THIRD READING. (Hansard, 11 May 1865)

§ LORD ST. LEONARDS

said, that the County Courts Bill of last Session, among other provisions, proposed to give an equitable jurisdiction to County Courts; but, after much discussion, the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack thought it right not to proceed with the measure. If that Bill had not been abandoned, some settlement might have been come to in reference to the provisions in it relating to the credit given to wives and daughters by packmen, and to the frequent commitments and re-commitments for the same trifling debt. The original object of the 107 establishment of County Courts was to provide an easy mode of recovering small debts and demands—they were a kind of courts of conscience, and the time of the Judges was frequently employed in considering what time should be given for the payment of debts of 15s. or 20s. Since their first establishment bankruptcy business had been added to the labours and duties of the Judges, and not fewer than 2,000 cases of bankruptcy had passed through their hands. At the present moment, so far as legal power was concerned, they were prohibited from entertaining any question with respect to title, or the construction of settlements and wills. The Bill now before their Lordships proposed to give them equitable jurisdiction up to a certain value; but he ventured to say that in many cases where the amount involved was not considerable, questions would be raised as important in point of law as could possibly occur in any suits brought before the higher courts of equity or law. The ground on which the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack introdued the Bill was that the costs in courts of equity in cases of small amount swallowed up the property in dispute. But it was not so much the strict costs of the suit which occasioned the great expense, but the costs resulting from the discussion of extraneous questions which ought never to have been entered upon. The County Court Judges were a learned body of men, but it was no impeachment of their ability to say that they were not competent to discharge the new functions which the Bill would throw upon them. They had never practised in equity, and they would be naturally unable to exercise this equitable jurisdiction with benefit to the suitors. Moreover, he did not think the County Court Judges could devote time enough to the adjudication of matters of equity; and he objected to the principle of taxing the suitors for the purpose of raising the salaries of the Judges. All sorts of powers were given to the Judges, and from their decisions an appeal was to be allowed to the Court of Chancery. Thus, the unhappy suitor would be compelled to begin again in the Court from which he had been ousted, and for the purposes of appeal would have to incur all the expenses of the old procedure. But his great objection to the Bill was the enormous encouragement it would give to litigation. You ought not to go round the 108 country with perambulating courts of equity, stirring up people to litigate, promising them facilities for so doing, and inducing them to resort to equity for all sorts of disputes which otherwise in all probability would be amicably settled. People were generally quite ready enough to go to law at present; and this Bill would give them the means of enforcing every fancied right in cases, nine out of ten of which would, but for the Bill, be settled without resorting to the law at all.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

regretted that his noble and learned Friend had not given credit to their Lordships for recollecting what he had said upon two former occasions. What they had the pleasure of hearing from him now they had heard at some length both on the second reading and also in the Committee on the Bill. He regretted that his noble and learned Friend had thought proper to call in question the competence and knowledge of the Judges of the County Courts. He could assure his noble and learned Friend that he had been quite misinformed upon that point. He could pledge himself to their Lordships that the County Court Judges were a body of men who would bring to the administration of justice under the Bill a large amount of knowledge, as well as great industry and care in the execution of their new jurisdiction. That the new jurisdiction was required was pretty generally admitted, and he should be most happy, provided the Bill passed, if this Session were to be productive of no other amendment of the law. Under the law as it now stood there was an absolute denial of justice to the poorer classes, because the Legislature had made no adequate provision for their case. He would not repeat the arguments he had used on a former occasion, but would content himself with expressing his hope that their Lordships would unanimously pass the Bill.