§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
§ LORD ABERDARE, after presenting four Petitions from, solicitors in favour of and against the measure, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, it seemed to him to be the natural and logical outcome of the legislation in the direction of important reforms for the better administration of the law which for the last 30 years had been carried out. These reforms had never been made Party questions, but had been supported by both sides of the House; and notably by the Lord Chancellor and the noble and learned Earl who preceded him (Earl Cairns). Not the least important of those reforms was that which abolished the distinctions which formerly prevailed between doctors and proctors on the one side and barristers and solicitors on the other. Now, they had established one High Court of Justice and one general body of practitioners. In the same way, the object of the present Bill was to get rid of the separation at present existing between the professional duties of solicitors and notaries. The duties of a notary were such as could be duly and properly discharged by duly admitted solicitors, although, as regarded their Profession, they were officers of great antiquity. In old times they were appointed by the Pope, and since the Reformation by the Archbishop of Canterbury. In Scotland, where the Reformation was of a more extreme character, the appointments were transferred to the Lords of Session and the Writers to the Signet. There certainly was no reason in these days, whatever there might have been in the past, for the exercise of such a jurisdiction by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The present duties of notaries he found to be divisible into six parts—the first was protesting bills of exchange and promissory notes; secondly, drawing shipping protests; thirdly, entering statements and preparing certi- 140 ficates in shipping matters; fourthly, the control of foreign bonds and similar instruments; fifthly, translating documents; and, sixthly, giving advice on questions of foreign law. There were three classes of notaries—those who resided within three miles of the Royal Exchange; those who resided between three miles and ten from that locality; and those who resided outside the last-mentioned limit. Of the first class, he found there were 33 practising members; of the second, only three; of the third, there were 12 notaries proper; but in addition several hundred solicitors. The functions of these gentlemen were defined in three Acts of Parliament—the Public Notaries Act, 1801, and the Public Notaries Acts, 1833 and 1843. The present system caused great inconvenience to solicitors who did not practise within a mile of the Exchange, and to solicitors and merchants in the Provinces—for instance, at Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Swansea, and other important seaports. He had a Petition from solicitors at Liverpool in favour of the Bill which put the case very clearly, and recited the inconveniences caused by the present system. They stated that the reason which formerly existed for the separation of solicitors and notaries had long ceased to exist, and the duties were wholly such as could be well discharged by solicitors. Admitting that the City of London was well served by the notaries, he doubted whether notaries in the large Provincial towns, who were appointed without much examination, were quite so satisfactory. The Bill proposed that the power of appointing persons to perform the duties of notaries should be transferred from the Archbishop of Canterbury, and that any person who had obtained from, the Incorporated Law Society a certificate that he had passed a notarial examination, and any person who had been admitted a solicitor and produced a certificate that he had served with a notary, could apply to the Master of the Rolls for admission to the roll of notaries, who should thereupon make the appointment. He might be allowed to state that the late Master of the Rolls expressed himself in favour of the Bill. In 1877, he submitted to their Lordships a Bill for transferring from Her Majesty's Judges to the Incorporated Law Society the duty of conducting the 141 examinations of solicitors. He might say, without any imputation on Her Majesty's Judges, that up to that time the examinations had been, performed in a very perfunctory manner; but in the course of the last seven years an immense improvement had been effected, and the Incorporated Law Society had shown an ardent desire to purify the Legal Profession. They knew exactly what was required in the profession of a notary, and would impose on candidates an examination. This, he believed, had never been done by the notaries themselves, except, perhaps, very recently since the present Bill had been floating in the air. Perhaps the noble Earl who had given Notice of his intention to move the rejection of the Bill would be able to inform their Lordships what kind of an examination had been lately instituted. At all events, it was only within the last year or two that there had been any examination at all. The next provision in the Bill was that the rights of existing notaries should be saved, and compensation was given to the officials of the Court of Faculties. The Bill did not apply to the Colonies. The examinations of candidates for the office of notary would be vested in the Incorporated Law Society, and there would be a Registrar of Public Notaries, and the roll or book would be open for inspection at all reasonable hours without the payment of fees. No persons would be allowed to act as notaries unless they were duly admitted and enrolled. He would now move the second reading of the Bill, and, in doing so, would ask their Lordships to pass it, as giving effect to principles which had been accepted over and over again.
§ Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Lord Aberdare.)
THE EARL OF MILLTOWN, in moving that the Bill be read a second time that day six months, said, that it proposed that every solicitor should be admitted as a notary without any examination, and every notary a solicitor. He opposed the second reading on the grounds—first, because it was unnecessary; second, because it was uncalled for; and third, because it would be mischievous. There was no public demand for the measure, and no compensation was proposed to be given to the notaries 142 whose office was intended to be abolished. When the proctors had their rights taken away they were given ample compensation; and, why should the notaries have their rights taken away, with no compensation whatever? At present, the London notaries had to pass an exhaustive examination in the general and elementary principles of the law of real property, of mercantile law, and of International Law, and the principal work of the public notaries' office. Notaries were of great use to the commercial public, and they held that the Bill was utterly unnecessary. If the office were thrown open to all solicitors the greatest possible confusion and inconvenience would be thereby created in the machinery of the mercantile world. Inasmuch as notaries were required to be familiar with the commercial technicalities of all the European languages, it was absurd to suppose that any ordinary solicitor was capable of performing this function. It would be a great misfortune if, in this City, which was the commercial capital of the world, this most valuable professional class were practically abolished. Even without adducing any other arguments, he thought it was almost sufficient to say that the Bill had been petitioned against by the merchants, bankers, and traders of the City of London, who would be the chief sufferers in the event of the existing law not acting in a satisfactory manner. He also protested against the outrageous proposal, which was simply a coarse bribe to the notaries to accept the Bill, that all notaries were to be made solicitors without passing any examination or paying any fees. It took five years' apprenticeship and the passing of two severe examinations to qualify a candidate to practise as a solicitor; and yet it was now proposed, by a clause in a Bill, to qualify a number of gentlemen who might be utterly ignorant of even the rudiments of their Profession. With regard to the nominal jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury, if they were beginning de novo, they would probably not now create it; but it had existed ever since the Reformation, without any complaint being brought against it; and in the absence of abuse there was no reason for abolishing an old and time-honoured institution. The noble Earl concluded by moving the rejection, of the Bill.
