Lords Sitting of 9 August 1850

MINUTES.
A CONFERENCE.—Court of Chancery (Ireland).
PUBLIC BILLS.—1a Customs.
2a; Turnpike Acts Continuance, &c. (No. 2); Portland Harbour and Breakwater; Decrees of Court of Chancery as to Real Estate vested in Married Women; Duke of Cambridge's Annuity; Marlborough House; National Gallery (Edinburgh); Consolidation Fund Appropriation; Police Superannuation Fund.
Reported.—Fisheries; Registrar of Judgments Office (Ireland); Municipal Corporations (Ireland) (No. 2); Grand Jury Cess (Ireland).
3a Fees (Court of Common Pleas) (No. 2); County Court Extension Act Amendment.

THE CRIMINAL LAW COMMISSION AND DIGEST.
LORD BROUGHAM(who was very imperfectly heard) said, that he wished to draw the attention of the House to the present situation of the Commission for inquiring into and reporting on the Criminal and Common Law of this country. The Commissioners of Criminal Law had been appointed by a Commission issued by himself in 1831. The Commission had conducted their labours with the greatest perseverance and ability, and one proof of their industry was that they had digested the criminal law into one statute containing 800 or 900 different articles, besides making some most important suggestions. In the course of last summer the Commissioners had completed their labours, and had produced another statute digesting all the rules and proceedings of the criminal courts. This magnificent work having been completed, it appeared to Lord Lyndhurst, Lord Cottenham, and himself, that the true mode of passing this legislative code was not by sending these two Bills, containing from 1,500 to 2,000 articles, to the two Houses of Parliament to legislate upon—for no legislative power of either House separately, or of both Houses combined, would be able to undertake such a mass of legislation—but by submitting them to another Commission well and carefully selected, in order to the most perfect revision of the labours of the preceding Commission. It would be bad economy to allow the Commission to fall to the ground

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after the country had spent from 90,000 l. to 100,000 l. upon it; and he recommended its continuance till the members of it had again revised the code which they had drawn up. It had been reported that the work of the Commission had been performed by the late Mr. Starkey, its secretary. This charge he strenuously denied, and could assure their Lordships from the communications he had had with the Commissioners, that it was their work, and their work alone. It was too late in the day to advocate either the policy or the necessity of having a good digest of the law, which all were bound to obey. It was impossible to over-estimate the advantages which France had derived from the code drawn up by command and under the active superintendence of that wonderful genius the late Emperor Napoleon. He thought this was a subject of so much importance, that he would give notice that early next Session he would call the attention of the House to the subject.

OFFICIAL SALARIES—REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS.
LORD BROUGHAMproceeded to make some remarks on the report recently made by a Select Committee of the House of Commons on official salaries. There were imperfections in every line of it. The savings which it recommended were utterly insignificant in a financial point of view, while it trampled upon all considerations of justice at home, and destroyed all our diplomatic representation abroad. What information the Committee had got, where they had got it, to what witnesses they had resorted to enlighten the darkness of their understandings, he could not by any possibility conceive. With regard to the reductions to be made in the salaries of the Judges of the High Court of Chancery, they had neither examined Lord Lyndhurst, Lord Cottenham, nor himself. They had passed over all the abuses of that court, and had made no reference to the salaries paid to its subordinate officers. He particularly objected to the reduction of the salary of the Lord Chancellor to 8,000 l. a year, and of the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas to 6,000 l. a year. Such a mass of contradiction, absurdity, and ignorance, he had never seen comprised in a single report. They recommended that the salary of the Judge Advocate should be reduced on the next appointment from 2,000 l. to 1,500 l. a year; but, as a makeweight, they recommended
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that the future holder of that office should not be debarred from the practice of his profession. Why, he was not debarred from it at present. The late holder of the office practised before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council; and if Mr. Stuart Wortley had given up practising before the Judicial Privy Council whilst he held it, it was only because he was himself a Privy Councillor. That gentleman, as Judge Advocate, had as much right as any of his professional brethren to practise in the Courts of Queen's Bench, Common Pleas, Exchequer, and Chancery. He (Lord Brougham) objected to many other reductions recommended by the Committee, and especially to the reduction of the salaries of the Masters in Chancery to 2,000 l. a year. He had himself reduced them from 5,000 l. a year, to which their salaries, with fees, in some instances formerly amounted, to 2,500 l. a year; and below that sum he was not prepared to go. Some three or four years ago their number had been reduced by not filling up two vacancies which occurred; but now, owing to the Winding-up Act, they were overwhelmed with work, and their numbers ought to be increased. He had by means of a connexion of his own some insight into the amount of labour they performed; and he would say that eighteen hours a day would not enable them to get through it. He would revert once more to the miserable saving proposed in the reduction of the salaries of the Lord Chancellor and the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. His noble and learned Friend on the woolsack was, he supposed, to have only 8,000 l. a year. Considering that he was entitled to that amount of salary as Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, he was surprised to find that his noble and learned Friend had given up that salary, which he might have retained for life, for the same amount of salary in an office far more laborious, and from which he might be removed, perhaps in the course of the next four or five months, it might be with, and it might be without, a retiring pension. Then, did the ignorant men who formed this Committee know the difference in the amount of the labour performed by the Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas and the puisne Judges of that court? The Chief Justice was to have 6,000 l. a year; the puisne Judges 5,000 l. All the Judges of that court, the Chief Justice as well as the puisne, had to go circuit. But the Chief Justice, besides that

