Sitting of 9 February 1854

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILL.—3° Assessed Taxes Act Amendment.

THE KINGSTON-UPON-HULL BRIBERY COMMISSION—QUESTION.
MR. WILSON PATTENsaid, that during the last Session of Parliament a Commission, consisting of three barristers, was appointed to inquire into the existence of corrupt practices in the borough of Kingston-upon-Hull. During the recess the Commission had presented their Report, upon an examination of which he found that the enormous number of 2,000 pages was devoted to the investigation alone; that the weight of the Report, as furnished to the Houses of Parliament, was 11 tons 6 cwt.; that 82,000 questions had been put to the different witnesses; and that the cost of printing this one Report for the two Houses of Parliament alone was 1,750 l. It appeared that the examination of witnesses occupied fifty-seven days, and that there were besides a great number of days occupied in compiling the Report from the evidence. Under these circumstances, he wished to ask his hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department whether any questions had been put to the Commissioners as to the circumstances which in their opinion rendered it necessary to put the country to this enormous expense?
MR. J. WILSONsaid, that he believed hon. Gentleman's question would have been properly put to him, because the investigation of the accounts in connexion with these matters was devolved upon the Treasury by Act of Parliament. He could assure the House that every care had been taken to investigate the case thoroughly, and that every power committed to the Treasury had been employed

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to mark their disapprobation of the excessive expenditure which had taken place. The Act of Parliament devolved upon the Treasury the duty of fixing the remuneration to be given to the Commissioners for the performance of their duties; and this, in accordance with the rule which had been followed in previous cases, had been fixed at five guineas a day during the time the Commissioners were employed in the discharge of the duties entrusted to them. Besides this, a sum of 50 l. had in other cases been given to the Commissioners for the preparation of the Report. It was, however, entirely optional with the Treasury to allow this sum; and, thinking that the amount which the public had to pay was already excessive, they had refused to allow the 50 l. to each Commissioner for the preparation of the Report. He should, however, mention that the Report was signed by only two out of the three Commissioners, and that these two exercised all their influence in endeavouring to bring the inquiry to an early conclusion. They were, however, frustrated in this attempt by the opposition of the other Commissioner, whose resignation, he believed, was caused by the determination on the part of the two gentlemen who signed the Report not to proceed further with the inquiry than they deemed necessary.
MR. HUMEsaid, that he had been requested by certain parties, who thought that the third Commissioner was the only person who had done his duty, to move for, the Report which he had drawn up. He wished, therefore, to ask the hon. Under Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the Government had any intention of producing this second Report, which he understood would occupy an additional folio volume.
MR. FITZROYsaid, that the Report of one Commissioner could not be presented to the House as the Report of the Commission appointed to inquire into the existence of corrupt practices at Kingston-upon-Hull, there being already before the House a Report signed by two Commissioners out of the three. The Report signed by the other, in his individual capacity, could not be laid upon the table.

SPAIN AND THE SLAVE-TRADE TREATIES —QUESTION.
MR. HUMEsaid, he wished to ask the noble Lord the Member for the City of London whether there would be any objection to lay before the House copies of any
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correspondence which might have taken place between our Government and that of Spain, Portugal, the United States, and other countries, respecting the slave trade to and in Cuba, since the Report of the Committee of last Session on Slave-Trade Treaties was laid before the House?
LORD JOHN RUSSELL: With regard to what has been done since the Report of the Committee, I have only to state that, in consequence of the conduct of the late Governor General of Cuba, of which Her Majesty's Government had great reason to complain, very strong remonstrances were made to the Spanish Government with reference to the course which he pursued. Since these remonstrances the late Governor General had been displaced, a new one had been appointed, and so far as his first measure had gone, there was some appearance of amendments in the conduct of the Spanish authorities in Cuba. It would not, I think, be useful to give the correspondence which took place at the present time; nor, indeed, is it usual to give it until a more advanced period of the Session. It may, indeed, become advisable to anticipate that period, but at present Her Majesty's Government think that it is better to wait and see what is the conduct of the new Governor General, and whether he carries out the promises which have been given with respect to an improved course of conduct in this respect.

THE PROTESTANT BURIAL GROUND AT MADRID—QUESTION.
MR. MONCKTON MILNESsaid, he wished to ask the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) whether he had any objection to lay before the House the correspondence which had taken place between the British Government and that of the Queen of Spain on the subject of a Protestant burial ground at Madrid?
LORD JOHN RUSSELL: The correspondence which has taken place is to this effect:—In reply to the representations of the British Government, the Spanish Ministry stated that a Protestant burial ground would be permitted, and also that it might be enclosed in any manner which the British Government should think proper. Plans were accordingly prepared by the Board of Works, and steps are now being taken to enclose a burial ground in the manner decided upon. According to the Spanish law, it is not permitted to have any of the ceremonies of Protestant worship carried on either in that burial ground

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or in any other place. But I am given to understand that there will not be any interference with the conduct of Protestants within this enclosure; and, therefore, my hon. Friend will see that the funerals will be carried on with decency, and in the manner usual in an English burial ground. There will be no objection to produce the correspondence which has passed on the subject, if my hon. Friend likes to move for it on a future day.

THE IRISH CONSTABULARY—QUESTION.
LORD CLAUD HAMILTONsaid, he begged to ask the right hon. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether any new duties had been imposed on the Irish constabulary since the last Session of Parliament; and particularly whether they had been associated with the revenue police in the duty of enforcing the revenue laws, and of aiding in the detection of illicit distillation? Also, whether, in the event of no change having been already effected, it was at present the intention of the Government to make any such alteration in the duties of the constabulary as that to which he had alluded?
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that the Government had not found it necessary to impose any new duties, properly so called, upon the Irish constabulary. It was true that an order, originally made in 1842, had been reissued, with some amendments; but what his noble Friend meant by new duties had not been imposed on the police. With regard to the intentions of the Government in relation to the employment of the police in enforcing the revenue laws, they were at present standing over for further consideration. The truth was, that no necessity had yet arisen for making any change in the duties of this force; while there were reasons which rendered it expedient to postpone such a step. He was glad to be able to state that the collection of the additional duty on spirits imposed last Session had proceeded in the most satisfactory manner, nor did he think that there had ever been a period when there was less illicit distillation in Ireland than at present.

CLAIMS AGAINST THE PORTUGUESE GOVERNMENT.
MR. T. CHAMBERSsaid, he begged to move for a Select Committee to investigate the claims of Messrs. Yuille, Short-ridge, and Co., against the Portuguese Government for compensation for losses incurred by them through a breach of treaty on the part of that Government.
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He would briefly state the circumstances under which he asked that inquiry should be made into the grievances of which he complained. Messrs. Yuille, Shortridge, and Co. were wine merchants carrying on business in Mark-lane, London, who for nearly 100 years had had an establishment in the island of Madeira, having set up that establishment and invested their capital, as all other British merchants did, on the faith of a treaty which had existed for many years with the Government of Portugal. In 1826 a member of this firm acting on its behalf gave a bond for upwards of 21,000 l. to a Portuguese subject of the name of Oliveira, and shortly afterwards an action was instituted upon that bond, in which the firm of Yuille, Shortridge, and Co. were made the defendants. That action was commenced in the Conservatorial Court, to which the defendants were amenable, and which had jurisdiction in the case under the treaty of 1654, then in force between this country and Portugal. In November, 1830, judgment was given in this Court of the Conservador at Madeira in favour of the defendants. From that judgment an appeal was entered to the Court of Senators at Lisbon, the only Court of appeal which had jurisdiction over British, subjects under the treaty to which he had alluded, which confirmed the decision of the Court at Madeira. But these were not decisions on the actual merits of the case, but on a point of form. Subsequently, in 1836, a fresh action was instituted in the same Court at Madeira, and a like judgment was given in favour of the defendants on the merits of the case. From that judgment the plaintiff appealed, not to the Court of Senators at Lisbon, which is a Court of second resort, but to a Court of first resort, a Court to which British subjects were not amenable, it being a civil and not a commercial Court. In that Court also the judgment was in favour of the defendants, whereupon the plaintiff took an appeal to the Court to which he should first have appealed—the Court of Senators, or Relaçao Civil, at Lisbon. After some time that Court decided again in favour of the defendants on the merits of the action, confirming the decision of the Conservatorial Court at Madeira, with costs. In February, 1838, after these actions had gone on for seven years and a half, Messrs. Yuille, Shortridge, and Co., having had time decision of all the Courts to which they were amenable in their favour, of course thought the whole transaction at an end, and that under the

