Lords Sitting of 23 May 1864

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILIS — First Reading — Admiralty Lands and Works* (No. 88); Summary Procedure (Scotland)* (No. 89).
Second Reading— County Courts Act Amendment (No. 70).
Third Reading—Under Secretaries Indemnity* (No. 77); Common Law Procedure (Ireland) Act (1853) Amendment* (No. 51).

THE REGIUS PROFESSORSHIP AT OXFORD.—OBSERVATIONS.
THE EARL OF DERBY:—My Lords, when a charge has been made in your Lordships' House affecting an individual or a public body, your Lordships are always willing to afford an opportunity of explanation. If it be true that the greater the authority from which the attack proceeds the greater is the injury done, I feel certain that I need not further apologize for adverting to a statement which was made in this House, by no less an authority than the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, with reference to a breach of faith

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alleged to have been committed by the University with which I have the honour of being closely connected—the University of Oxford. I am quite aware, and the University gratefully acknowledges, that the noble and learned Lord has been, on all occasions, actuated by the kindest feeling towards the University, and they recognize this feeling in the effort he has made to provide for the endowment of the Regius Professorship of Greek, and thus relieving the University from an embarrassing difficulty. For that reason I the more regret that the noble and learned Lord should have let fall expressions which went further than the impression he intended to convey, and which were certainly highly disparaging to the University of Oxford. The noble and learned Lord's words were—
"The best mode would undoubtedly be for the University to do that which justice and reason pointed out, and which, in fact, good faith dmanded, for the University had received great gifts from the Crown, with the understanding that the duty of endowing public Professorships should be fulfilled on their part."
On the second reading of the Bill, the noble and learned Lord is reported to have said—
"The University of Oxford had received certain pecuniary exemptions on the understanding that it would make proper provision for its Professors. It had got an exemption from stamp-duties on its degrees; it had got an exemption with regard to patent fees to the amount of £12,000 or £14,000 a year."
Now the latter part of that paragraph is a manifest error, and upon referring to The Standard of the same date I find the following passage:—
"Their Lordships were aware that the University had received great pecuniary benefits on the understanding that they would make proper provision for the Professors. First of all, they enjoyed an exemption from stamp duties on degrees; the University was also exempted from the patent of the Queen's Printer—a benefit amounting in value, he was informed, to £12,000 or £14,000 a year."
I think the noble and learned Lord is mistaken as to the amount, though there is no doubt that the privilege of being exempt from the patent of the Queen's Printer has been very valuable. The question is whether the grants which have been made to the University have been made on the understanding or for the purpose of empowering the University to endow Professorships and pay salaries. I may remind the House that it is only within a comparatively recent period that the professorial system has
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come into actual operation. When I was an undergraduate, although there were Professors for various branches of education, the whole business of the University was carried on by the tutorial and not by the professorial system, and I will undertake to say that at that time not one undergraduate out of a hundred was aware of the existence of a Greek or Latin Professor. I do not deny that the Universities have accepted great emolument from the Crown; but what I complain of is that they have been charged with not fulfilling the engagement or understanding upon which they accepted that emolument. The noble and learned Lord certainly gave an explanation which could not be offensive to the University; but certainly it was not the impression made on your Lordships and on the public; and in order to show the impression produced elsewhere, I will, with your Lordships' permission, quote an extract from an article which appeared in The Times—
"It is scarcely sufficiently remembered in discussing the question that the University is actually bound as a mere matter of good faith, as it has been put by the Lord Chancellor without contradiction, to provide the endowment for this Regius Professorship. The Crown some few years ago abandoned stamp duties on giving degrees and other occasions to the amount of more than £12,000 a year, and the reduction was made on the clear understanding that the University would undertake the endowment of the Regius Professorships still insufficiently paid.… The Crown, in point of fact, has given the University a large sum of money on the understanding that a portion of it shall be applied to this purpose; and to refuse to supply it is, to say the least of it, a breach of faith."
I do not complain of this article, provided the facts are correctly set forth; but I deny that they are correctly stated, and with your Lordships' permission, I will proceed for a very few moments to point out how the case actually stands, and what are the engagements which were entered into by the Universities in consequence of the endowments from the Crown. The exemption was originally made in the time of Charles I., and has continued ever since in both the Universities. Up to this hour, however, I have never understood that the grant was made subject to any obligation for the endowment of any Professorship whatever. That disposes of the largest part of the charge of the noble and learned Lord. By confounding two things, the noble and learned Lord has given a colour to the charge — that, inasmuch as the University has not endowed a certain

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Professorship, therefore they are liable to the imputation of breach of faith, because in the cases of other endowments where there has been a distinct engagement, that engagement has been acted upon. The facts as to the remission of the tax upon matriculations and degrees are these. In 1815, when every possible subject for taxation was eagerly sought after, a stamp duty was for the first time imposed upon matriculations and degrees. After enduring for forty years, the tax was remitted in 1854, upon the recommendation of the University Commissioners. The tax only produced about £2,400 a year, and it was then remitted. But there was a great difference between presenting to the University a sum of £2,400 a year, and simply taking off a tax with which the University had been burdened for forty years. This remission of taxation has been put forward as a gift to the University, in consequence of which that body undertook to perform certain engagements. It is quite true that when that tax was taken off, the University did accept certain conditions, and did consent to be charged again with certain fees. The University was to pay certain sums to certain Professors. Those sums were originally charged upon the Civil List, but were subsequently placed in the annual Votes made by Parliament. The total sum voted by Parliament for those Professors was £953 a year. The first act of the University after the remission of the stamp duty, was to make a corresponding reduction in the amount of fees payable upon matriculations and degrees, thus deriving for itself no benefit from the remission of the tax. But the University also undertook the duty of providing the £953 a year to the Professors, and in the Act of Parliament passed in 1854, it was provided that the stamp duties should be remitted as soon as due provision had been made for the payment of the Professors of the University. That was a distinct obligation, subject to which the stamp duty was given up. The University in fulfilment of that obligation, has, in addition to the £953 which it undertook to provide, actually paid to the Professors a sum of £1,250 a year, thus more than doubling the contribution they had undertaken to make. The University has also endowed other Professorships to the extent of £1,750 a year. We have the clearest evidence, that of Parliament, that the University has fulfilled the obligation which it took upon itself. In the
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preamble to the Act of the 18 & 19 Vict, c. 36 it is declared—
"And whereas by a statute of the said University adopted by Convocation the 31st day of day, 1855, provision has been made for the payment out of the University chest, of the salaries and allowances to certain Professors of the said University, mentioned in the schedule to this Act (being the same salaries and allowances as were heretofore annually voted by Parliament to the same Professors), and the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury are satisfied that such statute is a due provision in lieu of the moneys heretofore voted annually by Parliament, as intended by the said Act; be it enacted," &c.
I think I have shown your Lordships that there was no understanding, engagement, or condition as to the endowment of this, that, or the other Professorship—that there was never any obligation, except the generally implied obligation of supplying a University education. I have shown that when the stamp duty was remitted, the duty which the University took upon itself has been more than fulfilled. It is, therefore, hard upon the University that the noble and learned Lord, with his high position and great authority, should have used expressions—stronger, perhaps, than he intended, but which conveyed a wrong impression to the House, and to the public through the columns of the newspapers, and especially of that journal which I believe has a wider circulation than any other in the world; and this has given to The Times ground for introducing into a leading article a specific charge against the University of having received money upon the promise of performing certain acts, which acts they have not performed. If such a charge could be substantiated, I should not be so proud as I am now of my connection with that University; but I think your Lordships will agree that the statement I have made relieves that body of an imputation of bad faith which, coming from so important a source, could not fail to produce a very bad impression upon the public mind.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I would be the last person to desire to bring any charge against the University of Oxford. Even if a charge were well founded, I would rather cast a veil over the offence than expose it to the public view. I am sorry that the noble Earl has entered into this matter at such length, because it might have been sufficient to have withdrawn the words attributed to me — I cannot tell why or wherefore—as imputing to the University of Oxford that they had violated a distinct understanding. I cer-