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labour, had on the close of every term to go to the Guildhall and Westminster sittings, which generally lasted two or three weeks after each term. Anything more ignorant than this arrangement he could not conceive. Then how utterly ridiculous was the plan of cutting down all the diplomatic salaries and offices to the same size. All of them were to he abolished, and a single mission at some central point in Germany was to be substituted for the several missions now existing at Hanover, Dresden, Stuttgard, Munich, and Frankfort. Nay, more, the mission at Florence was to be united with one of the Italian missions. He supposed that the next proposal of this Committee would be, that a mission should be sent to one of the peaks of the Andes, to superintend all our diplomatic relations with the States of South America. It was one of the grossest of all possible delusions, to suppose that these reductions could be defended by the example of the United States. The Government of the United States, considered as a whole, might be a cheap Government; but then it should be considered that, besides its expenditure, there was a heavy expenditure incurred in and defrayed by each State for its own domestic government and administration. America was not a cheaply governed country, for each of the States swarmed with myriads of placeholders. He had been all his life long an advocate for wise and well-considered measures of retrenchment and reform; but he could not allow their Lordships to part without entering his protest against the unwise, nay, he must say, the absurd propositions of this Committee on official salaries. He hoped that he should never see the administration of justice poisoned at its source by measures which would render a seat on the bench unworthy the acceptance of the best and ablest and most experienced advocates at the bar, nor the diplomatic appointments of the country stripped of their due influence by being filled either by men of great qualifications without fortune, or by men of great fortune without any qualifications for the posts to which they were appointed.

SUNDAY LABOUR IN THE POST OFFICE.
LORD BROUGHAMasked whether the Commission which had been appointed on this subject were likely soon to conclude their inquiry?
The MARQUESS of CLANRICARDEreplied, that a Commission had been appointed by the Treasury in conformity with a
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Motion made and voted by the House of Commons. They had met two or three times, and they would meet again Tomorrow, when he hoped they would be able to agree to the report.
The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNEsaid, it was highly desirable that this matter should be speedily settled. Scarcely a day had elapsed since the new arrangements without complaints of inconvenience, and in some cases the most calamitous consequences had resulted. There was the case the other day of Mr. Pike's murder in Ireland, when, in consequence of the postal delay, the brother of the unfortunate man was prevented from being present at the coroner's inquest. The subject had been one of unremitting inquiry by the Committee, who, he trusted, would be able to propose a better arrangement than the present.

THE MONEY LETTER DEPARTMENT OF THE POST OFFICE.
The EARL of ST. GERMANSdrew the attention of the House to the debate that had already taken place upon the subject of Post-office appointments. With reference to the clerks in the Money Order department of the Post Office, there appeared to be an impression that the condition of the probationary department was better than he had represented it to be. The fact was, that until recently no clerk in the probationary class, however long his services, could receive more than 70 l. a year. By a recent regulation 10 l. a year additional might be added after five years service, but beyond that there could be no augmentation. The other point he would advert to, had reference to the appointment of Mr. Farmer, from Edinburgh, to the head clerkship of the Money Order Office. From what the noble Marquess had stated on a former occasion, it would be inferred that the other clerks in that office had been passed over on account of incompetence. That, however, could hardly be the case, since it had been represented to him that the vacant situation had been offered to three of the senior clerks in that office, if they would consent to retract certain statements in a memorial to which they had attached their names.
The MARQUESS of CLANRICARDEobserved, that the noble Earl was correct as to his first observation. The new rule only came into operation in June last. He did not mean to infer by anything that be had said or done, that the clerks alluded to
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were incompetent to the discharge of the duty of the office in question. With respect to the offer of the place made to these parties, he would only say that no offer had ever been made with his sanction to an appointment with any conditions whatever. The noble Earl might depend upon it that the statement to which he had alluded was utterly without foundation. He also did not believe, for one moment, that Mr. Rowland Hill would ever permit such an offer to be made. As for the complaint about the removal of Mr. Farmer from Edinburgh to London, it should be recollected that only a few years ago he had been sent by the preceding Postmaster General to Edinburgh to be placed over the clerks at that place. He did not consider, for one moment, that the removal of Mr. Farmer from Edinburgh to London was in any way a degradation or reflection on the other clerks in the Money Order Office.
The EARL of ST. GERMANSread an extract from a petition which had been presented to the House of Commons by these clerks, stating that such a conditional offer had been made.
House adjourned till To-morrow.