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treaty of 1654 it was impossible that they should be dragged into any other Court. Yet, on the 6th December, 1838, immediately after this final judgment against him, Oliveira, appealed to the Supreme Court for the review of the sentences passed by the Commercial Courts—thus, in fact, taking the very step against which the treaty of 1654 was intended to protect British merchants. Ten years after the first action was brought, and when four consecutive judgments in favour of these British subjects had been given, this Court, which had declared in 1835 that it could have no cognisance of the matter, at length, in December, 1838, decided that the bond was null and void, giving judgment, nevertheless, against the defendants for 10,000 l., and interest thereon, for which in fact they had never been sued. The plaintiff hurried over to Madeira to take possession, under an execution on this judgment, of the property of these British merchants, but our Ambassador at Lisbon, Lord Howard de Walden, stated the real nature of the case to the Portuguese Government, and Her Majesty's ship Trinculo was at once despatched from the Tagus with orders to atop the enforcement of the execution, which had consequently not been carried out. The defendants then entered an appeal from the Relaçao Civil to the Supreme Court, not admitting its jurisdiction, but at the direct instigation of Her Majesty's Government and under protest; and after a negotiation carried on between the British Ambassador and the Portguese Foreign Minister. Meanwhile, a demurrer was put in to stay the execution in Madeira, and being allowed by the Judge Conservador, the plaintiff appealed against it, and at length a judgment was pronounced at Lisbon, annulling all proceedings, and remitting both parties to their original rights, after twelve years harassing litigation. On the 26th July, 1844, the Supreme Court confirmed this judgment of the Relaçao Civil; meantime there was an appeal about the proceedings at Madeira, and in November, 1843, the Relaçao Civil overruled the decision of the Judge Conservador, and decided that he should allow execution to issue. On the 19th February, 1848, after several other appeals had been brought with different issues, the case came again before the Relaçao Civil at Lisbon, and a decree passed to enforce execution on the property in Madeira. In 1848 these proceedings were terminated by the death of the plaintiff, whose heirs disputed about the inheritance,
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and that was the only reason why this execution had not been put in force on the property of Messrs. Yuille, Shortridge, and Co. The complainants said, that at a moderate estimate, the loss they had been part to through these vexatious and illegal proceedings amounted to at least 100,000 l.; in point of fact they were utterly ruined as to their Madeira house. He had in his hand copies of all the proceedings in this case, of the correspondence which had taken place with Lord Howard de Walden, and of all that was essential to a knowledge of the circumstances; and he had no hesitation in saying that these parties had been ruined by a clear breach of treaty between this country and Portugal; and, further, that it was not their fault that they had been so ruined, as they had acted on the advice of the Government of this country and with a view to relieve them from embarrassment. He had before him the distinct admission of Lord Howard de Walden that a breach of treaty had been committed, and a request from him that the petitioners, instead of treating the matter as a breach of treaty, would allow the appeal to be entered in the Supreme Court, and that care would be taken that that Court decided properly. There was not a doubt, indeed, that the Government had concluded that this was a grievous wrong carried on against these parties from 1838 down to the present time. The Government had sent a ship to stay execution against them, on the ground that it had been illegally granted, and they interfered in various other ways in behalf of the defendants; but the latter complained that, though they had interfered, their interests were not protected. He asked for a Select Committee to inquire, and say whether these things were true. What had the parties done to forfeit their rights to efficient protection? They acknowledged, in terms of extreme praise and gratitude, the attention which had been paid to their remonstrances, but they complained that the interference which had taken place was of no effect whatever. The noble Lord now at the Home Office, when at the head of Foreign Affairs, stated that he would hold the Portuguese Government liable for the loss sustained by these parties; but here they were, nevertheless, without any redress. Portugal was notorious for her breaches of treaty; but he hoped that in this instance at least justice would be done. He might state that subjects of Spain had been admitted to similar privileges with as in Portugal, and that, in the

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midst of all this wrong being inflicted on these petitioners, a Spanish subject was taken into a Court to which he was not amenable, and this very same Court that refused to give the protection of the treaty to British subjects gave that protection—he knew not under what influence—to a subject of the Crown of Spain. He had no doubt, from the facts he had mentioned, and from the documents to which he had referred, and which the House also had the means of perusing, that it would be evident a great act of injustice and wrong had been committed, and that, under all the circumstances of the case, the House would be of opinion that a Select Committee ought to be appointed to examine into the matter, in order, if necessary, to afford such redress and relief as might, upon inquiry, appear to be equitable and just.
MR. HORSFALL, in seconding the Motion, said, that he did so, not merely out of consideration to the firm of Yuille, Shortridge, and Co., but as involving a question of general commercial interest. The facts of the case, as disclosed by the hon. and learned Member, appeared to him to make out a charge which embodied a great breach of treaties on the part of Portugal with Great Britain, and which would establish, if allowed to pass over unnoticed, precedents of a most ruinous nature to the great prejudice of this country. He would not follow the hon. and learned Member through all the facts which he had stated, but would merely say, that it appeared to him that no country in the world had received more benefits from England than Portugal had, and yet no country had been guilty of more ingratitude in every way toward us. Portugal had received from this country, in principal and interest, since the treaties of 1815, no less a sum than 2,850,000 l., in order to induce her to suppress the slave trade, and the means she had adopted to carry out such suppression were patent to the world. The commander of the Castor frigate, recently employed in the Mozambique channel, stated that the Portuguese authorities on that coast were themselves concerned in it. With respect to a country like Portugal, Government had not only the right of seeing but was bound to see that the promises which she deliberately made she also faithfully fulfilled. He was no advocate for Her Majesty's Government interfering unnecessarily to collect private debts incurred in the ordinary course of business transac-
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tions; but in the case before the House there was evidently a flagrant breach of treaty, and in such a case he thought that forbearance might be carried too far. He hoped that the Government would countenance such measures being taken as would remedy at once the injustice complained of, and remove for ever any chance of similar proceedings on the part of Portugal or any other country. If Government acted energetically and as they ought in these matters, they would at one and the same time insure the extension of our commerce, and afford that protection to British subjects abroad, which in transactions of this nature were not only requisite and desirable, but absolutely indispensable.
Motion made, and Question put—
"That a Select Committee be appointed to investigate the claims of Yuille, Shortridge, and Co., against the Portuguese Government, for compensation for losses incurred by them through breach of Treaty."
MR. ATHERTONsaid, he should support the Motion, which, under the circumstances, he considered to be a very proper one. If British merchants chose to embark their capital in speculative trading in foreign countries, which, as far as these speculations were concerned, were under no treaties with this country, why, such merchants must take the consequences attendant on their so doing; but, if on the contrary, British merchants embarked their capital in fair trading transactions in foreign countries, on the faith of treaties known to be existing between such countries and ourselves, they had a right to consider, as far as their dealings with these particular countries were concerned, the territory of their own country to be extended, and its authority and influence to be existing, so as to protect them from oppression, and preserve their property from such acts of violence as were complained of in the present instance.
MR. DIGBY SEYMOURsaid, he was in favour of granting the Select Committee applied for, which he thought necessary in the present case, in order to enforce those feelings of honourable understanding which were so necessary to be observed, for the purpose of protecting British subjects abroad from any unjustifiable acts of interference or oppression. In the present case there was no doubt but that a most flagrant irregularity had been committed against a British subject, and that, as far as legal proceedings were concerned, they

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were no less absurd than unjust. The House would no doubt recollect the case of Don Pacifico, and the inquiries which took place on that occasion; but, however important those inquiries might have been, he looked upon the present case as one of far more consequence, inasmuch as the injuries of which Don Pacifico complained related only to questions of international law, whereas the present case was one Which involved the interpretation of some of the most important features of our commercial treaties.
LORD JOHN RUSSELL: Sir, I wish to call the attention of the House, not to the merits of this particular case so much, as to the course which it is thought advisable to pursue in cases of this nature. The hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. T. Chambers) alleges that, in a case which arose in the year 1838, and upon which a diplomatic correspondence was carried on during a period of twelve years, from 1840 to 1852, much wrong was done to certain persons, who were British subjects, and that that wrong has not been redressed. Now, sir, I beg to say, without at all defending the conduct of the Portuguese Government, and still less of the Portuguese tribunals, that I wish the House to consider how these cases are generally brought under review of the British Government. It frequently happens, among the most friendly nations, that individuals have cases of complaint, of what they think is injustice committed towards them, either by the Government or tribunals of a friendly nation. If there is a treaty in force between our Government and that friendly nation, their case is so much the stronger; and they proceed generally to apply to our Government to support their demands for redress. Very often the correspondence continues a very considerable time. Often many of these cases accumulate. Some of them—perhaps the greater part of them—are redressed by the foreign Government; and with respect to others of them, the cases not being so clear, it seems impossible for our Government to pursue the correspondence further, or to insist on the redress which they originally demanded. Sometimes those claims are agreed to be settled by some species of arbitration. During the last year, I myself, as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, signed a Convention between this country and the United States of America, by which the complaints of both our own subjects and the citizens of the United States shall be
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brought before a Commission formed of persons of both nations, who should go through the cases, and decide according to the merits of each particular case. In this manner these cases are generally brought to a conclusion, and the greater part of them are settled both according to the justice of the case and without any disturbance of the friendly relations between the two countries. Sometimes, however, the Government thinks it necessary, as in the case of the Government of Greece, just alluded to by the hon. Gentleman behind me (Mr. D. Seymour)—finding redress cannot be obtained (and there are many cases of such complaint)—to demand as the ultimate resource a recourse to arms for such redress as they think the subjects of Her Majesty are entitled to; but though those various courses may be pursued, I think, if the hon. and learned Gentleman's Motion in its present shape were to be assented to, it would be a precedent for a totally different, and, I think, a very inconvenient course. It appears to me that it is only in clear cases that this House ought to interfere in respect to the complaints of individuals against a foreign country. With respect to this particular case, although the papers are very voluminous—so voluminous, indeed, that I confess I have not been able to go through them more than to make myself acquainted with the general remonstrance of the parties—I am ready on the part of the Government to lay on the table of the House all the papers with regard to this case, containing the complaints that were made, and the despatches of Her Majesty's different Ministers at the Court of Lisbon. The House will then be enabled to decide whether they will go further in this case, or whether they think any special interference of this House in it is necessary. But I beg to submit that, on the case as it now stands—on the bearing of all those ex parte statements by individual Members, and without reading the correspondence—if this House should agree to a Committee, they would be setting a precedent which would be dangerous, and opening a course which they could hardly pursue without inconvenience. There are, with respect to the Portuguese, many cases of grievance complained of by British subjects. Suppose there are eight or ten such at present, and so many individual Members were to ask for a Committee in each case. There is one case especially, the ease of Mr. Croft (as was understood), which it appears