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tainly did not use any such words. It is difficult to rely upon words spoken in debate; but, subject to correction of the noble Earl's recollection and the reports in the newspapers, I may say that it never entered into my mind that in respect to any of the gifts to the University there had been anything like a distinct understanding or compact with the Government or with Parliament. But if the noble Earl means to put it that because there was no understanding therefore there was no obligation, I must take the liberty of saying that a greater error cannot exist. The understanding in these matters would be the obligation to do that which it is the duty of the University to do. I speak upon this matter with some anxiety, and desire, if possible, to speak with the same care as though I were speaking from the bench of the Court of Chancery. The nature of the obligation, and the manner in which it has been carried out by the University, can be gathered from the statement of the noble Earl. The University has fulfilled its duty by endowing every Professorship but one — the Professorship of Greek. Has the University recognized no duty in making those endowments? Has the University any justification for not endowing that Professorship? and, if so, on what does that justification rest? Is it a right thing to have a Professor performing his duties in an eminently satisfactory manner, and yet to endeavour to starve him out of the University? Is it a becoming thing in the University to say we will punish you for your heterodoxy by refusing you a just remuneration for your labour? Is it a becoming thing in the University to take advantage of the labours of a Professor in instructing the youth committed to its care, and be obliged to acknowledge that those labours are performed in a manner unexampled for industry, "care, and success, and yet to refuse him the common rewards of his toil? Now, let me show your Lordships what is the nature of the obligation into which the University has entered. The noble Earl has stated quite correctly, that the original gift to the University was by patent enabling them to print every description of hook, and that this has been considered by courts of justice to operate as an exception to the patent of the Queen's Printer, and to give the University the power of printing the Bible and Prayer Book. By the law as it now stands for the general security of the commonwealth and for the security of
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religion, what I may denominate the copyright of the Old and New Testament is vested in the Crown. The Crown is in the habit of granting it to the Queen's Printer; but in the time of Elizabeth a grant was made to the University of the right of printing and publishing every description of book. I think the words used are, omnimodum librum. A Question subsequently arose between the Queen's Printer and the University of Cambridge, as to whether the antecedent patent to the University was overruled by the patent of the Queen's Printer, and there was a remarkable letter in the first volume of Burns' Ecclesiastical Law from Mr. Justice Foster, one of the Justices of the King's Bench, to Sir William Blackstone, who was then Vinerian Professor of Common Law at Oxford, in which he explained the reason of the decision then given. He says—
"I thought it would be agreeable to you to know the issue of the cause. The word 'intrusted' was inserted by way of intimation to the University, that we consider the power given by the letters patent as a trust reposed in that learned body for public benefit, for the advancement of literature, and not to be transferred upon lucrative views to other hands."
Now, if the University has received what the noble Earl states to be £12,000 a year—
THE EARL OF DERBY: I said, on the contrary, that the amount had been exaggerated.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I beg pardon. I do not mean to fasten anything on the noble Earl; but the amount is generally supposed to be £12,000. But we will take it at £10,000. If the University has received £10,000 a year for the advancement of literature upon trust for the public benefit, and refuses to remunerate the labours of a Professor in order to starve him out of his heterodoxy, as it is called—that heterodoxy not at all interfering with his appointment — is it to be said that injustice has been done to a public body acting thus? I grieve to say so—because it was stated that what it had done was inconsistent with good faith, with justice, and with reason. Now, let us examine this a little. If you violate a trust, do you net with good faith? Will the noble Earl give an answer to that question? If the trust which attaches itself to all these benefits be violated, has the University preserved good faith? Are we to have the University vindicated on the special pica that there was no understanding?

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If I receive money for performing a duty and say nothing, am I exempted from duty on the special plea that there was no understanding? Is that the language, feeling, and conduct of a man of honour? Is this the ethical lesson to be taught by the University charged with the duty of educating and instructing the youth of England? Is that to be the doctrine held up for the sanction of this House, the great court of appeal of the nation? I am sorry the defence of the University rests on no better ground. There is an old proverb that we should abstain from stirring up quod non bene olet, I wish the University had thought of this before they came here with such a defence. There is no greater duty of the University than that they should so conduct themselves as to impress those who come to them for instruction with a sense of their justice and their earnest desire to reward the instructors of youth. There is not a single Professor who is not endowed except this, There is not one who has so great a claim, And yet what does the University do? It drives young men in crowds to the chambers of this Professor, who are all most deservedly attached to him, and one of the greatest bonds of union between them is the sense of injustice with which he has been treated by the University. Is that consistent with reason? Let me for one moment call your attention to the manner in which this matter was put to the University itself. I have here an argument used before it, and with your Lordships' permission I will adopt a few words of it as a portion of my answer to the noble Earl. "But if we are told," says the speaker, "that a person who takes an office, ill paid (or rather not paid at all), yet having attached to it great, useful, and important functions (as a Professorship of Greek in this University has, for it is a disgrace and a blot on the University that it has never yet had a properly endowed chair of Greek); if we are told that such a person undertaking and discharging those functions and doing us thereby great, useful, and important services, doing for the University that which is really necessary should be done, has no claim on us whatever—if that is justice, I say that it is a kind of justice which may do for an attorney's office perhaps, or for a Government Department, but which is so narrow, so technical, I must add so ungenerous, that any man would be ashamed to act on it in private
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life, and I hope we should be ashamed to insist upon it here," And that is good faith. You would be ashamed to refuse a man the reward for his labour, and take shelter in this, that you had employed him, but there was so understanding between you. That is what the University has done. Now, I leave the issue to your Lordships. But of this I am confident, that we do no injustice to the University in holding it up in its proper colours; because I am sure there are within and without the University faithful and devoted sons, who will see her rescued from this reproach. The noble Earl will permit one word more, and that is, to do an act of ordinary justice. When I brought forward this measure, let me assure you, I had no communication whatever with the Professor of Greek. I go farther—when that learned gentleman saw the Bill after it was brought in he wrote, through the medium of a friend, to me; and said, "I do not desire that this measure should be prosecuted. I would rather trust the University. I am content to go on labouring as I now labour; and I will trust to the University doing me justice in the end." The right rev. Bench will tell me whether that is not language conceived in a more Christian spirit than the proceedings on the part of the University. I am happy to add this remark to the unanimous testimony which is borne to the excellence of the learned Gentleman. I have thought it right to mention this, in order that your Lordships should not suppose that a measure, intended for the good of the University, had been brought forward on the authority, or with the sanction and for the benefit of that individual Professor.
THE EARL OF DERBY: I did not state that the measure was not introduced for the advantage of the University. I did not enter into the question how far it was desirable that the University should make a grant to the present Professor of Greek. I only said it was quite sufficiently known on what grounds they had, whether wisely or not, decided. But what I did complain of was the statement made by the noble and learned Lord; and though he says he did not make use of the expression, it is singular that, in the reports of two successive debates, papers not at all connected with each other should have attributed it to the noble and learned Lord — namely, that there had been a

