in Ceylon, and in the East Indies, and he knew also military men rather objected to have a Chief Justice who might restrain them. The Maltese Judges were the quietest of all men, and English lawyers were rather more determined, and probably Sir H. Bouverie would be easily convinced that there should be the abolition of the office of English Judge in Malta. On the contrary, he (Lord Brougham) deeply lamented the change, and he thought it was ill-advised to adopt the opinion of the commissioners. The responsibility, doubtless, rested with the Government. It had, however, become the fashion to appoint commissions, and this divided the responsibility; for the Government would say, that it was recommended by the commissioners. The Government, however, should consider who the commissioners were, and weigh well the grounds of their recommendation. Let them, in the present instance, consult the noble and learned Lord on the woolsack, who would give them good law; and let them trust to their own wisdom, and they would come to a better decision than by following the report of these commissioners. The whole practical experience was against abolishing the office of Chief Justice, and he should think, also, of Attorney-general, but into that point he would not enter; he would rely on the statements, and on the arguments of his noble Friend, the Earl of Ripon.

The Marquess of Normanby

said, that though the debate had extended to some length, yet there were one or two points on which he would trouble their Lordships. At an earlier period of the evening he would have entered at greater length into the subject. The noble and learned Lord had treated of many subjects, and though the recommendations of the commissioners might be found fault with here and there, yet the result of their report had been that such satisfaction had been given to the people of Malta as had not been for many years experienced. It was always painful to him to touch upon subjects which involved personal matters, and it was particularly so on this occasion. Mr. Cumberland he had known in early life, and though he had not had the pleasure of seeing him for the last few years, yet he entertained for him nothing but feelings of friendship. It must be recollected that the determination as to the remuneration to be given to that gentleman was made before he was in office; but, in consequence of a letter he received from Mr. Cumberland, he made an application in his favour. He was sorry that his noble Friend had brought the subject before the House, for he could not but say, now that it was pressed upon him, that the original appointment of Mr. Cumberland was injudicious. He possessed none of the qualifications necessary for the important office of collector of land revenue. It was stated, that he was not informed of the intention to remove him; but he was informed that there was an inquiry made into his office. The reason why no notice of the inquiry was inserted in the papers was, because there was a desire to spare Mr. Cumberland's feelings. It was said that Mr. Cumberland was perfectly inefficient, that it was well known to the colony and the public at large, and was scarcely concealed by himself, that he did not substantially perform the duties of his office. The duties were in fact performed by a deputy, who received only a small portion of the remuneration. And when they recollected that 23,000l. were to be collected annually in very small sums, from some of the poorest persons in Malta, it was obvious that Mr. Cumberland, from his previous habits, was ill qualified for the office which was conferred on him. Compassion for Mr. Cumberland might have induced the Government to make the appointment; but at the same time he must say, that instead of considering Mr. Cumberland one of the most unfortunate of men, he deemed him a most fortunate man, knowing that he had previously given up his profession, to have enjoyed an office for six years, the duties of which he did not discharge. Although, therefore, he had everything but an unfriendly feeling, and although he hoped that the Government might, consistently with their duty, come to a different decision on his case, yet he could not think that gentleman so very unfortunate. As to the judicial changes recommended by the commissioners, he must say, that nothing of personal feeling was mixed up with them, nor was it ever intended that they should be considered as casting any stigma on the gentlemen whose removal was recommended. The question was, whether the number of judges was greater than was necessary for the discharge of the duties they had to perform. The only way to look at that was to ascertain the number of the days they sat, and the average time each day in a given time; but the noble and learned Lord had complained that the commissioners took the average of the sittings in the year 1837, in which, by reason of the prevalence of the cholera, the sittings were necessarily much diminished, as compared with other years. Now, the commissioners stated that the average returns from other years would show no material difference from their first return. The removal of Mr. Langslow could not be considered as any imputation on his character. He held the office of Attorney-general, in which from his want of knowledge of the language, he could not plead, but was obliged to act by a deputy, who was versed in the Maltese tongue. The question that had been raised whether or not it was advisable to have an English lawyer at the head of the law in Malta was one which had not been decided by the Commissioners. At all events it appeared that on numerous occasions Sir John Stoddart had left the decision of appeal cases to the Maltese Judges without any such presidency, and the arguments of the noble and learned Lord respecting the difficulty of managing trial by jury by any other than a Westminster-ball lawyer were at least singularly inapplicable to a gentleman whose legal experience was confined to the civil law. It seemed to him just as possible to obtain judges of competent talent and integrity at Malta, and at a moderate rate of remuneration, as to obtain them from Westminster-hall, from not the most experienced ranks of the profession, and where it was necessary to pay a much higher salary in compensation for those greater professional emoluments which were open to the candidate by remaining here. The Maltese judges had in fact been found efficient for the discharge of the judicial duties of the island, and the chief of them Dr. Buonanita, was in every way qualified to preside in the court to which he was appointed. The character of neither Sir John Stoddart nor of Mr. Langslow was in any degree affected by their removal from their appointments. It certainly did not lessen them in his esti- mation, for he had been since in communication with both as to whether their services might not be rendered available in other appointments. The removal of those functionaries, whose services were not absolutely necessary, was the duty of Government who were bound to take care of the revenue of Malta. While they were now discussing whether a chief justice should or should not be continued with a salary of 1,600l. a-year, the state of the revenue of that island was absolutely below its expenditure. It was insufficient to the supply of an efficient police. The prisoners were obliged to work, and in short the greatest distress prevailed amongst the lower classes who were taxed to more than they could well bear. The Maltese people were opposed to a system which gave 1,600l. a-year to the Chief Justice, whilst the professor of the university had only 30l. a-year. Every effort should be made to raise the character of the population, and among other obvious means of giving satisfaction to them had been found the doing away with those offices and their extravagant salaries, amongst which were those which had been held by the gentlemen to whom allusion had been made. He agreed with the noble and learned Lord that it required more time fully to test the good working of this system. Sir Henry Bouverie was a very high authority on this subject, and with his authority on behalf of this system, he for one was not disposed at present to recommend any relaxation. He should be always ready to avail himself of any opportunity to employ those gentlemen in the public service; and with regard to Mr. Cumberland, he should be glad to take under consideration his unhappy situation. There the question must rest.