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to me is one of much greater hardship than anything that has been stated by the hon. and learned Gentleman; but if we are to have separate Committees in all such eases of commercial disputes, in the first place, the whole of these negotiations will be taken out of the hands of the Government, and in the next place, the House will be undertaking a task which they will find it perfectly impossible adequately to perform. The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir J. Pakington) moved very lately for a Committee to consider in what manner the public business could be more expeditiously and advantageously carried on; but I am sure it will be quite unnecessary for that Committee to meet if the House were to declare that, in any case brought forward by individual Members, without seeing the papers, they would at once appoint a Committee to decide whether in such cases foreign tribunals have acted in conformity with their laws, or with the treaties which we have with them. I am quite ready, however, to produce all the papers on the subject, and after that the House can then determine whether it is a question of such special grievance as to justify its being taken out of the ordinary course, and to require the appointment of a Committee to investigate it. But after the very voluminous correspondence in this case—lasting over a period of twelve years—I confess I think it not expedient to appoint such a Committee. I beg again to say I am not defending the course taken by the Portuguese Government in this or any other similar case. I think we have very great reason to complain of that Government. I think in many cases, when my noble Friend (Viscount Palmerston) has made strong remonstrances to them for redress, they either did not behave with justice towards a friendly nation or towards the individuals concerned in the course they took on those occasions. But Her Majesty's Government have always held that cases of injustice may become so manifest and so aggravated that it would be their duty to take some decided measure for the purpose of obtaining redress. They have, I believe, in several instances obtained full compensation for injured parties. I recollect that in several cases in which my noble Friend has remonstrated with the Portuguese Government, payments of considerable amount have since been made by that Government in liquidation of the claims of British subjects. But without at all defending the conduct of the
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Portuguese Government, I must say that it must be very inconvenient for the House to go into a consideration of the whole of these complicated negotiations, upon the mere statement of the hon. and learned Gentleman, and without having any of the papers relating to the case before them.
MR. G. BUTTsaid, he thought the speech of the noble Lord was no answer whatever to the case made out by the hon. and learned Member for Hertford (Mr. Chambers) nor did it give any reason why the Motion should not be acceded to. It appeared that by a treaty of 1654, confirmed by other treaties from time to time down, he believed, to the year 1810, a compact was entered into between Portugal and this country, that the British merchants settling at Madeira, and bringing there their capital and their business, should be entitled, if any disputes arose, to have those disputes decided by certain Courts, and by certain Courts only, and that no further appeal should be made after these Courts had adjudicated upon them. This was the stipulation of a solemn treaty, and yet, in this case, the two Courts named having been resorted to in respect of the claims in question, both Courts having adjudicated upon them, decided in favour of the claimants. Instead of those gentlemen being relieved and set at rest with respect to their claims, they were harassed about through successive Courts, which, according to the treaty, never had any jurisdiction over natives of this country. The noble Lord said that the House of Commons ought not to interfere except in extreme cases; but surely this was an extreme case. What the noble Lord proposed to do was to lay before the House the voluminous correspondence relative to the affair, in order that the House might ascertain all the circumstances of the case. Now, so far as his slight experience went, there was no less likely manner of enabling the House to ascertain the facts of a case of this sort than by laying before them a mass of papers—in this instance so voluminous that the noble Lord confessed himself unable entirely to arrive at a clear understanding of the affair. If the facts were undisputed, then let the noble Lord and the Government call upon the Portuguese Government to compensate these parties; if, on the contrary, they were disputed, what better or more convenient mode of ascertaining the truth than that of referring the subject to a Select Committee? He certainly thought that the

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case made out by the hon. and learned Member for Hertford—unanswered as it was by the speech of the noble Lord opposite—called for inquiry, and he should therefore support the Motion.
SIR JOHN SHELLEYsaid, he fully agreed with the hon. and learned Member who had just sat down that the speech of the noble Lord the Member for the City of London, by no means met the case made out. Here was confessedly a case of great hardship. A British merchant had been ruined by the trickery of the Portuguese Government, and the only remedy suggested by the noble Lord was to lay before the House a mass of papers so voluminous that he himself confessed he could not comprehend them, but which he expected hon. Members to go through in the very few hours which they could spare from their attendance on the House and from their other duties. Surely in a case of this sort a Select Committee was the best mode of obtaining information, and he therefore hoped that the noble Lord would reconsider his verdict.
MR. OLIVEIRAsaid, he had a tolerable intimacy with the commercial treaties with Portugal, and he could bear witness that they had been fairly stated by the hon. and learned Member for Hertford. He thought the case presented considerable difficulties and required investigation, and he should therefore support the Motion for the appointment of a Committee.
MR. T. CHAMBERS, in reply, said, that when he entered the House that day he was sure he had a good case, and he should leave the House assured that his case was a still better one, even upon the showing of the noble Lard (Lord J. Russell).
The House divided:—Ayes 126; Noes 74: Majority 52

THE LEADERSHIP OF THE HOUSE.
MR. CAYLEYrose to move for "A Select Committee to consider the duties of the Member leading the Government in this House, and the expediency of attaching office and salary thereto." He hoped the figures just read at the table would be a warning to his noble Friend the Member for the City of London not to interpose in the Motion which he was about to bring forward. He had had no communication with the noble Lord on the subject of this Motion, for it was a matter on which the House of Commons alone ought to decide, and with regard to which the noble Lord, and even the Government, ought to be
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shut out of court. He believed it was imagined by some hon. Members that he, was about to ask that the leader of the House of Commons should receive a salary. Such, however, was not his intention. True it was, at the commencement of last year he was very forcibly struck by the circumstance that the noble Lord the Member for the City of London held a situation the most influential and the most laborious in that House or in the country, without the public compensating the noble Lord in the way in which public services were usually compensated. He (Mr. Cayley) could be actuated, in bringing forward this Motion, by no other motive than a sense of public duty, and a sense of the duty which he thought the public owed to those who served it. When Lord Aberdeen's Government was formed, there was—whether in consequence of the combination of parties or not he could not say—some difficulty in the division of office. But, in the first instance, public rumour told them the noble Lord the Member for London was indisposed to take office, partly, it was understood, because his health was not strong, and partly, probably, because having had so long a course of public service, he was not indisposed for that domestic repose which, at a certain time of life, and after a length of public service, a Minister might be supposed to be desirous of enjoying. At any rate, it was understood publicly that the noble Lord was not disposed to take office. He was, however, persuaded to take the office of Secretary of State for the Foreign Department, but he shortly resigned that office, and remained a member of the Cabinet, advising Her Majesty, he (Mr. Cayley) presumed, in his capacity of Privy Councillor. It was under these circumstances that he (Mr. Cayley) had given notice last Session of his intention to bring the subject under the consideration of the House. He was not at all cognisant of what the sense of the House would be; he only knew that, after giving the notice last Session, he was addressed privately by many Members of the House, who thought that in principle he was right, and that the course he suggested was one which might be constitutionally adopted. As he did not know the way in which the House would deal with the question; he wished to address himself to its reason, its sense of justice, and that common fairness which had always distinguished it. The noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) having resigned the office of Foreign Secretary,