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distinct understanding on this subject, which had been violated by the University.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: If I made use of the words I decidedly withdraw them.
THE EARL OF DERBY: I am quite satisfied now that the noble and learned Lord has withdrawn the words as publicly as he made the charge. I only regret that he should have taken the occasion of the University wishing to protect themselves against what they felt to be a most unjust imputation, to make a fresh attack, and by implication repeating the charge which he in so many words repudiated. I cannot help thinking that the noble and learned Lord would have done better if he had frankly stated that he had not charged the University with any violation of an engagement or understanding.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The noble Earl will pardon me for a moment. I distinctly charged the University with a violation of trust, but I certainly did not use the word "understanding."
THE EARL OF DERBY: With all respect, I must say that the noble and learned Lord has failed to show that the University has been guilty of any violation of trust. The words which the noble and learned Lord read to the House specified what was the kind of trust in question, and then the noble and learned Lord assumed, that because for particular reasons a certain Professorship has not been endowed, therefore the University has violated the general conditions of that trust, which referred to the promotion of literature and science, and the education of the young men committed to its care. I say the trust was so general in its terms, and the University has carried out its conditions so fully and literally, that the University ought to have been free from the censure which the noble and learned Lord has thought himself justified in passing upon it while professing to withdraw words which have naturally given great dissatisfaction, and which have led to representations in the public press that I hope the present conversation will satisfy the country at large were unfounded, and that certainly exaggerated even the view expressed by the noble and learned Lord, and, still more, I am willing to believe the real opinion entertained by him.
EARL GRANVILLE: My Lords, I entirely dissent from the rebuke which the
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noble Earl has thought fit to bestow upon the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack. In the opinion expressed by the noble and learned Lord, that the obligations of justice have not been fulfilled by the University, I am sure most of your Lordships will concur. I think that this debate will lead to some practical benefit. My noble and learned Friend brought forward a measure which your Lordships have decided to postpone; hut I am glad to perceive that the debates which took place upon it have encouraged the University authorities to make a further attempt, which I hope will be successful, to do a mere act of justice to a very learned and eminent man, the present Professor of Greek. How does the case stand? Here is a distinguished Greek scholar, teaching, with singular energy and industry, and in a manner peculiar to himself, nearly all the ablest young men at the University; and while other Professorships are largely endowed—some with £600 a year, some with £900, and some even with £1,000—none with less than £300 a year, the amount of the remuneration granted to the Professor of Greek does not exceed £40 per annum. Several efforts have been made to increase that remuneration, and have been supported by the great majority of the teaching and intellectual residents at the University; hut, nevertheless, up to the present moment, they have been unsuccessful. What are the reasons urged—most conscientiously, no doubt—by the majority of the University against increasing the endowment of the Greek Professorship? One is that Professor Jowett is supposed to hold certain opinions on doctrinal matters which are not the opinions of the majority of the Oxford constituency. It appears to me that, as a matter of policy, it would be advisable for the University to hold itself neutral in these discussions on doctrinal points; but, apart from that, I cannot help thinking that the line adopted by the University is the most inconvenient and illogical that any learned body could assume. In the first place the University has not exercised the powers which it has of depriving Professor Jowett of the degrees which alone enable him to teach Greek; and, in the next place, not a single head of a College has ventured to prohibit any of his students from regularly attending the lectures of a man whose influence has naturally been increased by the students rightly thinking that he has been subjected to an unjust persecution. The University, while

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not prohibiting its students from receiving anything baneful which Professor Jowett may be thought capable of imparting to them, and while enjoying the great advantage of having its ablest young men taught in the best possible manner a critical knowledge of Greek, tries, forsooth, to save its conscience by refusing a modest remuneration to the Professor. It appears to me impossible to stand upon that plea. There is another reason, which seems at first sight much more plausible; it is that the Greek Professor being nominated by the Crown, it is the business of the Crown, and not of the University, to find funds for his remuneration. That plea also cannot hold water. There are other Professorships which, if not wholly, are partially endowed by the University, and the endowments of which have been recently increased by the University; and yet the Professors are nominated by the Crown. Besides, I utterly dissent from the principle that the right of nomination or of election should necessarily, and, under all circumstances, rest with whoever supplies the endowment. In considering this question as between the Crown and the University I think the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack was justified in pointing to some of the pecuniary advantages which have recently been conferred upon the latter. I am not sure of the amount derived by the University from the privilege of printing the Bible and Prayer Book, but I know that in 1852 the average sum was about £11,000, and I should be surprised to hear that it is less in 1864. A considerable sum—£500 a year—was also granted to the University by the State as compensation for the abandonment of the monopoly of printing the Almanacs, and your Lordships will recollect that the University has been relieved when purchasing land from the provisions of the Mortmain Act. Within a comparatively short period, in fact, a large addition has been made to the income of the University.
THE EARL OF DERBY: There was a remission in 1854 of a tax imposed on the University in 1815, in the shape of a stamp on matriculations.
EARL GRANVILLE: And that amounted to £2,400 a year; and when it was; remitted it improved the income of the University by that amount. When it was made, the endowment of the Professorships was in contemplation, and I cannot help thinking that at a time when the University was increasing the endowment of Professor-
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ships it should not have entirely passed over one of the most successful, most eminent, and most deserving of its Professors. I should be sorry to say anything that might irritate or offend, and I have made these observations, not with any wish to wound the feelings of any man, but because I think they relate to matters that ought to be taken into consideration when this subject is next discussed at Oxford itself. The feeling of your Lordships undoubtedly is that the Greek Professorship should be properly endowed, and one of the reasons which induced a majority of your number to vole against the Bill of my noble and learned Friend was that it was clearly the duty of the University itself to provide the requisite funds. I trust that deliberately expressed opinion of your Lordships will have its due weight at Oxford and elsewhere.

COUNT'S COURTS ACT AMENDMENT BILL.—(No. 70.)
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.— (The Lord Chancellor.)
LORD BROUGHAMsaid, he was glad that in this country we had to discuss only the question of the County Courts, at a time when, in almost every other part of the world, affairs were in so unsatisfactory, not to say deplorable, a state. In the New World, a portentous indifference to human life and public credit; in the Old a frightful triumph of cruelty, fraud, and pillage, by the strong against the weak—a triumph at once inglorious and disgraceful. In regard to the measure before them, it could not be overlooked that there was an almost unanimous opinion on the part of the County Court Judges against the Bill. Of sixty of these Judges who had considered and given their opinions upon it, not less than fifty-eight were clearly and decidedly opposed to it, or at least to one of the most important parts—that with reference to imprisonment for debt. There was, it seemed to him, some misapprehension as to the proportion of judgment summonses. In the course of the year, 900,000 plaints were brought in the County Courts, of which, not above 9,000 ended in judgment summonses, or, in other words, not 1 per cent of the whole number. Moreover, of these judgment summonses—which were not committals, but possibilities of com-

