SECOND READING. (Hansard, 12 June 1877)

THE LORD CHANCELLOR,

in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, that at present a great many documents issued from the Crown Office were drawn up in a particular form of words, and were published with pertain known formalities, which had 1635 been adopted and followed for a great length of time. It was quite possible that many of these antiquated forms and usages might be altered with advantage; but, perhaps, it would not be altogether advisable to do so without the sanction of Parliament. The Bill, therefore, proposed to give to Her Majesty in Council power to frame rules prescribing the form in which the documents intended by this Bill should in future be worded, and to issue rules regulating the publication of Royal Proclamations. Among other improvements contemplated, he might mention that all statutes would be cited by their "short titles;" and statutes, Bills, persons, and other matters required to be enumerated might be given in a Schedule, instead of being included in the body of the document. A great change proposed was this—At present the Great Seal and Privy Seal were affixed to documents by the somewhat clumsy and rude arrangement of an impression made on a great lump of wax. Letters Patent more especially, of which somewhere about 100 were issued every year, were subjected to this very cumbersome and inconvenient method of affixing the Great Seal. It made the document clumsy and unhandy, and the Seal was especially liable to be defaced or broken; and their bulk made their custody a serious question. The Bill proposed to give to a Committee composed of three great Officers of State to direct impressions bearing the same decrees as the Great Seal and the Privy Seal, and either of the same size, or smaller, to be taken on embossed paper, wax, wafer, or any other material: these impressions were to be kept in the same custody as the Seals themselves, and when attached to or embossed on anydocument, would confer on that document the same validity as if it were authenticated by the Seal itself. The Committee were to provide for a record, to be kept at the Crown Office, of all Justices of the Peace appointed in pursuance of any Commission of the Peace issued by Her Majesty —for, at present, although the names of the Justices were given in the Commission, no Schedule was kept at the Crown Office; and it was also intended that space should be left in which might be inserted the names of such magistrates as might be appointed after the Commission had been issued. The Committee were to prescribe the documents to 1636 which the Wafer Great Seal and the Wafer Privy Seal were hereafter to be attached. They were to prescribe the mode in which these documents were in future to be prepared—whether to be written or printed, or partly written and partly printed, and whether on paper, parchment, or other fitting material; and it was provided that in all cases engrossing should be dispensed with, and printing as far as possible adopted in place of writing.