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fell back upon his situation as Privy Councillor, and took his seat in this House as leader of the Government of the country. It must be patent to every Member of the House what the labours of that office must be; for office, whatever it might be directly, indirectly it must he considered to be. The salary the noble Lord would have received, had he been First Lord of the Treasury, would have been 5,000 l. a year; but that office being now held by a Member of the Upper House of Parliament, the noble Lord sat in this House, performing the office of its leader without any salary whatever. He (Mr. Cayley) desired that position to be distinctly understood. And what, then, were the labours of the office held by the noble Lord? The leader of the House of Commons had to be here early and late; he had to make himself master of every question introduced, whether by Government or by an individual Member of the House; the whole of his mornings must be occupied in making himself master of those questions, and the whole of his evenings had to be passed in debating them when they were introduced. One great, significant, and substantial reason for the noble Lord declining the office of Secretary of State for the Foreign Department was, that, if the duties of that department were to be assiduously fulfilled, it was next to impossible for physical endurance to perform the duties of leader of the House of Commons. He had heard it stated by a late hon. Member of the House (Sir R. H. Inglis), that at Mr. Canning's death it was prophesied by an experienced Member of the House that the office of leader of the House of Commons would never again be held with a public department. A very laborious office was tried by Sir Robert Peel in 1835, when the whole labours of the Government fell almost exclusively upon his shoulders; but when at a subsequent period Sir Robert Peel took office as First Lord of the Treasury, he held that office alone, and absolved himself from the second office. He (Mr. Cayley) took that to be illustrative evidence in favour of his proposal. What, then, were the labours of the office held by the noble Lord? It was notorious that the business of the House had greatly increased, and it must be equally notorious that a great part of that increase must be reflected back upon the shoulders of the leader of the House. And as the business of the House increased, so had the number of Motions, and the general
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interest felt in public affairs, all necessarily increasing the labours of the leader of the House. The sittings of the House in former times averaged three hours a-day, but they now averaged eight hours, and towards the close of the Session they averaged ten hours a day. At the same time, the length of the Session had extended to from 120 to 140 days, and the average sitting of the House was somewhere about 1,000 hours in the course of a Session. In 1752 the divisions during the Session were 15, in 1851 they were 127, and in 1852 they were 242. The journals of the House 40 years ago occupied a space of 427 pages, and now, with the pages and type the same, they would occupy 2,400 pages—an increase nearly sixfold. Then, again, as his right hon. Friend the Member for Droitwich (Sir J. Pakington) said the other day, the number of petitions had greatly increased, considerably extending the labours of the House. In 1837 the petitions numbered about 7,000, in 1847 they were 15,000, and in 1848 18,000. All this showed an enormous increase in the business of the House, and all that increase of business attached more or less to the office of leader of the House. It might be said, the labours of the leader of this House were not so great as those of a public department; but if any one would take the pains to observe a Member holding a very laborious department of Government, and see him come down here at four o'clock, after spending four or five hours in transacting his official business, he would frequently observe a physical condition which would utterly disable that Member from doing duty as leader of the House during the evening. It might appear to some men a simple enough matter, seeing how smoothly it was done by the noble Lord, to perform the duties of leader; but how, it might be asked, had the noble Lord the Member for London found the experience to enable him to lead the House? There was scarcely a public office he had not held, beginning, if he (Mr. Cayley) remembered rightly, as Paymaster of the Forces. At all events, the experience of the noble Lord had been gained by a long course of public service, during which the noble Lord had filled almost every public office of the State, filling the offices of the Chief Secretaries of State in succession, and other offices besides. It was by filling those offices and by the long tenure of his seat in the House, that the noble Lord had made himself competent to fill the po-

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sition he now held. Was it reasonable that experience of this valuable nature, at the cost of such prolonged service obtained and supplied gratuitously to the country—that because the health of the noble Lord the Member for London, or the health of any other man, might disable him from holding a public department of oppressive duties, and at the same time fulfilling the onerous duties of leader of the House—was it reasonable, was it fair, or was it generous, because the labours of that office had grown so great, because the business of the House had increased so inordinately—was it reasonable, because no provision had been made to meet the difficulty, to say that no attempt should be made now to meet it? Was there any office in the State more responsible or more influential than that held by the noble Lord, or one which required a greater combination of powers to fill it properly? He would pause for a moment to inquire what were the salaries attached to many of the principal offices of the country. The Lord Chancellor received 10,000 l. a year, and 4,000 l. as Speaker of the House of Lords; the First Lord of the Treasury received 5,000 l., the Chancellor of the Exchequer 5,000 l., the Secretaries of State 5,000 l. each, First Lord of the Admiralty 4,500 l., Speaker of the House of Commons 5,000 l., Lord President of the Council 2,000 l., Privy Seal 2,000 l., President of the Board of Trade 2,000 l., First Commissioner of Works 2,000 l., Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench 8,000 l., Chief Justice of the Common Pleas 7,000 l., Chief Baron of the Exchequer 7,000 l., the Puisne Judges each 5,000 l., Master of the Rolls 6,000 l., Vice-Chancellors 5,000 l., and so on. If the salary of a public servant was to be at all in proportion to the difficulty of finding a person to fill the office properly, he knew of no office in the country which ought to be remunerated like that of leader of the House of Commons, for the leader of the House not only acted as leader of the greatest assembly in the world, but to a great extent he exercised an influence over the civilisation and progress of the country. It might be said the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) was entitled to a pension. The noble Lord certainly was entitled to a pension, but the noble Lord refused not only to occupy a laborious office with a salary attached to it, but also to take the pension to which he was entitled. There had been considerable misapprehension regarding the
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Motion which he (Mr. Cayley) intended to make—[MR. W. WILLIAMS: Hear, hear!]—which was for a Select Committee. He understood the cheer of the hon. Gentleman opposite. Did it mean that the hon. Gentleman wanted the work done without proper remuneration; that he denied a fair day's wages for a fair day's work; that the work was not worth the hire? If the hon. Gentleman thought so, he (Mr. Cayley was happy to think a large majority of his countrymen were more just and generous. A general impression seemed to have gone abroad that it was his (Mr. Cayley's) intention to create a new office for the leader of the House of Commons. No such thing was intended by him, but the question appeared to him to be one of great importance. He knew of no precedent (during the present century, at least) for a leader of the House of Commons being similarly situated to the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell). It appeared to him a very anomalous position, even constitutionally, for the leader of the House to occupy; and it was his intention now to ask permission to go into an inquiry how that anomalous position could be best met. There were various ways of meeting it, and it was not for him to judge which was the best. It appeared to him, however, that there was a clear and simple method of meeting the question if it was the wish of the House that the leader of the House of Lords should be in no better position as regards salary than the leader of the House of Commons. If a Select Committee so thought fit, there could be no difficulty in attaching to any office under the Crown held by the leader of the House of Commons, of less official labour than such offices as the Secretaryship of State, the same salary as that enjoyed by the First Lord of the Treasury. Take, for instance, the office of President of the Council. He saw no reason why, when the First Lord of the Treasury sat in the House of Lords, the President of the Council should not sit in this House as leader of the House of Commons, the Queen having the power, when circumstances were such, of attaching the same salary to the President of the Council as to the First Lord of the Treasury. An office of that dignity would add influence to that already possessed by the leader of the Government in that House. He merely threw out these ideas as suggestions; but he could not but consider it a very anomalous state of things that a public servant occupying the most

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laborious and most responsible position in the country should be serving the country without any remuneration whatever. As respected the constitutional part of the question, he would not at present detain the House upon it. The noble Lord himself was too well versed in the constitution of this country to have suffered himself gravely to have infringed it. And yet serious constitutional objections had been started, both in his own mind and in that of others, and might by others perhaps be touched upon. It might be supposed, and perhaps it had been by some, that he wished to make this an exceptional case. On the contrary, he wished to deal with it entirely upon general principles. If he wished, indeed, to make an exceptional case of this, no unsubstantial ground might be taken for it. If he were to say, the noble Lord the Member for London possessed, as qualities fitting him for the office, that he had a greater constitutional knowledge, perhaps, than any other Member of the House; that he exhibited more tact and readiness and temper in debate than any other Member; that his courage under all circumstances was proverbially undaunted; that his services had been such as to add lustre to the name he bore; and, were he to add as a crown to those qualities, that he possessed that mild simplicity of demeanour without which real dignity can scarcely exist, he (Mr. Cayley) should but affirm that which every Member of the House would re-echo, only in terms more appropriate than he could pretend to do. But he did not intend to put the case upon any exceptional basis. He placed it on one of fair dealing and common justice, as well as policy, for policy it never could be to starve remuneration to the ablest servants of the country. He could fully appreciate the morbid sensibility, perhaps, of the noble Lord in not taking the pension to which from long service he was entitled. He did not know whether, upon the whole, the example of the noble Lord was a good one, because, were it to become prevalent, no one could hold office in this country but those of the first class of fortune; and he did not exactly know whether it would be for the public service that persons of that class alone should be employed in matters of State. There were instances where such an example had operated very much to the inconvenience of members of late Governments, who had declined taking pensions for their services, their minds having been operated upon, perhaps, by
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such examples as that of the noble Lord. It would be invidious to make references, but he could, if he were inclined, point to a case where a pension, declined by a gentleman from sentiments of high public virtue, would be of great importance to that gentleman now. And there was another reason inducing him to consider the example of the noble Lord a bad one. Public offices should be filled by the ablest men of the day; but those had often entered into professions. Instances had occurred of men at the zenith of their powers having been persuaded to leave a lucrative profession, say the law, for service under the Crown. A Privy Councillor, however, could not, according to etiquette, return to general practice in the law. A man thus situated, holding office under two years, had no claim to a pension, and still lost his place in the profession he had abandoned for the public service. This was a state of things requiring remedy. Even if he had served the whole period requisite to entitle him to a pension, the example of the noble Lord, who had held office so long, would operate on a sensitive mind probably to deter him from the acceptance of that to which he was justly entitled, and without which he might be exposed to grievous personal privation. He, however, fully appreciated the public virtue of the noble Lord in refusing the pension; but he thought that when great services were rendered to the public, those services should be rewarded as the public had usually been disposed to reward them. If only upon the bare and naked principle of supply and demand, the difficulty of finding a man like the noble Lord the Member for London to fill so responsible an office (he believed he was not wrong in saying it was not that difficulty alone which induced the noble Lord upon a late occasion to enter office)—if upon that bare and naked principle alone, he hoped the House would be induced to grant him the Committee he asked for, and to pay what he considered a great public debt to a servant who had served the country so efficiently and so long.
MR. STIRLINGseconded the Motion.
Motion made, and Question proposed—
"That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the duties of the Member leading the Government in this House, and the expediency of attaching office and salary thereto."
SIR CHARLES WOODsaid, he was certain that it was unnecessary for his hon. Friend (Mr. Cayley) to say any-