§ Amendment moved, to leave out ("now") and add at the end of the Motion ("this day six months.")—(The Earl of Milltown.)
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, he did not think sufficient reason had been shown by the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Milltown) for rejecting the Bill. Of course, if the noble Earl had shown that it would, in action, prove mischievous, that would have been an answer to the Bill, and would have justified its rejection; but that had not been shown; and, putting it aside, the other grounds of objection to the measure—namely, that the Bill was unnecessary and uncalled for, were purely matters for argument, and rested mainly on the views which people interested in and having knowledge of the subject took of it. He would admit, as a matter of fact, that, as far as he had been able to ascertain, there did not seem to be any large public demand for the measure; but it came before Parliament on the recommendation of the Incorporated Law Society—a Body whose services to the public were certainly entitled to grateful recognition. He could not, however, but think that their Lordships must regard it as a singular anomaly that a Body, exercising important legal functions, in connection more especially with Commercial Law, should be in London under the control of the Scriveners' Company, and elsewhere under the control of an officer. The ecclesiastical jurisdiction in all other civil matters, both in testamentary and in matrimonial causes, having been already abolished by law, it seemed to him (the Lord Chancellor) to be a little out of date that such an officer should have the superintendence of public notaries, rather than, as was proposed by the Bill, the Master of the Rolls, who would, with regard to them, be put in the same position as he already occupied with respect to solicitors. He thought it would be advisable to change an obsolete system by placing the notaries under the jurisdiction of the Master of the Rolls, and that the business of the necessary examination might be left with perfect safety in the hands of the Incorporated Law Society, who were really the Body now fulfilling those functions with respect to legal practitioners which, in the Reign of James I., may have been con- 144 sidered to belong to the Scriveners' Company. On the whole, though granting that there were provisions in the Bill that required consideration in Committee, he did not think any sufficient reason had been advanced for its rejection.
§ EARL CAIRNSsaid, he had examined the Bill very carefully, and he had listened carefully to the reasons given in support of it; but lie was bound to say that he could not persuade himself that any case whatever had been made out for the passing of this measure. It was said that its object was to remove certain anomalies existing in a branch of the Legal Profession, and that it was a very anomalous thing that the Archbishop of Canterbury should be the official person to admit notaries to practise. He (Earl Cairns) did not suppose, if they had to begin again, they should have selected him; but there it was, and the question was, had it done any harm? It was said that this Bill was promoted by the Incorporated Law Society. He wished to speak of that Society with respect; but it was unfortunate that the Society had certain professional prejudices; and although a measure, introduced with the sanction of the Government, for intrusting the appointment of notaries to the Master of the Rolls, and providing for an admission examination, would be entitled to fair consideration, yet the main object of the Bill was to transfer what, for the reasons which had been given, was an exclusive Profession—that of the practice of notaries—to the body of solicitors at large. That Profession and that practice wore, at present, open; there was no power of excluding anyone from them; but it was not found worth while for more than 36 people in the City of London to enter them. But it was worth their while. They made it pay. The leading members among bankers and men of business came forward to say that at present they were very well satisfied with the arrangement that existed, and they preferred it to the one suggested by the Bill. Was it possible that they were going to be asked to fly in the face of the merchants and bankers of the City of London by throwing open the business of a notary to every solicitor in the country? The suggestion was monstrous. That of the merchants and bankers was not the only testimony he had received against the pro- 145 posed innovation; even the solicitors of the City themselves, largely concerned in mercantile matters, to the number of 115, had expressed an opinion unfavourable to the transfer, and had signed a document to that effect; and among those names were many of the most considerable and eminent firms in the City. They came forward, not in, but against, their own interests—for the work at present performed by the notaries would come to them if the Bill were passed—to say the scheme was inexpedient and impracticable; and he ventured to agree in that proposition. It was quite impossible that the ordinary solicitor could, with any safety, undertake the duties in question, requiring, as they did, the most accurate and intimate knowledge of foreign languages, foreign law, and of commercial matters, with reference particularly to bills of sale and bills of lading; and to transfer that work to other hands which were not thoroughly well experienced would be a most dangerous thing to do. It had been suggested that there was no force in the argument of the noble Earl (the Earl of Milltown), who, in moving the rejection of the Bill, said that it would be to the interest of the notary, being also the solicitor, to foster litigation, because many notaries at present were solicitors. That was true, but they were not the solicitors to the cause; and, without desiring to impute motives, he thought it better that the two offices should be kept apart. Then, too, some claim for compensation might be urged on the part of the notaries, if the Government were going to hand over their businees to the whole of the practising solicitors. The Bill was not asked for—it was deprecated; no one wanted it except the Incorporated Law Society, who were the persons who would benefit by it; and, under these circumstances, he would oppose a second reading of it.
§ On Question, "That ('now') stand part of the Motion?"
§ Their Lordships divided:—Contents 30; Not-Contents 92: Majority 62.
§ Resolved in the negative.
§ Bill to be read 2a this day six months.