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mittals—a very small proportion resulted in actual committals. This was a smaller proportion than in the superior courts— the Queen's Bench, the Common Pleas, and the Exchequer—where the proportion of writs of fi. fa. to actions brought was 8 per cent. There were some provisions of the Bill of which he highly approved — for instance, those clauses which gave to these Courts an equitable jurisdiction. He had himself endeavoured to procure an extension of equitable jurisdiction to the County Courts, bu thad not succeeded, for neither of his Bills on that subject in 1851 and 1852 had been passed. He trusted, however, that his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack might be more successful in that respect. He thought, however, that if the Legislature should give their sanction to the proposition it would be necessary to increase the number of Judges, as the present staff would scarcely be able to overtake the additional labour. Another proposition of the Bill was that with respect to the limitation of actions. No doubt the present period was too long; but he thought that it would be inexpedient to restrict the period within which a small debt was recoverable to one year, and that two years would be a preferable limit. He thought it desirable that there should be some provision imposing some check in regard to summonses, which ought not to be issued as a matter of course; but that was a detail which could be considered afterwards. The optional clause of the existing Act as to bringing suits for sums above £50 in the County Courts had proved ineffective. He thought a better plan would be to give the power to bring the suit, and to leave it to the other party to object to its being tried in the lower Court. On the whole, he approved of the Bill, except the provision as to commitment for debt, and hoped his noble and learned Friend would be able to pass it.
LORD ST. LEONARDSsaid, that he could not support the Bill as it now stood. The Bill proposed to reduce the time under which small debts should be recoverable to one year. The matter was of very great social importance though it lay in a very small compass. By the law as it now stood if a man contracted a debt by simple contract, or acknowledged an existing debt and promised to pay it, or paid a sum on account of it, he could be sued for it any time within six years. But by the Bill of the noble and learned Lord this period as
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regarded debts under £20, would be limited to one year. He could see no reason for so great a reduction. He thought the very shortest limitation should be three years. This was a question of very great importance to the working classes, for credit was their capital. Speaking generally the classes of persons sued in the county courts were manufacturing and agricultural labourers; and if they took away credit they practically took away the only capital these poor men had. Most of them had scarcely any money, and lived in lodgings; and the furniture they had was so small that the bailiff who was sent to execute the summons did not think it worth while to take the chattels, as he knew there would be no return beyond the expense of the execution. More injury would be done in carrying out such an execution than if the person were to be taken. Suppose the goods of a labourer were worth £10; they would not in a forced sale bring more than 10 s., and the poor labourer without furniture would find it hard to recover his position. Let their Lordships consider the case of the ordinary agricultural labourer. He might earn in summer 12 s. or 14 s. a week, and so long as he could earn his wages he got along very well. But in the severe winter the farmer declined his labourer's services. What was he then to do? As he had no money, and this Bill would destroy his chance of obtaining credit with the small shopkeeper, he must go to the work house. At present he went to the grocer or the baker with whom he had dealt in summer, and whom he had paid when in receipt of wages; and the grocer or baker, knowing that if he did not give him credit in winter, he could not have his custom in summer, supplied him with goods. But by this Bill he could not give this credit with safety. The existing law worked well both for the shopkeeper and the labourer, and he trusted their Lordships would do nothing to destroy the credit given to the working man. Again, the sympathies of their Lordships ought not to be solely with the debtor; the creditor, the small shopkeeper with a small capital, was entitled to a share of them. The small shopkeeper ought to have the power of enforcing his demands. The amount of debts represented by the 900,000 plaints which were issued out of these Courts represented a large sum of money. At present the County Court Judge, after ascertaining that the debtor might pay his debt by instalments, made an order directing

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him to do so, and if the debtor then made a default in the payment of the instalments a judgment summons issued, and the debtor might be committed to prison. Imprisonment sometimes took place more than once for the same debt, and he was: of opinion that in this respect the law might well be corrected; but the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack desired to do away entirely with the power of imprisonment, except for fraud, false pretences, and acts of that description; and the imprisonment for such offences the noble and learned Lord extended to two months, in lieu of the forty days, which; the law at present allowed as the maximum term. As the law at present stood, if a man had means to pay a debt and would not pay it he might be sent to prison; but the Bill before the House proposed to take away the power of sending to prison altogether except in cases of fraud. And then there was this extraordinary provision in the Bill, that a judgment debtor might be punished if he wilfully wasted his income or earnings by unjustifiable extravagance or conduct. So that the creditor would have to prove that the judgment debtor had wilfully wasted his income in that way, and, therefore, he would have to follow the debtor about in order to find out how he spent his time. But, supposing the debtor was not guilty of this wasteful extravagance, then he could not be compelled to pay. He might have the means, he might have the money in his pocket, and yet refuse to pay, and in that case he could not be sent to prison. There was one portion of this Bill which, when it became known, would certainly excite general opposition, and that was that as soon as there was a judgment the Judge should have power to make an order, directed to the employer, commanding him to appropriate a certain portion of the wages of the debtor, and to pay them to the bailiff towards the liquidation of the debt. But was such a provision to be carried into effect? Suppose that there were a million of suits in the Courts throughout England, and that in a large proportion of them orders of this kind were made upon employers— how could they give effect to those orders? At a public meeting a manufacturer had recently stated that he employed 2,500 persons. Let their Lordships imagine a manufacturer of this magnitude whose workpeople were remiss in paying their debts. He would be constantly served with notices to appropriate portions of his
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workmen's wages towards the payment of their debts—how would he be able to carry on his business? The noble and learned Lord would find it impossible to carry the clause into effect. But let this clause be struck out, and there would be no provision in the Bill for compelling a labouring man to pay his debts. He might be punished for fraud, but that was the case under the present law. A person of no means was not committed under the law as it now stood, but if he had means he was compelled to pay, and if he had no goods that could be come at he had to answer in his person. A man might have incurred a debt very lightly and very willingly; well, then, let him pay like an honest man, as willingly as he bad incurred the debt. This Bill was one which would have as wide an operation as it was possible to conceive, and, if passed into law, it might fairly be called a Bill for stopping the credit of the labouring classes. The Bill had been called one in favour of the labouring classes, but as it stood it would exonerate not only the labouring classes, but everybody else from the payment of debts under £20 after the lapse of a year; and this without any of those safeguards which should appertain to a statute of limitations. Referring to the Return made by the County Court Judges, it would appear that the Bill dealt with public-house debts, but not with some other kinds of debts which those Judges referred to. They said that there was an extensive system of selling goods, chiefly wearing apparel, by travelling packmen, upon the terms of paying 1s. 6d. or some other small sum a month; and that these sales were almost always made without the knowledge of the husband. Such creditors obtained judgments in large numbers; and in the great majority of cases no defendant appeared, so that the Judge was obliged to make orders of commitment. The Judges also drew attention to a system of sales by auction in some counties in Wales, the intending purchasers being largely supplied with beer, and third parties being sureties for payment. These cases produced many judgment summonses; and, indeed, the County Courts were used to collect the debts of such persons. He desired also to say that in his opinion it would be most objectionable to transfer to the County Courts the powers of the Courts of Equity, and, indeed, that a greater curse could not be inflicted upon the country. When a man possessed of