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thing in order to convince the House that he had any other motive than a desire for the benefit of the public service; but he doubted whether he had equally convinced them of the policy of the course he had suggested, and while giving him full credit for his motives, he must, at the same time, totally dissent from the proposed measure. His hon. Friend stated that he did not intend to attach a salary to the office of leader of the House of Commons, but the whole drift of his speech was to attach a salary to that undefined and undefinable office. No doubt a Motion for a Committee was a very convenient form in which to raise the question; but he trusted the House would not recognise the principle of attaching a salary to an office which did not exist, and the duties of which could not be defined. His hon. Friend said he did not bring this question forward with any special reference to the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell); but nine-tenths of what he had said referred to his noble Friend, and he (Sir C. Wood) objected to the course which his hon. Friend proposed of founding a general measure upon an exceptional case—namely, that of his noble Friend the Member for the City of London holding that position whilst he did not fill any of the offices of State. It did not become him (Sir C. Wood) to say anything of the qualifications of his noble Friend for the prominent part he took in that House; but he entirely concurred in what his hon. Friend had said on this subject, and he believed his hon. Friend had expressed the general opinion of the House in speaking of the manner in which the noble Lord had discharged the duties of the leadership of that House. But when his hon. Friend proposed that a salary should be attached to that office, how would he define the position of the person who was required in practice as leader of the House, or the duties to be performed by him? He would not deny that the duties of the leader of the House of Commons had increased in a very great degree within the last few years. But the same assertion would be just as true with regard to every Member of the House as in respect to the person who took the most prominent part in it on the part of the Government. Any person who had much experience of the House knew that every private Member had had increased duties thrown upon him during the last few years, and Mem-
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bers of the Government had only taken their share of the increased business of the House. A salary was properly attached to a public office, but much inconvenience would result if a person holding no defined or responsible position, and charged with no official duties, should receive a salary tinder the denomination of leader of that House. He was not aware that any difficulty had been found in the leadership of the House being evinced by persons holding office. His noble Friend (Lord J. Russell) had led the House for some years as First Lord of the Treasury; the right bon. Gentleman, whom he did not now see in his place (Mr. Disraeli), had led the House as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he was ready to bear testimony to the ability and industry with which he had discharged, in addition to that office, the duties of the leader of the House. His noble Friend (Lord J. Russell) had also led the House as Home Secretary. The late Sir Robert Peel had led the House as Chancellor of the Exchequer; and Mr. Canning had done so, while Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Here were three or four of the highest offices, the duties of which had not been found incompatible with the leadership of the House. If the duties of these offices were to be found so heavy as to render it impossible for the person holding them, to take as active and prominent a part in the duties of the House as the person recognised as the principal organ of the Government must necessarily do, there were other offices of less labour to which he might be appointed, and there was no reason why a person should not accept an office of lower emolument and yet discharge with efficiency and with honour to himself the duties of the leader of that House. But it was clearly incompatible with the constitutional practice of that House that a salary should be given to any person except for the discharge of official duties as a Member of the Government. His hon. Friend had hinted that strong constitutional objections might exist to the course he proposed; but his hon. Friend had not in the slightest degree attempted to grapple with those objections. Those objections seemed to him (Sir C. Wood) to be insuperable, and assuredly his hon. Friend had laid no grounds for his Motion. The course proposed by his hon. Friend appeared to him to be most objectionable, and he trusted that the House would reject the Motion, not merely on the ground of its being inex-

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pedient to refer this subject to a Committee, but on the substantial, and in his opinion insuperable, objection to the proposal.
MR. W. WILLIAMSsaid, the hon. Member (Mr. Cayley) had asked whether there was any objection to a fair day's wages far a fair day's work. He did not object; but the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell), he was sure, would be the last to countenance the proposition of the hon. Gentleman, and was too honourable and highminded to do so. Every one knew that the noble Lord was so important a Member of the present Government that he might have in it any office be pleased, whether an office with the highest or the smallest salary. But the noble Lord had chosen a place in the Government without any salary, and this was not a proper time to create new places and add to the burdens of the people. The hon. Member had referred to the number of hours exhausted in each sitting; but be should recollect that there were many private Members of that House who were quite as close in their attendance as the noble Lord. Under these circumstances, he (Mr. Williams) thought the Motion unwise and uncalled for, and should therefore give it his opposition.
MR. WALPOLEsaid, he considered that great inconvenience would result from attaching a salary to an office which was not known to the constitution. He must also add that the anomalous position occupied by the noble Lord had already established a very inconvenient, if not unconstitutional, precedent. Of the noble Lord, he was not going to say a word beyond the expression of his entire concurrence in the eulogy passed upon him that evening for his conduct and management of public business in that House. In addressing himself to this question, therefore, it was not his intention to say anything that might be supposed to cast a reflection on the noble Lord; but he wished to remind him of what be (Mr. Walpole) had previously communicated in private, that he considered the precedent, in a constitutional point of view, which the noble Lord had now set by occupying, without holding office, the leadership of the House, was full of anomalies. He mentioned this because hon. Members were in the habit of talking gravely and loudly of Ministerial responsibility, yet that responsibility, in the present instance, did not exist. There was no responsibility, which he knew of,
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except by virtue of the office which the Minister held, or, as a Member of the Privy Council. But there was no responsibility in his being a Member of what is called the Cabinet. For anything that was done in his department, the Minister was responsible. In some cases he might attach his seal; in other cases be might put his hand to it; but in all cases the act done was proof of the responsibility, and could be brought home to him. As Privy Councillor, also, a Minister was responsible for all the advice given by him in that capacity; and if that advice were contrary to the constitution, it was liable to be impugned at a future period, provided it could be proved. But, according to the present practice, it could not be proved if any fault were likely to be found with it. Until the reign of Charles II. there was no such thing as advice being given by a Privy Councillor, unless the signature of that Privy Councillor was attached to it. The distinction between the Privy Council and the Cabinet was unknown to the constitution. The Cabinet was a body not recognised by the law, and its Members were under no responsibility whatever. Since the speech of Mr. Fox upon the appointment of Lord Ellenborough to a seat in the Cabinet while he was Lord Chief Justice, this position had been settled beyond the possibility of contradiction. Then where was the responsibility? As a Cabinet Councillor, there was none, As a Privy Councillor, the responsibility with reference to the acts advised by him to be done, was nothing more than imaginary, on account of the difficulty of proof. So inconvenient was this, that when the Treaty of Utrecht was signed, it was found difficult to impeach the Ministers for the measures they had adopted in the accomplishment of that treaty. The inconvenience being then felt, a remedy for it was made part of the Act of Settlement; for a clause was introduced which had been subsequently repealed, declaring and requiring that every Privy Councillor should sign the advice he gave during the time he was Privy Councillor. Why that portion of the Act was repealed, had never been explained. The suggestion offered by Mr. Hallam was, that Ministers did not like the responsibility, in those days of impeachment, which was thereby incurred. So that from that day to this there was no means of fixing the responsibility of the Minister merely because he was a

