LORD BROUGHAM, in presenting a Bill for abridging the wording of Acts of Parliament, observed that he had made frequent attempts in that House—he was going to say with more or less success, but it was hardly possible to do so with less success, unfortunately—to amend the only manufacture which had received no improvement for the last 150 years—that of Acts of Parliament. We went on from one generation to another without improvement, thereby causing the greatest evil to the subject, to the law, and to the courts of justice above all things. He had intended to introduce very large improvements in the law, but he would be contented to accept even the smallest possible improvement, which he had pleged himself to introduce in his letter to Sir J. Graham; and with that view he begged to lay before their Lordships a Bill for shortening the language used in framing Acts of Parliament. One clause now introduced into every Bill he proposed to supersede altogether, for it was a ludicrous one—"That this Act may be altered, amended, or repealed during the present Session of Parliament" 709 —the ground on which it had been heretofore used being, that every Act was supposed to be part of one Act, all the Acts of a Session forming one statute. He proposed to enact that every Act should be alterable, repealable, or amendable during the Session. Another proposition was, that no necessity should exist of constantly repeating words "and further enacting;" but that each section of each Act should follow the word "that," which would be perfectly sufficient. Another very important improvement had been often suggested to him by special pleaders. At present you only cited a former Act by saying, "by virtue of an Act, entitled an Act to do so and so," &c, giving the title and the year of its passing. He meant to propose that in future you should be enabled to refer to any Act, merely stating the chapter and section, with the year of the king's reign. This, and one or two other points, might have been considered by the great Bentham as mock reforms, because they were of very small amount, but it did not therefore follow that they were of very small importance.
Bill read 1a.