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small property died, the course was now for the parties interested to come to some arrangement and dispose of their claims amicably; hut if this Bill passed, each such case would give rise to an equitable suit in the County Court, and the whole country would soon be overrun with litigation. Beyond this power of appeal was given from these new Equity Courts to the original Court of Equity. For the reasons which he had stated he thought that there were many objections to the measure which was then before their Lordships.
LORD CHELMSFORDsaid, that the noble and learned Lord in introducing the Bill, had stated very fairly that the subject was of great interest and importance to the people, relating, as it did, to the law of debtor and creditor, and its administration as it affected the humbler classes of society. He was most anxious that the question involved in the Bill should not he regarded simply as one of a legal character. It was a social question of the highest importance, and one which involved not only the welfare of the labouring classes, hut their independence of character and integrity, and uprightness of dealing. It was a question, moreover, which appeared to him to require the most cautious deliberation, for it was one round which it was very easy to raise a mist of prejudice, through which things would he viewed in a false light. His noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack must forgive him for saying that in the able speech with which he introduced the Bill he permitted their Lordships to see only one side of the case. It would be his humble task to endeavour to call attention to other considerations which were necessary to do complete justice to the subject. The Bill of his noble and learned Friend might be divided into two general heads. First, the mode of enforcing payment of debts in County. Courts; and second, conferring upon those Courts an equitable jurisdiction. As to the latter object, he had no objection to it in principle, and, therefore, he should confine all he had to say at present to the former—and certainly the most important portion of the Bill. The principal feature of this portion might be described to he a proposal to take away from the Judges of County Courts the power they now possessed of imprisoning for a limited time persons of ability to pay the amount imposed by judgment of the Court, and who neglected or refused to do so. It was important that their Lordships should bear in mind the
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circumstances under which this power originated. Prior to 1844 there were numerous Courts of Request for the recovery of small debts, which all possessed the power of enforcing their judgment by imprisonment. In 1844 the Legislature thought it expedient to abolish arrest upon final process for debts under the amount of £20. But the mischievous consequences of this enactment both to debtor and creditor were soon discovered, and the very next year the 8 & 9 Vict. c. 127 was passed, giving to the Small Debts Courts the power of imprisonment, which has since been exercised by the County Courts. In 1846 County Courts were established, and from that time to the present the power of commitment which it was now proposed to interfere with had been exercised by them. In 1853 a Royal Commission was appointed to inquire into the working of these Courts; in their Report made in 1855, they recommended certain alterations, but carefully abstained from suggesting the removal of this power from the Judges. In consequence of a Return to the House of Commons of the number of persons imprisoned by the County Courts, the Treasury issued a circular in 1858 to the Judges of these Courts on the subject, and, as far as he remembered, they uniformly expressed their opinion as to the desirability of retaining the power of commitment. By an Act passed in 1859, the power of commitment was placed on the footing on which it now stands. The Legislature took away from the Judges the power of committing where defendants did not appear, except in cases of fraud, or where it appeared to the satisfaction of the Judge that the defendant had had, since the judgment, sufficient means to pay the instalments ordered by the Court, and had refused or neglected to pay them. He would call their attention to what had been said by one of the Judges—
"A great fact in reference to this question of imprisonment has been sadly overlooked by persons generally. No man is, or ought, at all events in accordance with the law, to be imprisoned simply because he has money and does not comply with the order of the Court, but because the Judge is satisfied by evidence that he is able to comply with the order and obstinately refuses so to do."
In the month of March last a circular was sent to the County Court Judges by his noble and learned Friend, evidently with a view to this measure, asking their opinion as to the abolition or modification of the power of imprisonment. The result of that letter was, that the opinion of fifty-seven

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out of sixty was in favour of the retention of the power. He regarded that Return as being important, because it contained the opinions of men who, from their position, were brought into continual contact with the class of debtor and creditor, whose interests were affected by the Bill, and who had the largest experience on the subject. It did not appear to have been the intention of his noble and learned Friend to place the answers of the Judges to his circular upon the table, and they had only been obtained by the Motion of his noble and learned Friend (Lord Cranworth). These were the circumstances under which his noble and learned Friend introduced the present Bill. He could not help admiring the address with which his noble and learned Friend enlisted their Lordships' sympathies in favour of the Bill, by describing the misery to which the unhappy debtor was exposed under the system of imprisonment for debt now in practice. It was absolutely necessary, however, to put their Lordships upon their guard by describing the difference between the commitment by the County Court Judges and the old law of imprisonment for debt. The two things were perfectly-distinct. By the old law, imprisonment for debt was the act of the creditor as a satisfaction for his debt, the power proposed to be affected by the Bill was the act of the Judge in consequence of disobedience to his order. Under the old law, imprisonment for debt was enforced whether the debtor had the means of paying or not; but in the County Court the power of commitment was only exercised where the debtor had the ability to pay, and refused to do so. The term of imprisonment, too, under the old law was indefinite, while the maximum term of commitment by the County Court was forty, and did not generally exceed seven or ten days. He did not know why his noble and learned Friend should have taken the Returns of the commitments for two years, unless it were for the purpose of having a greater range of figures, and so to produce a greater impression. He was certain that that statement had given rise to much misapprehension. His noble and learned Friend stated that in the two years ending December, 1863, no less than 17,797 persons were committed, and that the number of days' imprisonment to which they were sentenced was 309,777, and the number of days actually spent in prison was 253,860. He then assumed that on the average these persons earned 3s. a day each, and then
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multiplied the number of days spent in prison by that sum, and thus arrived at a sum of £43,434 as the value of the labour which was lost to the country to obtain the payment of £62,480. But there was a great fallacy in assuming that the persons committed were all in full work. As far as he (Lord Chelmsford) could make out, it very rarely happened that a man in full work was committed. The fact was that the debtor class was as easily recognizable as the criminal class, and it was not the honest hard working labouring man who was committed to prison, but the profligate idle man who worked only three days in the week and drank for the remainder. Nor was it fair to look at the absolute number of persons committed without noticing also the number of plaints out of which those committals arose. According to his noble and learned Friend's statement, the number of commitments was about 9,000 per annum. But the number of plaints issued annually was upwards of 900,000, representing a sum of more than £2,000,000. Of these, more than half were settled before judgment; and there remained 400,000 judgments issued, representing a sum of about a million for debts and £40,000 for costs. In one-third of the cases in which commitments were ordered the debt was paid before the debtor was actually sent to prison, and therefore the 9,000 ought to be reduced to 6,000 as the number of persons actually sent to prison, which, upon 400,000 judgments, amounted to only 1½ per cent. The argument derived from the loss of labour to the public would apply equally to summary convictions, of which there were upwards of 113,000, find to imprisonments for assault, of which there were as many as 40,000 annually. With reference to the smallness of the proportion borne by the commitments to the plaints, the Judge of the Preston Court stated that in the Leeds district during six months ending April 30, 1862, out of 6,500 cases only 63 individuals were imprisoned, although 625 commitment summonses were taken out—nine-tenths of the debtors under the pressure of a commitment summons thus settling with their creditors. This was the benefit derived from the power of imprisonment; It was the imprisonment of one individual in a hundred which forced the majority of the remaining 99 to settle with their creditors. His noble and learned Friend referred to instances in which persons had been