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Privy Councillor, still less because he was a Member of that department of the Privy Council denominated the Cabinet. Now, he thought it would be extremely inconvenient to increase the anomalies of the constitution with reference to the question of the responsibility of Ministers; for at the present moment, there being no responsibility which enabled that House by means of impeachment to call in question the conduct of the Minister, except it could prove the act complained of by his seal being attached, or his signature being affixed to it, Ministerial responsibility had become little else than responsibility to public opinion, and to censure on the part of Parliament. Whether that was a proper position for the country to remain in with reference to the responsibility of Ministers, was a grave and an important question, which he did not think ought to be raised or discussed incidentally upon a question like that then before the House. He had often felt strongly upon that point, but he did not think it right to call the attention of the House more specifically to it, on a Motion like the present. The position now occupied by the noble Lord had, he believed, no precedent, excepting, perhaps, one in this House and a few in the other House of Parliament. They certainly had had instances of Members of the Government, called Members of the Cabinet, sitting in the House of Lords without holding at the time any particular office. In the House of Commons, however, there was one instance only of a Member of what was called the Cabinet not holding office until they came to the case of the noble Lord. He believed he was right in saying so, and that until the noble Lord resigned the duties of the Foreign Department—resigned the office of Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs—there was only one case in which a Member of the Government had sat in that House without holding office; and there was none in which he had acted like the noble Lord, as the organ of the Government. He (Mr. Walpole) had pointed out already the great inconvenience of that position in reference to the question of Ministerial responsibility. But in his mind there would be greater difficulty, and further inconvenience, if the precedent now set by the noble Lord was to be followed hereafter. The inconvenience was twofold—first, to the particular constituencies; secondly, to the country generally. For, in the first place, the Crown might select
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its Ministerial advisers from Members of that House, without requiring that the persons, so selected, should go back to their constituents for re-election. That was an inconvenience that might and probably would arise if the precedent then brought before them was followed. In the second place, there was an inconvenience to the country generally, for by following this precedent the country would be deprived of the means of knowing who, in fact, were the responsible advisers of the Crown. Except from the circumstance that they saw a Privy Councillor sitting on the Treasury bench, and speaking generally as the exponent of the Government, Parliament and the country would have no means of judging under whose advice the Crown was acting. He could conceive the greatest possible inconvenience arising, from that. It was stated during the debates in 1806 that Lord Mansfield, although he held no political office under the Government, sat in the Cabinet, and gave his advice as a Cabinet Minister, without any one knowing of it for a period of five years. It was a thing quite unknown to the public and to Parliament, and what the effects of it might have been, or what degree of confidence might have been reposed in the Government if that fact had been known, was a question which need not now be discussed. But he could conceive a case—if the precedent now set before them was followed up hereafter—he could conceive a case in which advice might be given, and of the most important and influential character; and while the other Ministers followed the advice which was so given, the real adviser would be kept entirely in the background, and the country and the Parliament would know nothing about him. Such a possibility even ought not to be suffered. He did not by any means apprehend that the case was likely to arise in the present instance; but the inconveniences pointed out were of such a nature that the House would do well to attend to them. He thought, therefore, they should be on their guard to prevent any mischief from happening in future by allowing a precedent thus dangerous to be established. With reference to the question immediately before the House, his own opinion certainly was, that there was great hardship in the leader of that House being encumbered with duties of an onerous nature which would take away his attention from the general supervision of all the measures of the Government. But he thought the diffi-

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culty might be easily obviated if it should be generally understood that the organ of the Government in each House of Parliament should fill two places which were not inconsistent with very onerous duties—he meant the offices of the First Lord of the Treasury and the President of the Councill. He conceived that in a constitutional point of view there was no reason why the organ of the Government in that House should not fill either. It was usual, indeed, that the leader in that House should fill the office of First Lord of the Treasury, because finance was the peculiar province of the House of Commons. But in the history of their country there was an instance of the leader in that House holding the office of President of the Council; and rather than the anomaly should be introduced of the leader and representative of the Government holding no office, he should much prefer that precedent being followed, although it would be better that the organ of the Government in that House should, as a general rule, be First Lord of the Treasury. In offering these observations he would conclude as he had begun, by stating that be intended no censure or reflection on the arrangement which had been made in reference to the leadership of the House of Commons in the present instance. His remarks were submitted with an eye to the future, and in order that this precedent should not be followed on any future occasion. He was not reflecting upon the noble Lord or the Government; but he wished in time to warn the House that arrangements of this kind would lead hereafter to serious inconveniences, which they might have to deplore, unless they were provided against, although he hoped that the occasion on which they should have to deplore them through the conduct or misconduct of any Member of the Government would not be likely to arise.
LORD JOHN RUSSELL: Sir, I can assure the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken that I do not rise on the present occasion to refer to anything that personally concerns myself. I am quite satisfied with the reasons given by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Control against the Motion of the hon. Gentleman opposite. I feel deeply grateful to that hon. Gentleman for the manner in which he has spoken of me; but I cannot conceive that it would be desirable to create an office solely for the purpose of giving a
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position to the organ of the Government in this House. I think that any office held by a Minister of the Crown should be created for the Purpose of official duties to be performed, and that any position held either in this or the other House should be consequent on connected with official duties. Sir, the right hon. Gentleman has laid down certain constitutional doctrines, to which I desire to allude for a moment. I hope the House will pause before it gives its entire assent to them. The right hon. Gentleman wishes to maintain the responsibility of Ministers of the Crown; but I confess I think in doing so he unduly restricts that responsibility. He argues that Ministers of the Crown and Privy Councillors are not responsible; but the House will doubtless recollect that at the time of the Treaty of Partition Lord Somers held the office of Lord Chancellor, and an impeachment was laid against him because of the correspondence which he held with King William in regard to the advice which King William asked of him with respect to that treaty. King William asked his opinion with respect to the policy of making that Treaty of Partition. Now, that advice had nothing whatever to do with his office as Lord Chancellor. The right hon. Gentleman may say that Lord Somers had to fix the great seal to the treaty; but that would not be an answer to what I say, because, in fact, the fixing of the great seal to a treaty is a transaction subsequent to the arrangement of its terms. But then, again, that objection does not apply to the advice given by Lord Oxford, who held the office of Lord High Treasurer in the transaction with France regarding the surrender of Tournay; and other matters, which were made articles of impeachment against Lord Oxford, had nothing whatever to do with his conduct in the Treasury, or in any business which, as Lord High Treasurer, he had to transact. In his case, as in the case of Lord Somers, the articles of impeachment were founded upon the advice which he, being a Privy Councillor, trusted and consulted by the Sovereign, had given, and for which he therefore had to answer. I hold, therefore, that it is not merely the business which a Minister transacts in performing a particular duty of his office, but any advice he has given, and which he may be proved before a Committee of this House, or at the bar of the House of Lords, to have given, for which he is responsible, and consequently

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for which he may suffer the penalties which may ensue. But if this is the case, it is quite obvious that whether the person so advising the Sovereign holds an office totally unconnected with the business upon which he is consulted, or whether he holds no office whatever, the constitutional argument is exactly the same. Lord Oxford, not being Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs at all, had given advice with respect to the negotiation of a treaty; that advice referred to a subject which had no connexion with his office of Lord High Treasurer, and he was impeached for it, as he would have been, of course, if he had held no office whatever. I remember Lord Lansdowne stating in the other House of Parliament, a good many years ago, when the Bishop of London had an audience with his late Majesty George IV., that he, the Bishop of London, being a Privy Councillor, was responsible for any advice he had given to the King on the occasion of that audience. I conceive Lord Lansdowne was perfectly right in that opinion, and the Bishop of London, if he had given any advice to the Sovereign would have been responsible for it. Take a case that happened only the other day, and which you will find mentioned in the Turkish blue books now upon the table of the House. Lord Clarendon states that on a particular occasion, when it was impossible to collect all the Members of the Cabinet together, there was a meeting held in the Foreign Office, consisting of himself, the First Lord of the Treasury, the Home Secretary, and Lord John Russell; and he adds that these four Ministers came to an opinion, which he communicated to Her Majesty. Now, supposing that the advice which we gave on that occasion had been of a nature dangerous to the independence of this country, or that it had been liable to the charge of being a high crime and misdemeanour, I contend that every one of us—the First Lord of the Treasury, the Home Secretary, and myself—would have been equally responsible with the Foreign Secretary for having given that advice. The right hon. Gentleman opposite, I think, would hardly make a distinction—he would hardly say that I was exempt from any responsibility on account of the advice so tendered. It is somewhat remarkable, speaking of this matter, that Mr. Fox, who made that speech in defence of Lord Ellenborough being a Member of the Cabinet to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred, is stated by Lord
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Holland, who was in possession of his most secret thoughts, in a work lately published, to have said that after a time he should be glad to retire from the Foreign Office, which he then held—that he would not give up to any man the prospect he then thought there was of concluding peace with France, and abolishing the slave trade—but that after that he should either take some office of less labour, or very likely, he said, remain in the Cabinet without any office whatever. So that Mr. Fox seems then to have contemplated the course which has since been adopted. However, the present case is, as the right hon. Gentleman said, an exceptional case; but I do not require to enter into the particular reasons which induced me to occupy the position I now hold without office. The only question is, whether that position should be maintained? The right hon. Gentleman objects to it, in the first place, because it may be a precedent for some one to come into the Cabinet, and be the organ of the Government in this House, without going back to his constituency. With respect to that objection, I certainly have not set such a precedent, because I did vacate my seat when I accepted office. With regard to the other objection—the difficulty, as I understand the right hon. Gentleman, of fixing responsibility upon the Minister—
MR. WALPOLE: What I said was, that the country would like to know who were the responsible advisers of the Crown.
LORD JOHN RUSSELL: That is an objection which would have been perfectly applicable in the time of Lord Mansfield; but we have now come to that state of publicity with regard to everything that takes place, and correct information as to the advisers of the Sovereign and the attendance of Cabinet Councils is so easily arrived at, that I do not think the objection can be fairly applied to the present case. Sir, I have said already that I do not wish to enter into any question with regard to my own position. I trust that my hon. Friend opposite, having heard the opinion of the House, will not persist in his Motion, though I quite agree with him that the organ of the Government in this House should, generally speaking, hold office.
MR. CAYLEYsaid, that satisfied with the discussion which had taken place, and seeing that the temper of the House was not in favour of appointing a Committee, he would beg leave to withdraw his Motion.

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At the same time, he hoped the observations of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midhurst would not be forgotten.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
The House adjourned at a quarter before Eight o'clock.

MINUTES.
Sat First in Parliament.—The Earl of Shrewsbury, after the Death of his Cousin, having taken the Oath prescribed by the Act of 10 Geo. IV. to be taken by Peers professing the Roman Catholic religion; the Earl of Portsmouth, after the death of his Uncle.

