COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 14 May 1866)

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
said, that when the Bill was before the House on a previous occasion he said-that he regarded the principle of the Bill as a sound one, inasmuch as it proposed to assimilate the law in Ireland on the subject with which it dealt with that of England; but he had subsequently received communications from Ireland which led him to entertain serious doubts as to the expediency of passing the measure. In that country the Society of the King's Inns was presided over, and had been for more than two centuries, by the Lord Chancellor, all the Judges, a certain number of Queen's Counsel, and other distinguished legal functionaries, who exercised authority not only over the Bar, but also over the attorneys and solicitors. Unlike the case of England, solicitors might be members of the Society of the King's Inns just in the same way as barristers; proper lecture-rooms were provided for them, and lectures given, and they paid a certain sum to the Society in return for the accommodation thus afforded. The present Bill, however, proposed to do away with that system, and to take away from the Society, as now constituted, the funds out of which the lecturers were re- 853 munerated. The proposal was one, he could assure his noble and learned Friend (Lord Chelmsford), which was regarded with considerable dissatisfaction by the Judges and high legal functionaries in Ireland, and it was, under the circumstances, one which he did not feel himself justified in supporting.

§ LORD CHELMSFORD
said, that when he undertook the charge of the Bill he was under the impression that there would be no opposition to it, and he was surprised to learn that it was looked upon with disfavour by the Benchers of the King's Inns and other distinguished legal functionaries in Ireland. When his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack informed him that such was the case and furnished him with the Report of the Committee of Education of the King's Inns, which put forward the objections of that Society, he felt disposed to withdraw from the Bill altogether, But on reflection he deemed it to be his duty not to do so unless he found that the opposition to it was well founded; and he was bound to state that although the Report of the Committee of Education of the King's Inns had attached to it the signatures of the Lord Chancellor and Lord Justice Blackburne, he did not think it furnished any conclusive argument against the proposal which he asked their Lordships to sanction. The Society of the King's Inns was not, he might add, established by charter or by Act of Parliament, but constituted a purely voluntary association, of which the Benchers were the governing body. There was also an Incorporated Law Society, composed of solicitors and attorneys, in Ireland, as in England, but all the solicitors were obliged to become members of the King's Inns; but had never for more than a century been permitted to form part of the governing body (which was self-elective), although they paid fees amounting to more than double the sum paid by the same class of persons in this country. They had, in fact, no share whatever in the management of the affairs of the Society, and no control over the administration of its funds. The original constitution of the King's Inns, it was also necessary to state, gave the Society no authority over the solicitors, and it was not until 1710 that it began to exercise that authority. In the year 1792 the Society obtained a charter giving them certain powers over Attorneys, which they had long exercised in fact, and that charter was confirmed by 854 Act of Parliament; but so strong an opposition to that charter was raised both by the Bar and the solicitors that the Act was in the following year repealed, and the Society reverted to its original condition—that of a voluntary association. The Benchers, notwithstanding that, however, made in 1794 rules and regulations for attorneys, founded, not upon any legal right, but upon long usage, and among the other regulations laid down was one to the effect that every person who was admitted as a solicitor should become a member of the Society, and should pay certain fees. Those fees were exacted from them from 1794 to 1838, when a question was raised as to the legality of the exaction, and it was pronounced by Mr. Serjeant Warren (himself a Bencher,) to whom the case was submitted, to be his opinion that the Society of the King's Inns was a mere voluntary society, and that the Benchers were not entitled to exercise control over attorneys or their apprentices, except in so far as they, by becoming members of the Society, had subjected themselves to its rules and ordinances. The Benchers, however, still continued to require that all attorneys should be members of their Society; they took fees as before on the admission of apprentices; and from a Return which had been made to the House of Commons in 1856, it appeared that the total amount of the fees received by the Society from attorneys between 1794 and that year was no less than £87,000. What did the Benchers of the King's Inns do for that large sum which they had received from the Attorneys? They certainly gave them a building called the Solicitors' Buildings in the Four Courts; and probably they had laid out in its erection about half the money they had obtained from the Solicitors. But they had another most important duty to perform—namely, to make regulations for the training and education of apprentices, and to institute an