Lord Campbellsaid, he had to move their Lordships that a Select Committee be appointed to search the Journals of the House of Commons to see what proceedings have taken place in that House, respecting the Courts of Common Law Process Bill, the Courts of Common Law Process (Ireland) Bill, and the Court of Session (Scotland) Process Bill. His strong suspicion was, that the Committee would report, that after these Bills were read a second time in the House of Commons, without opposition, the Committee on them was postponed without any discussion, for six months. He hoped their Lordships would allow him to recall to their recollection, in order that the public might be informed of it, what those Bills were. It might be supposed that those Bills were most highly unconstitutional, that they made an attack on private property, or, above all, that they assailed the independence of Ireland, and were meant to bring that country under subjection to this. Why, the great object of those Bills was, and he believed the effect of them would have been, to confer a very great benefit on Ireland, as well as on the whole of the United Kingdom. He (Lord Campbell) had been induced to turn his attention to the subject, from representations 848 which had been made to him regarding it from various parts of Ireland; and the noble Lord opposite, who had been Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, was well aware that one of the worst effects of absenteeism in Ireland was, that persons of property who had large debts in Ireland left that country, and either settled in England, or went to France or Italy, where they set their creditors at defiance, and drew from Ireland, to England, France or Italy, the rents and profits which accrued to them from Irish property. At present their creditors, instead of suing them in the Irish courts, were debarred from doing so by the technical rule prevailing both in England and Ireland, that unless the debtor was within the jurisdiction of the court, he could not be served with process; while, without process, no judgment could be had, and without judgment they could not affect his property, real or personal. You might bring an action in France or England, but that did no good, because, with a French or English judgment, you could not touch the debtor's property in Ireland. The object of the Bill was, under the jurisdiction and direction of the Irish Judges, to allow that service given in England or France, or any other country, in a case respecting a debt contracted in Ireland by a person who had left it and was living in another country, might be the foundation of a judgment under which the property might be seized for the benefit of his creditors. The Bill was approved by his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack, the organ of the Government in that House; it was approved of by all the law and all the lay lords. There were two corresponding Bills, because in those cases there must be reciprocity; one respecting Scotland, and one respecting England, to ensure that justice should be done to Ireland, and that so far the laws of the three countries might be conciliated. These Bills had been approved of by Government, and passing that House unanimously; they were read a second time in the other House; but from the Journals of the House of Commons which he had before him, he found it was ordered by that honourable House that the Committee on those Bills should take place that day six months; that was, they were unceremoniously rejected. He (Lord Campbell) could have no feeling on the subject; it was not a party matter; but he must regret, 849 for the sake of the public, that measures so well considered, and, as he believed, having such a beneficial tendency, should be rejected without consideration. He regretted that Her Majesty's Government, in that House having warmly supported the Bills, in the other House should disclaim them, and allow them at once to meet their fate. He thought if Government supported a measure in one House of Parliament, that was an implied agreement that it should be supported in the other House. And he should have expected that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Home Department, who exercised a sort of control over those matters, would have risen in his place and stated that those measures were approved of by Government. At all events, they ought to have been submitted for the opinion of the House, and deliberately considered. He had done his duty, and he hoped that after this declaration it would not be supposed that the Bills contained any attack upon private property, or on the independence of the Irish people, and that he should be acquitted of all blame on account of those measures. He would conclude by formally moving that a Committee be appointed to search the Journals of the other House.
The Lord Chancellorsaid, it was due to his noble and learned Friend to say that his Bills were approved of by that House, and had been under consideration both in the present and last Session of Parliament. In consequence of some difficulty with respect to the law of Scotland, they were not proceeded with last Session; but the Bill for Scotland was submitted to the consideration of the Lord Advocate during the present Session, and met with his approbation. He believed the real fact was, that his noble and learned Friend entrusted the Bills to a learned Friend in the other House, who never opened them, read them, or stated to the House what they contained, and sacrificed them to one or two jokes which passed at the time. When the House went into Committee upon them, a Motion was made and carried without discussion to fix the Committee for that day six months. He must at the same time say, that no imputation whatever rested upon the hon. Gentleman who had been alluded to—he believed him to be a most estimable person.
§ Motion agreed to.