LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHasked the noble Earl (the Earl of Dalhousie), who had charge of the Bill, if he was now able to give an explanation to the question formerly put regarding the scale of costs which the Bill sought to enact in the Schedule, and which seemed inconsistent with the 4th clause of the Bill, laying it down that the maximum costs should not exceed £1?
THE EARL OF DALHOUSIEsaid, the explanation was that where the costs, according to the scale laid down in the Schedule, exceeded the maximum, the defendant would not be liable for more than that amount, and the surplus would have to be paid by the prosecution.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHsaid, the explanation did not in any way remove the objections he had to this enactment. It seemed a very extraordinary thing that a Bill was to be passed by this House limiting the amount which the defendant had to pay to £1, and mulcting the prosecutor, the injured party, in whatever extra amount of costs was incurred. While it was desirable to keep down costs when the amount of fine imposed was very trivial, yet why the defendant, who had been convicted, should be released at the expense of the prosecutor, was really an enactment which altogether passed his comprehension to understand. He hoped that before the House would consent to that they would have something in the nature of a justification of this curious enactment.
§ LORD WATSONsaid, he hoped the Government would re-consider this suggestion. On referring to the precise terms of the Bill, which was one of a useful character, defining the limits of costs, which were sometimes excessive in these summary prosecutions in Scotland, he found that there was a table of fees, according to which agents were to be paid for conducting those cases. If there were two witnesses, by the smallest scale of expenses the prosecutor's charges out of pocket would amount to £1 12s. 6d. The smallest possible expenses under this Bill would be about £l 5s., and yet it provided that in no instance whatever, when the penalty did not exceed £3, the prosecutor should be entitled to more than £1 of expenses. In short, the Bill enacted that while it was a fair and reasonable thing that the prosecutor should pay on a low scale of charges a sum of £1 10s. 6d., he should only recover £l, or, in other words, he should pay one-half or one-third of the whole costs. A Bill of this sort was always attended with a certain degree of danger. It was a proper thing to cut down the expenses of the law agents who charged too much for certain species of work; but there was a danger of laying down a hard-and-fast rule as to maximum expenses that put it in the power of persons liable to penalties—who were not acting independently, but as members of associations, and who were, therefore, furnished with ample funds for their own defence, or in cases of land and river poaching, offences against the Factory Acts, and others—to harass the prosecutors by protracting the proceedings, leading a great deal of evidence, and so involving them in expenses to the amount of £5 or £6, even according to this scale, so that when the penalty was inflicted the prosecutor would find that he had four or five times as much to pay as the defendant. He suggested that the 4th clause should be re-framed in terms that would prevent such a possibility.
THE EARL OF DALHOUSIEsaid, this was a legal Bill, to discuss which would require considerable legal knowledge on his part. As the noble and learned Lord gave no Notice of the Amendment, he asked him to be good enough to put it on the Paper.
THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDONsaid, he could not agree that to discuss the proposition of his noble 213 and learned Friend required any legal knowledge. It was a practical matter on which their Lordships were perfectly able to give a judgment; and he believed the Lord Chancellor was well able to deal with it without the noble Earl consulting the Law Officers of the Crown.
§ Report of Amendment (which stands appointed for this day) put off to Tuesday next.