REVISION OF THE STATUTE LAW— QUESTION.
LORD LYNDHURSTrose to ask what course the noble and learned Lord on the woolsack intended to take with respect to the proceedings connected with the revision of the Statutes? The subject had for the last 300 years engaged the attention of Parliament and the country, but no satisfactory result had been obtained, and the labours that had been bestowed on it had as yet produced no satisfactory conclusion. The history of the question was curious, and not more curious than discreditable to the Legislature. The question dated so far back as the reign of Edward VI It was then publicly stated, by Royal authority, that the Statute-books were encumbered with numerous useless
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Acts of great and tedious length; that it was necessary to expunge these Acts, to shorten the Statutes, and to bring them together in one consistent code, so as that they might be intelligible to the great mass of his subjects. How it happened that these declarations led to no result, he was unable to inform their Lordships, but perhaps it was owing to that monarch's brief and troubled reign. In the following reign, on six different occasions this subject was brought before the Legislature. There was no difference of opinion about the necessity of reform. In the subsequent reign of Elizabeth, the opinion of her Government was expressed in the strongest manner in consequence of the representations of Lord Keeper Bacon, who drew up a memorial on the subject. No result, however, followed from this step. Nothing more was done until the reign of James I. That monarch, in a characteristic speech referred to the "overflow" of statutes conflicting kith each other, or—to use his own words—"crossing and cuffing each other." The consequence of the King's interference was, that Lord Bacon and other eminent men were constituted a commission to inquire into and devise a remedy for the abuse complained of. Nothing resulted from the inquiry—a circumstance which might, perhaps, be accounted for by the subsequent disgrace of that great man Lord Bacon; Lord Bacon, however, drew up a paper in which he described with great perspicuity the course which he thought ought to be pursued for the purpose of effecting a great reform. So much as to what had taken place up to that period. During the time of the Republic—or, as some persons chose to call it, the Commonwealth—a strong desire was manifested to make every practical reform of the law, and, among other things, the consolidation of the Statutes was not forgotten. Two Committees on the subject were appointed, among the Members of which were Sir Bulstrode Whitelocke, Sir Matthew Hale, and Ashley Cooper, afterwards Lord Shaftesbury. Still nothing resulted. If the cause had been unfortunate under the monarchy, it was equally unfortunate under the republic. After the Restoration the subject was again inquired into by Lord Nottingham and others, but nothing was done in consequence. From this time the question slumbered until 1806, when it was again referred to a Commission, of which Mr. Hargreave was a member. This gen-

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tleman, who was a man of great learning and a great lawyer, wrote a memorial on the subject. This memorial became the foundation of a string of resolutions which were passed by their Lordships' House, and sent down to the Commons, where the matter dropped. In 1831 another Commission was appointed, which contained among its members a man of great experience, prudence, and judgment, who was also at the head of the new Commission appointed by the present Lord Chancellor, Mr. Bellender Ker. The object of the Commission of 1831 was to consolidate the criminal law, to report upon the revision of the statute law: their report, drawn up by the gentleman referred to, comprehended everything connected with the subject. But, notwithstanding the labours of that Commission, no steps were taken to carry into effect the reforms suggested. Now, they had a new Commission appointed and governed by his noble and learned Friend on the woolsack. His noble Friend had not slumbered at his post, and he hoped the present would not furnish another instance of failure. To prevent this, his noble and learned Friend would excuse him if he reminded him he must exercise untiring vigilance over the Commission, and from time to time see what progress was made. Their Lordships would pardon him for referring to what had taken place in the United States. In some instances the acts of our Transatlantic brethren would seem to justify the belief that men, like plants, acquired fresh vigour from being transplanted. In the State of New York all our Statutes up to the time of the Declaration of Independence were in force. From that period there had been an immense accumulation of statutes arising out of their new position. The inhabitants of that State were in the same unfortunate position as ourselves in this respect; but they resolved to get rid of the evil, and in 1835 competent persons were appointed to revise and consolidate the statutes. In two years from that time the object was accomplished, and in a manner that was quite satisfactory, not only to the legal profession, but to the general public of the State. Twenty years had elapsed since then, and the new code had lost none of its popularity. In the State of Massachusetts the statutes had been consolidated as successfully and satisfactorily as in New York. Let us not be ashamed to copy from our brethren on the other side of the Atlantic. It should
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be a great encouragement to us to find that, after all, the task we have in view is so easy. The tardiness of Governments in accomplishing any object was remarkable when compared with that which individuals could effect. He would undertake to say that, if any distinguished bookseller in London should determine on publishing a revised edition of the Statutes, such a work would be well executed by able men who had paid attention to the subject, in two or, at the furthest, in three years. When private enterprise could do so much, why should public exertion do so little? By the aid of private enterprise the Secretary for Foreign Affairs could carry on a conversation with the Earl of Westmoreland at Vienna with the same facility, and almost the same privacy, as if they sat side by side. This was the result of private enterprise, behind which public exertion lagged with sluggish pace. If their Lordships were to direct their attention to the Statute-book, they would be astonished at the mass of absurdity which it contained. When he held the Great Seal, he introduced an Act for the purpose of removing some of the absurdities to be found in the statutes directed against the Roman Catholics. The absurdities were so apparent that the Act was carried with the unanimous consent of both Houses. The absurdities thus removed were only a sample of those which remained behind. Their Lordships would hardly believe that there was in the Statute-book an Act which prohibited an Irish bishop from bringing an Irish servant into this country under a severe penalty. It would interest a noble Duke (the Duke of Buccleuch) who was not then in his place to know that by another Act of Parliament no person was allowed to have more than 3,000 sheep under very heavy penalties. These were samples of the rubbish and nonsense which disgraced our Statute-book. There were, on the whole, 16,000 public general statutes, but of these nearly 14,000 were obsolete, and might be swept away without the slightest inconvenience. Of the remaining 2,500, which were now proposed to be consolidated, a great number were encumbered with useless provisions and unnecessary language. With this mass of Statutes there were three modes of proceeding pointed out by the Report laid before Parliament; and the object of his (Lord Lyndhurst's) question was to know which of these modes the noble and learned Lord proposed to adopt? The first of

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these modes was to expunge from the Statute-book all that mass of statutes which might be called rubbish, and to class the remainder under distinct heads. The second mode was to strike out of the Statute-book those statutes which were useless, and to consolidate the remainder under distinct heads, amending them where they required amendment, and where they happened to be connected with the common law, in such a way as that it was impossible to separate them, to incorporate the common law with the text of the statute. The third mode, which was more comprehensive than either, was to form into one and to pass as a single statute all the statute and common law relating to one particular subject. From these three modes his noble and learned Friend on the woolsack would have to select that which he intended to propose to the House. With respect to the first, however, he (Lord Lyndhurst) did not think it would be practical, because it would be wholly unsatisfactory, and, therefore, his noble and learned Friend would not, he presumed, adopt it. With respect to the third mode, it presented, in his opinion, the same difficulty; because, in the first place, it would consume an enormous extent of time to carry it out, and because, moreover, it would require a degree of accuracy in regard to knowledge of the subject, and an amount of precision in detail, which he believed few men to possess; moreover, he did not think it would be satisfactory to the great bulk of the legal profession. The second or middle mode was, therefore, that which he supposed his noble and learned Friend would adopt, namely, to sweep away all the useless and obsolete statutes, to consolidate and amend those that remained, and to reduce the common law to a part of the system where it was necessary. Sir Robert Peel had done so in two remarkable statutes, one relating to the law of larceny, the other to the law of offences against the person. He had consolidated and amended the statute law in these cases, and he had incorporated the common law into the text. These statutes had met with the approbation of the profession and the public. So, in like manner, had the law respecting registration of shipping, which had been also consolidated and amended, and which was admitted to be of great service to the country. The same course had been taken in regard to the Post-office law; and several other laws likewise had been consolida-
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ted and amended in that manner with great advantage to the public. More than twenty years had elapsed since the first attempts at consolidation had taken place, and every day only afforded greater proofs of their benefit. On the ground of reason and justice, therefore, he called on his noble and learned Friend to adopt the course implied in the second mode of dealing with the subject. By means of the process of consolidation greater perfection would be arrived at every day during its progress. It would have also the advantage that when an amendment was proposed in any particular law, instead of hunting through the entire of the Statute-book, the whole subject in all its bearings would be before the Legislature, who would, therefore, be in a favourable position to judge of its propriety. The noble and learned Lord apologised for entering so much on detail, and concluded by expressing a hope that the measure to be brought in on the subject would be of a practical and a practicable as well as of a beneficial nature.
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, he was sure that their Lordships and the country in general would feel very deeply indebted to his noble and learned Friend for having brought this subject under the notice of the House; and if any individual more than another could feel pleased at such a question being put, he could assure his noble and learned Friend that he (the Lord Chancellor) was himself that individual. When first he was entrusted with the Great Seal it was suggested to him that there was no subject of law reform which was more likely to be practically useful than that to which his noble and learned Friend had so ably called their Lordships' attention. In this suggestion he entirely concurred. After the statement of his noble and learned Friend, it would be quite idle and improper for him again to enumerate the various attempts which had been made from the earliest times on this subject. When he came to consider this subject, he felt it his duty to regard it in very much the same light as that in which his noble and learned Friend appeared to view it, the great object being to arrive at some practical beneficial result. There had been references made from the days of Lord Bacon down to the present age to learned persons to inquire how this great object might be accomplished; and it had struck him (the Lord Chancellor) that the only practical course that could be re-