Lord Brougham

, in reply to an observation of the noble Marquess, would have cut off the two Maltese judges now appointed, and allowed the English judge to remain. He thought that a military man for a governor was the very worst.

Viscount Melbourne

could not help thinking that the noble Earl (Ripon) had allowed his feelings to run away with him He argued as if these offices were created not for the benefit and advantage of the state, but as if they were created for the benefit and advantage of those who were placed in them. His noble and learned Friend had argued the question on much bolder grounds. He (Viscount Melbourne) wished to say one word which related more to the department which he held, and that was to the compensation awarded on the present occasion. These Gentlemen said, that they thought the Treasury was very hard on this occasion for persons who talked of liberality and generosity. His noble Friends would recollect that there was neither liberality nor parsimony in this case for it was liberality or parsimony with the public money; and these were qualities generally considered as personal qualities, and not to be applied to the use which a man made of the money of other people. When the noble Earl talked of the liberality with which the Treasury ought to act, he seemed to forget a little instrument which was rather important on this occasion—namely, the 4th and 5th of William 4th., c. 4, which passed when his noble Friend was in office, and which he knew very well was prepared and matured by a noble Friend of theirs, from whom now, unfortunately, he was separated in politics; and the noble Earl would recollect that this act of William 4th settled the principles and proportions in which compensation was to be given, and it also settled the number of years of service for which compensation was to be given; that for ten years' service one-third of the salary was to be given, which was the compensation given to the Chief Justice for serving twelve years and a-half, which was as large a compensation as the Treasury was authorized to allow. Under that act the Attorney-general was not entitled to compensation at all; he had not held his office for more than five, or six, or seven years; and he apprehended that the arrangement which the Treasury had made with that learned Gentleman to give him his salary for one year, and in the mean time to offer him some employment, would be much more agreeable to his feelings, so that he should obtain compensation by continuing in the public service rather than receive it for performing no service at all. His noble Friend had adverted to another case, as he had described it, a very melancholy one. It was unfortunately a sort of case which was by no means rare; there were many others of the same sort. He did not wish, he was sure to advert more to that letter to the Treasury; but the gentleman himself had not in his (Lord Melbourne's) opinion been very prudent. His noble Friend left it as an impression that no more than 100l. had been received by this gentleman. He was unwilling to mention this case; he wished it had not been mentioned at all: but seeing that it was a case liable to move and excite a great deal of compassion, he thought it should be known that that sum was not the only compensation that Mr. Cumberland had received.

The Earl of Ripon

rose in reply. He said there was no complaint against the way in which the duty was performed by Mr. Cumberland. Seeing then that the office was adequately discharged, he did think that Mr. Cumberland was perfectly qualified to discharge the duties of that office. It was said that he was inefficient and that all his duty was done by deputy. Who said that? The deputy, and the whole case rested on his evidence. Mr. Cumberland had decided every point on his own judgment. The deputy, who made this statement, was the man who had benefitted by it.

Motion agreed to.