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imprisoned for non-payment of very small sums, such as 3s., 2s., and, in one instance, 9d. But, in order that their Lordships might judge fairly of these cases, he ought to have informed them of the circumstances under which these commitments took place. They must bear in mind that the County Court Judges had the power of commitment only in cases where they were satisfied that the debtor had the ability to pay but refused to do so. He (Lord Chelmsford) had been made acquainted with two cases in which commitments might have been ordered for only 3d., but in which he was sure that every one of their Lordships would have approved the committal of the debtors. The first was the case of an attorney who was constantly in the habit of paying the clerk in the Registrar's office 6d. or 3d. short, and who was summoned for the latter amount. The other was a more remarkable case. An attorney's clerk who was summoned for the price of a bottle of whisky admitted that he had purchased and drank it, adding that it was very good, but set up as a defence the Tippling Act, passed in the reign of Geo. II. The Judge, pretending to have heard of this Act for the first time, looked at it very carefully, and then said, "I cannot order you to pay for the whisky, hut, of course, you returned the bottle?" "No," said the defendant, "I did not." "Well, then," said the Judge, "I find nothing in the Act with regard to bottles, and therefore I shall award 3d. for the bottle, 7s. 6d. for the costs of the poor man whom you have compelled to attend here to-day, and 2s. 6d. for his witness." The attorney's clerk did not resist payment of the sums ordered, but if he had he was sure that not one of their Lordships would deny that he ought to have been sent to prison even for so small a sum as 3d. The fact was the smaller the sum the more reason there was for assuming that the debtor must have the means of paying it, and that therefore his imprisonment was due to his own obstinacy, and not to the oppressive character of the system. The noble and learned Lord (the Lord Chancellor) then went on to refer to instances in which there had been repeated commitments to prison for the same debt, and he said that a person might be committed fifty times for the same cause. Without dwelling upon the words "for the same cause," he ventured to ask his noble and learned Friend whether he knew of any instance in which a
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person had been committed not fifty times but five times for the same debt? In the papers which were before their Lordships, one of the Judges stated that out of 316 commitments in six months, only three were commitments for a second time; and another said that of 4,425 in six months, only about 300 were second commitments. Therefore, although it might be right that some modification should be introduced into the power of repeated imprisonment, they ought to be careful not to do anything even with regard to it which might create prejudice or excite any feeling upon a matter which required the most cautious and deliberate treatment. He did not think his noble and learned Friend had done justice to the County Court Judges. He would call their Lordships' attention to the mode in which his noble and learned Friend had availed himself of the opinions of some of those Judges, who would be astonished to find themselves enlisted in support of this measure. The noble and learned Lord quoted the opinion of Chief Justice Montague in 1551, and of Chief Justice Hyde in 1630, who in almost identical words declared that if a debtor had no goods he must live upon charity, and if no one would relieve him, let him die in in the name of God. The noble and learned Lord referred to these statements to illustrate his declaration that Judges almost invariably looked upon these matters from a creditor's point of view. In the Return of Mr. Falconer those statements were to be found; but that gentleman did not quote them to prove the tendency of Judges to regard questions of imprisonment from a creditor's point of view, but to show how the efforts of the Legislature in modern times to prevent commitments were a strong contrast to the practice of ancient times. He therefore referred to these passages for a totally different purpose to that for which they were employed by the noble and learned Lord. The care and diligence shown by the County Court Judges had been admitted by the noble and learned Lord, but he imputed to them a partiality for retaining the powers of commitment conferred upon them by the existing law. That was hardly just towards the County Court Judges, whose answers showed that they were not at all enamoured of the powers which they now possessed. The Judges at Liverpool said that no part of their duty was so irksome, or caused them greater anxiety, than the dealing with judgment summonses. An-

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other Judge said he would be delighted if he could be relieved of the disagreeable duty now imposed upon him; while others thought the abolition of the power of commitment would be a gain to the Judges, although it might not be beneficial to either creditors or debtors. The noble and learned Lord said that his object in introducing this Bill was to put an end to the present mischievous and dangerous facilities for obtaining credit by the labouring classes; and, in illustration of the evils of the present system, he read two passages from the answers of County Court Judges relating to tallymen and Scotch pedlars. After reading those passages the noble and learned Lord said that that was the nature of the cases which most frequently arise under the present law. He hoped his noble and learned Friend would not give the sanction of his high authority to an opinion that any liability could arise in such cases as those referred to. In one case credit was given to a daughter without the knowledge of her father and mother; and in the other case credit was given to a wife for useless finery without the knowledge of her husband. He ventured to say that any County Court Judge who committed a father or husband under such circumstances would not understand his duty, nor the law he was administering. The noble and learned Lord who had just spoken (Lord St. Leonards) seemed to consider that an alteration of the law was necessary with regard to such cases; but that was not so: and he ventured to state that the present law was sufficient to protect husbands and fathers under such circumstances. The chief force of the Bill, according to the noble arid learned Lord, appeared to be to get rid of tallymen or itinerant drapers, who were supposed to be perpetually travelling about the country forcing their goods on people upon credit; and the noble and learned Lord reminded the House that in all villages there were small shopkeepers who gave credit. It was not, however, quite clear that something was not to be said for the tallymen. He (Lord Chelmsford) believed that in some places the visits of the tallyman were absolutely necessary to enable the wife and children of the labouring man to obtain decent and even necessary clothing; for in some of the retired rural districts wives could not leave their families to go to a distance to purchase apparel. He was also informed that County Court Judges almost
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invariably refused to make a husband liable for articles ordered by the wife unless they were of absolute necessity, and in the majority of cases the Judges refused to make a man liable unless his signature was to be found in the tallyman's book. The noble and learned Lord proposed to prevent credit being given to the labouring classes by taking away the power of commitment, he therefore admits that if that power did not exist credit would not be given. In other words, this power over him is the only security which he has to offer. If you propose this out of kindness to him, take care that you do not thereby visit him with a greater evil by preventing him from obtaining credit at times when it becomes an absolute necessity. What is he to do in times of sickness and slackness of work, when his family are ill, and a doctor is to be paid, or when death is in his house, and the undertaker is required, and mourning to be provided. What is to be done in cases of occupations where the labourer is not equally employed throughout the year, such as brickmakers who earn large wages in summer, and none in winter. What as to the large classes of labouring men who only received their wages at long intervals. In the case of miners, some receive their wages monthly, others once in two months. Were they not to obtain credit at a time when they had no means of paying ready money for the very necessaries of life? They could not—or at least should not—prevent voluntary credit. If they did so they would pauperize not only debtors but also a large number of creditors, (small shopkeepers), and send them by scores and hundreds to the parish. To show what a narrow view had been taken of this great question, he must observe that every case had been treated as if it were a case of voluntary credit. But there were multitudes of eases where credit was involuntary. The petition he had presented from several societies for the Protection of Trade showed that the effect of the Bill would be to destroy the legitimate business of nearly every retail trader in the kingdom. One of the County Court Judges had furnished him with a description of the business which came before him in three days, and of 100 cases there were on one day twenty-nine, on another thirty-three, and on another thirty-four of involuntary credit. In all these cases if this Bill passed, the creditor would be deprived of the means of enfor-

