§ Amendments reported (according to Order).
§
Clause 18 (Salaries of future Judges). An Amendment moved, page 11, line 4, after "assizes" insert—
Provided always that nothing herein contained shall affect such rights to remuneration in respect of any adjourned assizes as the existing Lord Chief Justice, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and Lord Chief Baron possessed before the passing of this Act."—(The Lord Chancellor.)
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Clause 78 (Transfer of existing staff of officers to Court of Judicature).
§
Amendment moved, page 45, line 34, after "to" insert—
Provided also that if any such officer appointed before the passing of this Act shall be so released without his consent he shall continue to receive his full salary."—(The Lord Chancellor.)
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ LORD O'HAGANsaid, that he had given Notice of some Amendments in this and the next clause, but as it had been intimated to him by his noble and learned Friend that they would not be accepted, he would refrain from moving them. He admitted that the Bill had been improved by the Amendments already accepted. The paragraphs which had been introduced, and the last concession of the Lord Chancellor, appeared to secure the vested rights of existing officers, which certainly would have been put in serious peril by the Bill as it originally stood; and other valuable changes were secured, although not all 764 that he had desired to obtain. Still, he had thought that he ought to bring forward again on Report some Amendments which he had before proposed, but which had been rejected, in the hope that even at that stage of the Bill the Government might have been induced to re-consider and adopt them. They were aimed to prevent the intervention of the Treasury in matters which he (Lord O'Hagan) thought it should not be permitted to meddle; to assimilate more closely the Bill with the English Act, and to secure more perfectly the rights, not only of existing, but of future officers. He regretted to say that he had had an intimation of the resolution of the Government to concede no more. It would be utterly idle to attempt in that House again to press his Amendments, which, no doubt, did to some extent affect the Treasury and Treasury affairs. He must, then, content himself with repeating his sense of the importance of these additional proposals, notwithstanding the improvements the Bill had already undergone, and expressing a hope that when the Bill went to the other House, where the whole financial bearings of the measure could be discussed, they would receive consideration and acceptance.
THE EARL OF BELMOREsaid, he was glad that these Amendments had been made by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack to the Bill, for as it previously stood it had created some angry feelings in Ireland.
§ Further Amendments made, and Bill to be read 3a on Thursday next.