examination for the purpose of seeing that they were duly qualified before they were admitted as attorneys. In their Report the Benchers said they had done that duty—that, in addition to the making of general regulations for the binding of apprentices, they now maintained and had maintained for years a Professor for the purpose of delivering lectures, and an Examiner for conducting the legal examination of apprentices before they were admitted to the profession. The words "for years" almost necessarily implied that for a very 855 long time that course had been adopted; but the fact was that from the year 1794 down to 1860 there was no provision whatever made for the examination or the instruction of those apprentices. In 1846 a Committee of the House of Commons inquired into the state of legal education in Ireland, and in their Report they said that for the solicitor's apprentice there was not any opportunity afforded for obtaining a legal education; that he was treated chiefly as a mechanical agent for carrying out the practical processes of the profession; and that consequently whatever higher or more comprehensive education he might acquire, he owed almost exclusively to himself. Master Lyle, in his evidence before this Committee, said— No attendance at a University, a college, or any other institution was required; no course of legal lectures was insisted upon; and his attendance at the Courts of Law need only be of a purely formal nature. The present Judge Longfield being asked whether he would exempt the solicitors from the payment of fees to King's Inns, answered— Yes; that he thought there was no fair object in requiring them to pay them; and that he could not see on what principles of justice solicitors should be obliged to pay fees to an institution from which they derived no benefit. In 1855 the Solicitors presented a memorial to the Benchers of the King's Inns praying them to make some arrangement for the examination of apprentices applying for admission to practice, and calling their attention to the fact that no course of studies was prescribed. In their reply the Benchers admitted that they had failed to devise a plan of that kind; and they added that the only course by which that could be done was by establishing law lectures—a proceeding which the state of the Society's funds rendered impossible. At last the Solicitors got a Motion made in the House of Commons for a Committee of Inquiry into the subject. That Motion was vehemently opposed by the Benchers, and it was only after the Committee of Inquiry was granted, that in 1860 that Institution appointed for the first time a Professor with a salary of £100, and an Examiner with a salary of £30. So that the whole sum voted by the Benchers of the King's Inns for the purpose of legal instruction, which was so essential, was only £130 per annum; whereas from the year 1794 down to 1856, the Solicitors had contributed to their funds no less a sum 856 than £87,000; and this was the way in which the Benchers had discharged their duties to the Solicitors. Scanty as the provision was it was only extracted from them after long years of patient endurance. Yet, in their Report, the Benchers claim credit for having discharged their duties properly, and maintained that it would be quite wrong to take away from them powers which had been so well exercised. But their authority having commenced in usurpation, the duties which it involved had been entirely neglected. But the Solicitors of Ireland were not desirous of withdrawing themselves altogether from control; all they sought was to place themselves in precisely the same position as their brethren in England occupied. In England the solicitors were under the control, first of all, of rules and regulations made by the three Chief Justices and the Master of the Bolls. Examiners were appointed by the Incorporated Law Society, who examined candidates for admission to the profession. What the attorneys of Ireland proposed was that they should be placed under rules and regulations framed by the Lord Chancellor, the three Chief Justices, and the Master of the Bolls before indenture and before admission, and that they should be examined by the Examiners of the Incorporated Law Society. He did not know why the Benchers of the King's Inns should be so extremely desirous of retaining their powers over the Solicitors, unless it was on account of the large fees which they had so long obtained from them. The Solicitors had little imagined that there would be any objection to that measure. In answer to a letter addressed to him on the subject, Mr. Serjeant Armstrong, one of the Benchers, promised that the Bill should have every aid in his power. With such strong evidence before him, therefore, he (Lord Chelmsford) did not feel warranted in abandoning the measure, and he trusted their Lordships would now pass it through Committee.

§ THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH
said, he knew nothing of the Bill except what he had just heard from the two noble and learned Lords; but if, as had been stated, the Benchers of the King's Inns had no legal right to collect these fees, and yet the Bill transferred them from one body to another, that would be giving to them a Parliamentary recognition, and would have the effect of creating a new text.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
said, that 857 after the speech of his noble and learned Friend (Lord Chelmsford) he would no further say anything against the Bill; as it seemed to him that his noble and learned Friend had made out a case fully justifying its introduction.