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cing his just demands. What was proposed to be substituted? First of all, there was to be the power of execution against goods beyond the value of £4. Then there was the power of arrestment of wages and punishment for fraud. With regard to the arrestment of wages, his noble and learned Friend (Lord St. Leonards) had shown what difficulties would attend the measure. It seemed to he thought that the remedy by execution on the goods would not only be more merciful, but equally efficacious. Now, with regard to the compassionate view of the subject, he ventured to doubt whether it was not an infinitely less evil to a labouring man to suffer imprisonment for a short time than to have an execution put on his goods, which would probably be the ruin of his wife and family. He referred to the opinions given by the County Court Judges, one of whom, at page 41 of the printed papers, said that the remedy by execution against the goods, where the sole remedy given, was the most cruel, as well as the most inefficacious remedy. The goods seized would probably, under a forced sale, realize only a few shillings, while they could not be replaced for as many pounds. There was a very numerous class too who had no goods to seize and who would never pay their debts when sued for, however trifling they might be, unless under the pressure of the power of imprisonment. That pressure taken off, one-half of the judgments obtained in the County Courts would be worthless. The County Court, certainly a very expensive establishment, would then exist merely for the purpose of ascertaining, not of enforcing debts, and the sooner they were done away with the better for the country. With regard to the second section of the Bill—that which limited the time within which actions for sums under £20 could be brought—he admitted it would be desirable that a general measure should be introduced, not altering the law in regard to the Statute of Limitations, further than by abridging the period within which actions might be brought. But he did not see the ground on which a distinction was to he drawn between debts above and those under £20. There was no principle in it, for £20 to persons in the position of their Lordships was a very small sum, while to a labouring man it was a very large one. It surprised him to hear his noble and learned Friend (Lord Cranworth), whose judgment was usually so sound, entertain the visionary
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idea that debts below a certain amount should be regarded as debts of honour. The limitation of one year would work injustice to creditors and operate harshly upon debtors. It would compel creditors who now forbear where the circumstances of the debtor call for forbearance to enforce payment for fear of losing the debt. If the clause passed, a medical man who now sent in his accounts yearly would be obliged not only to furnish them more frequently, but to press his debtor in the very cases where, from illness and want of employment, pressure would fall most injuriously upon him. While he admitted that it might be desirable to introduce an Amendment limiting the period for recovering small debts, he believed his noble and learned Friend, when he came to consider the point, would find that the limit proposed was inexpedient, and not practical. Another proposal, which was exceedingly plausible, but to which strong objections might likewise be urged, was that for taking away the concurrent jurisdiction of the superior courts in cases under £20. No doubt it was desirable to limit the costs of actions under £20; but in a variety of cases debts of £20 were incurred, not by labourers and mechanics to retail traders and tallymen, but by retail shopkeepers to wholesale merchants and warehousemen. These wholesale houses were, at present, enabled to sue out a writ in one of the superior courts, which was generally effective to produce payment. To take away in such instances the jurisdiction of the superior courts, and to compel the London, Glasgow, or Manchester merchant to send his travellers and books to these County Courts all over the country, would be a very serious hardship, and would, in many cases, amount to a denial of justice. The debtor, moreover, would have a direct inducement to carry the matter into the County Courts, as thereby he would obtain a little longer time, with the ultimate chance of being allowed to pay off the debt by instalments. The effect of passing such a measure would be to put a stop to, or at least to restrict credit to retail dealers under £20, being the amount of the larger proportion of book debts incurred to the wholesale houses, by which the honest and the dishonest would alike suffer. He was aware that he had trespassed at great length on their Lordships, but he scarcely felt that any apology was necessary for doing so, because the subject was one

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earnestly demanding their most careful consideration, and he was anxious that their attention should be directed to those points which seemed to him material in determining the propriety of the measure. It would be prudent, he thought, to withdraw from the Bill those clauses which proposed to take away from the County Court Judges the power of imprisonment, and to confine its operation to the introduction of equitable jurisdiction, in favour of which there was much to be said. Of course, he could not expect his noble and learned Friend, after taking so much pains with the measure, all at once to adopt that suggestion; but he trusted it would, nevertheless, engage his attention. To the second reading of the Bill he should offer no opposition; hut its future progress required to be watched very narrowly, and the course he should feel it his duty to adopt would be governed by the declarations which the noble and learned Lord might feel it his duty to make.
LORD LYVEDENsaid, he desired to present the proposition to their Lordships in its social bearing, the debate up to that i moment having been conducted exclusively by noble and learned Lords. It was his, conviction that to the agricultural districts no greater boon could he offered than the abolition of the pernicious system of credit by which they were at present weighed down; and the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, if he relieved them from this great embarrassment, would entitle himself to their lasting gratitude. He therefore rejoiced that this Bill had been introduced, for it would cut at the root of an evil that was so mischievous. The system of large credits, moreover, was opposed to the spirit of modern legislation, which taught the working classes to hoard their earnings and invest their money to meet a time when their wages might be less. The noble and learned Lord who had just sat down (Lord Chelmsford) had talked about bricklayers and other labourers, whose work was principally in the summer, and asked what they were to do if they could not get credit in the winter. Why it was the credit system which was directly responsible for all the frauds practised on the poor, the rotten garments sold for them to wear, and the miserable food palmed off upon them to eat. They felt themselves dependent on the tradesmen, and went on running into debt with them to an amount greater than their circumstances warranted, under the belief that if they gave their creditors cause for
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offence they could be sent to prison. The present measure, if passed into law, would have the effect of delivering the agricultural districts from what be knew in practice to be one of the most odious tyrannies. In his belief the measure was calculated to prove highly beneficial, not only to the labouring classes, but to the community at large, for whom he thought a long retail credit of no advantage.
LORD CRANWORTHsaid, he approved the material features of the Bill and especially of those clauses which limited in a great degree the power of imprisonment. In his opinion, there was a great fallacy in supposing there was an indispensable necessity for giving credit, at all events among the non-commercial classes. Credit, no doubt, was important in the mercantile world among those who had transactions abroad, among manufacturers, and among wholesale and even retail dealers; that is, among those who possess and those who employ capital; but what imaginable advantage was there in a system of credit among the poorer classes? The question was asked what the poor man was to do when he was out of employment. But the question really was whether it was desirable to encourage the working man to spend by anticipation wages which he had not yet earned, or to live upon that which he had put by for such an occasion. The former practice had been too much sanctioned by the operation of the County Courts, which, as at present constituted, had created a vicious system of credit among the poorer classes. It might be difficult to wean the labouring classes from the habit of living upon the anticipation of future wages, but legislation ought to be directed to this end. If the sole object of their legislation was to enable small traders to recover debts of £1 or £2, he did not believe that any means could be devised that would be half so effectual as the power of committal to prison. But in a social point of view it was better to go further back and consider whether these debts ought to be recoverable at all. He did not think that the clauses of this Bill were framed with the accuracy and clearness that generally belonged to his noble and learned Friend's measures. There was, however, nothing new in seizing property, because that could he done now. The Bill proposed to divide what a man had among his creditors, within certain limitations, and then to make the debtor as clear from future liability as if he had obtained a certificate in bankruptcy.

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This was, he thought, the correct principle. It might work hardships at first, before the public got into the more wholesome system he had described; but that was an incident common to all salutary changes. He had not said that small debts ought to be regarded as debts of honour, but that they should be no more recoverable at law than debts of honour. Such a principle, if established, would, he believed, be for the advantage of society. Meanwhile he should give his cordial assent to the second reading of this Bill.
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, he must express his regret that the discussion of so important a measure, involving a great social question on which every one of their Lordships was competent to form a most able and useful opinion, could not attract a greater assemblage of their Lordships than he saw around him. He could not but think that if their Lordships were habitually to neglect discussions of so much importance, it would be impossible that their House should retain the high position which it now held in public estimation. This Bill was intended to improve the position of the lower classes. He feared that the preceding legislation of Parliament had been in a great degree the cause of much demoralization, and that the system of credit that had grown up under the County Courts Acts had been a very great social evil. It was with this evil that he desired to induce their Lordships to grapple. He must beg their Lordships to remember that there were two or three positions which the opponents of this measure took for granted, but which he could by no means admit. The first was that it was good and expedient in the interests of the poor man that he should retain the facilities of credit he now enjoyed. But these facilities of credit were a constant temptation to the labouring man to live beyond his means and to make him familiar with the inside of a prison. For what was the consequence? A man who was committed to gaol for debt lost his self-respect, and came out a degraded man in his own estimation. The second proposition that was assumed for granted, was that a creditor had a moral right to imprison a debtor until he had obtained payment of his debt. This he denied in toto. When the creditor came to him to ask for the imprisonment of his debtor he thought he had a right to ask him under what circumstances he had given him credit. Did he know the posi-
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tion of the debtor—that he was a working man dependent on weekly wages? Did he know anything of his habits of life—that he was suffering under the exigency of sickness or any other calamity? Did he give him credit without inquiry, and merely that he might involve him in his hooks, charging him in many cases 100 per cent for the articles supplied over and above what he need have paid if he had gone with ready money in his hand? It was the creditor who was able to undergo such an examination satisfactorily to whom he should alone be willing to give the power of pursuing the debtor to a prison. Another argument against his Bill was, that a debtor who owed £10 or £20 stood on the same footing as the man who owed £500 or £1,000. But what distinguished the case of a poor debtor from that of a rich debtor under the existing law was, that the future property of the rich debtor was not held liable for the payment of his debts, while the poor debtor was compelled to mortgage the labour of his hands for ever until he had satisfied the debt, and the law called his future earnings "ability to pay." The result was that, under the fear of imprisonment, the poor debtor was frequently obliged, when pressed by one tradesman, to run up a debt with another, in order that he might wipe off the score contracted with the first; and thus he was always under a cloud, and always on the verge of ruin. A County Court Judge wrote as follows:—
"The poor man or his wife goes to the shop, and asks for a few things, promising to pay when the weekly wages shall have been received. On the Saturday night the money is taken, and the goods are paid for; but then more goods are had; and very soon a back reckoning is left unsatisfied, the man being frequently in full employ, and with no prospect of improving his means. He is thus induced to live beyond them, and he becomes practically insolvent. Then follows the County Court summons, and the order to pay, usually by monthly instalments—say at the rate of 1s. a week. Now, consider his position. He has been accustomed to spend 1s. or 2s. a week above his income; he is now called upon, not unfrequently with an increasing family, to apply a portion of his earnings to discharge the past debt. Some few, no doubt, may extricate themselves, and wisely see the propriety of living in future within their means. Others run into debt at another shop, while the judgment debt is discharged. Others wait till the creditor takes out a judgment summons, and then comes the usual question for the Judge of the County Court, 'Has the defendant brought himself within the penal provisions of the County Court Acts?'"
Such was the legitimate effect of the

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measure for the speedy recovery of small debts, with its notoriously oppressive power of imprisonment. He would trouble their Lordships with one more illustration in regard to the case of the tallymen. In the first place, however, he wished to say that he did not mean to be indiscriminate in his remarks. Soon after the introduction of his Bill, a general meeting of dealers was held in London, at which a resolution was unanimously passed in favour of the abolition of imprisonment for debt; and he had no doubt that the main provision of the Bill was similarly approved by large numbers of the same class throughout the country. After speaking of the tallymen, the same County Court Judge from whom he had already quoted proceedcd to say—
"So much in justice to the men. Of their system of trading, however, I must speak very differently. The enormous number of poor men that it brings before the County Court is its simplest and most evident condemnation. A Return to Parliament of the number of plaints levied by this class of traders would astound the public. I have known an instance where a single hawker has taken out more than fifty summonses from one Court for the same day of hearing, They make the Court their 'debt collector,' thereby saving themselves the trouble of going for the fortnightly or monthly 6d. or 1s. to the poor man's cottage. And then, what has been so often objected to the system, their visit is usually made when the husband or father is absent at his work."
It was not the case, as their Lordships hail; been told, that a husband or father was liable to pay only when he had consented; to the order being given. If a dealer left goods in a house, although without the; knowledge of the master, and those goods were used and worn by the wife or; daughter, the man became liable notwithstanding he was no party to the ordering; of them.
LORD CHELMSFORDsaid, the man; must have seen his wife or daughter using the goods. There were other cases, however, in which the husband or father might have no knowledge whatever of the existence of the goods.
THE LORD CHANCELLORwished to confine his remark to the cases mentioned in the Returns of the County Court Judges, A recent number of The Solicitors' Journal gave a long list of cases decided in one day in a County Court, when, although it was proved that in many instances the goods had been left during the absence of the master of the house, and in some even without the consent of the wife, defendant
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after defendant was ordered to pay the debt with costs. There could be no doubt whatever that the law as it now existed was a source of much mischief, and it was idle to attempt to defend it on the ground that imprisonment was necessary for the recovery of debts. He granted that if these small debts should be encouraged, and if the creditor should have a right under every set of circumstances to put his debtor in prison, then the law should be preserved in its present condition. But he desired to know what right a man who gave credit wantonly and recklessly had to inflict injury upon society by requiring it to furnish him with the means of keeping his debtor in gaol. Under the existing system, not only was the poor debtor demoralized, but his family were pauperized, and heavy burdens were thrown upon the public. Let their Lordships consider these things, and then let them ask themselves whether it was just, moral, or expedient that such a state of things should be permitted to continue any longer. The noble and learned Lord concluded by expressing his desire that all the details of the Bill should be patiently and anxiously investigated in Committee.
THE EARL OF DERBYremarked that the noble and learned Lord had directed his observations mainly to the encouragement given by the existing law to the system of reckless credit. It was, however, under a state of law which previously existed, but which had now been abolished, that reckless credit was accompanied by the power of imprisonment. Imprisonment was at present limited to cases where the creditor was not reckless in giving credit. There were many persons who, although possessed of the means, refused to satisfy the demands of their creditors, and to whom therefore it could not be said to have been recklessly given; and these persons were justly liable to imprisonment. He believed that the power which the County Court Judges had of inflicting that penalty had had a good effect in the vast majority of cases where persons behaved in that manner, not denying their obligation, but declining to pay. He had heard of a man coming before a County Court Judge, not disputing the debt, but setting the law at defiance by a refusal to pay, while all the time he was chinking the money in his pocket. The noble and learned Lord had laid great stress on the hardship to the debtor of requiring him to pay weekly instalments out of scanty earn-

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ings; but he proposed an attachment for the wages, which operated practically in the same way on the debtor, but was further open to the objection that,- as the employer would certainly refuse to incur the trouble which such an arrangement would impose upon him, and would dismiss the debtor from his service, so that the creditor would, in fact, lose his best chance of payment.
LORD WENSLEYDALEsaid, that he had not been able to make up his mind that imprisonment could be dispensed with to the extent proposed by the noble and learned Lord. He could not think it desirable to abolish imprisonment in the case of a man who had the means of paying his debts and refused to do so.
Motion agreed to.
Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Monday next.
House adjourned at nine o'clock, to Thursday next, half past Ten o'clock.