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sorted to with any chance of success was to engage, for a limited time, three or four gentlemen to devote their attention to the subject, and to produce something as a specimen of that which ought to be done more perfectly, without speculating to any great extent on the subject. His noble and learned Friend had alluded to the Commission issued in 1831 to certain gentlemen of high legal attainments, on the subject of the consolidation of the whole of the criminal law, and who were afterwards directed to report on the expediency of consolidating the whole of the statute law. The Commissioners proceeded accordingly to consolidate the whole of the criminal law. In 1835 they made a report on the subject of the general consolidation of the statute law. Mr. Bellenden Ker, who was at the head of the Commission, pointed out three modes of proceeding to which his noble and learned Friend had adverted. The Commissioners had consolidated the whole of the criminal law, but nothing was done to consolidate the statute law in general. This was the state of things when he (the Lord Chancellor) was entrusted with the Great Seal. It struck him that the best course to adopt was to apply, as he did in March last, to Mr. Bellenden Ker, who was familiar to a certain extent with this subject, having been already engaged in it, and to get him, in conjunction with three or four other gentlemen, to proceed for one year to the actual consolidation of certain portions of the statute law, in the manner which should seem to them most likely to be of practical utility. He had engaged these gentlemen for the year expressly for this object; and what he wished them to do was, not to enter into any inquiry as to the expediency of this measure, but at once to proceed, as far as practicable, with the revision of the statute law, as to make an enumeration of what statutes were actually in force and remaining to be consolidated, what statutes had been repealed or abolished, or had become obsolete, and then to proceed to consolidate such of these laws as it would be most easy and convenient to begin with. Two of these gentlemen accordingly went through the whole of the statutes, statute by statute, to see which of them were actually the, law, the result of their inquiry being that they found the number of general public Acts from the time of Magna Charta to be between 16,000 and 17,000, and that the proportion of them which remained as really living statutes was
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only about 2,500. With these 2,500 statutes, therefore, they had then to occupy themselves. One of the other gentlemen proceeded, more immediately in connexion with Mr. Ker, to consolidate the law on a particular subject upon the three different plans suggested by the former Commission. One plan was merely to consolidate existing statutes, keeping as nearly as possible to the form and language in which they now stand; another course was to amend in some minor particulars, and partially to introduce the common law where it was necessary; and another consolidated the whole of the law, common as well as statute, relating to his subject. The learned gentlemen employed devoted great attention to the subject. They commenced their labours in the first week in April, and at the end of July they made a report, which had been laid on their Lordships table, in which Mr. Bellenden Ker stated that he had called on each of his colleagues to state to him his views as to what had, occurred to him, or as likely to be advantageously adopted. Two of these gentlemen, as he had already stated, went through the whole, or nearly the whole, of the existing statutes, arriving at the result that there were only 2,500 out of more than 16,000 general and public statutes now actually in force. One of them (Mr. Brickdale) made a digest of the law relating to distress for rent. There was no particular reason for his taking that last-named subject, excepting that it might be completed before the close of the last Session, and a report was accordingly made on that branch of the subject. He (the Lord Chancellor) had read all these reports, and it had appeared to him that the direction he ought to give to these gentlemen on reassembling after the long vacation was, that they should immediately proceed under the superintendence of Mr. Ker, who took an active part in the work, to the actual consolidation of certain statutes. That they had done, and Mr. Ker had laid on the table a very able second report, in which he exhausted the subject—stated what could be done—what was practicable, and giving the reasons for what he recommended. Of this recommendation he (the Lord Chancellor) approved, and intended to prosecute it, subject to certain observations which he was about to make. In his report Mr. Ker, after stating his objections to other measures, proceeded to assign his reasons for the course which he did recommend. He would not say that what Mr. Ker recom-

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mended was what he (the Lord Chancellor) had suggested, because he wished to give Mr. Ker all the credit to which he was fairly entitled; but Mr. Ker stated that the course which he thought the most feasible and the most practically conducive to the desired result of an improved state of statute law, was the gradual consolidation, or the rewriting of the statute law, combining with that rewriting all such amendments of the law as could be suggested—in short, the continuation of that process which had been already for a long period applied to isolated subjects and in a desultory way, though always with marked advantage. He (the Lord Chancellor) presumed that Mr. Ker here referred to those very statutes to which his noble and learned Friend (Lord Lyndhurst) had alluded as instances of what had already been achieved in this direction. He (the Lord Chancellor) would just say that, preparatory to doing this, one of the other gentlemen he had engaged (Mr. Rogers), had, under Mr. Ker's superintendence, made what they called groups of the statutes—that was to say, had grouped such statutes together as might be conveniently taken together, and put into one or more. Having done that, the Commissioners arranged amongst themselves certain subjects, upon each of which they proposed before the year was out (and he had no doubt they would accomplish it) to have the statutes on one or two subjects ready to be put into his hand, in the shape of a consolidated statute, formed in the way to which his noble and learned Friend had alluded. His noble and learned Friend asked him what course he intended to pursue. He would tell him. He had stated from the first that this was a matter, to a certain extent, experimental—not that he doubted the possibility, and to a certain extent the feasibility, of doing that which he proposed to do—for he did not doubt it; but as soon as the year for which the services of those gentlemen to whom he referred had come to an end, he proposed to take the actual statutes as consolidated, and submit them to their Lordships to be passed into law. His noble and learned Friend had alluded to what had been done in the United States of America in this respect; there the statute law had been consolidated by a commission, which the Legislature had afterwards adopted and enacted as a law. Now he (the Lord Chancellor) must say, that he was quite convinced that the Legislature of this country would refuse to entrust—and he doubt-
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ed if it ought to entrust—any man or body of men outside the walls of Parliament with the task of declaring what should and what should not become law. All they could do would be to employ properly qualified persons to put groups of statutes into an amended and consolidated form, and then for the Lord Chancellor, or some other authority, to propose that in that form Parliament should pass it into law. That that was the only course they could pursue, he would make manifest to his noble and learned Friend, by what both of them had been witness to in the last Session of Parliament. In the Commission of 1831, certain gentlemen were engaged in the double duty of consolidating the criminal law, and of framing a plan of digesting the statute law. That was done, and done by gentlemen of the highest eminence, who devoted great care, and time, and attention to the work. Various attempts were made to introduce new matter by way of amendments, and to get the whole, so condensed and amended, adopted by the Legislature as a law, as was done in the United States, but to that that House would never listen; and it was a wholly impracticable measure, because their Lordships would have to treat, and were bound to treat, every proposed consolidated statute in precisely the same manner as if it were a new law introduced into Parliament for the first time. His noble and learned predecessor (Lord St. Leonards) last Session brought in a Bill taken from a meal sure that had been framed by the Criminal Law Commissioners, with some slight alterations and improvements, and which related only to one head of the criminal law, namely, to murders and other offences against the person. What was the history of that Bill? It was, as must naturally be the case with every such Bill, referred to a Select Committee. His noble and learned Friend (Lord Lyndhurst) was a member of that Committee, and diligently attended it; the noble and learned Lord Chief Justice and other law Lords also were on the Committee, and devoted great attention to the subject, and yet, at the end of the Session, it was still an imperfect Bill. Why did he refer to all this? Because he thought that if they were to attempt too much, and sought to consolidate, not the statutes only, but the common law with them, so as to say that, "from and after the passing of a particular Bill relating to a particular subject, no

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law, statute or common, relating to it should have any force, or except such as was within the four corners of this parchment," they would be attempting something which, although it looked theoretically right, would be perfectly impracticable, and would only be postponing what might be accomplished in a more modified form, ad Grœcos Kalendas, and nothing at all would be done. Looking therefore at the matter in this practical point of view, what he proposed to do was this:—When he received the Bills as they were framed by these four gentlemen whose services he had engaged for a twelvemonth, if he found them such as he could, consistently with his duty, he would submit them to Parliament as Bills for the consolidation of the statutes, with the view that they might become the law of the land. He fully anticipated that this would be the result; he should not take that which had been done this first year as a criterion of what might be done in subsequent years. No doubt the work of consolidation would go on with greater and still greater facility as the operation became more fully understood. If his anticipations were realised, and if Bills should be framed that consolidated a great number of statutes—to the vast advantage of the community—he should then consider it his duty to retain the services, and he felt there would be no difficulty in doing so, of, a certain number of members both of the bench and the bar, who should constitute an unpaid Commission for superintending the consolidation of all the statutes grouped as they already were in the Report of which a copy was then on their Lordships' table. It appeared to him that that was the only practicable mode of proceeding. So far from regretting that his attention had been called to the subject by his noble and learned Friend, he thought it was the duty of every noble Lord to see that he (the Lord Chancellor) did not sleep upon the subject. He could assure his noble and learned Friend that he had no inclination to do so. Scarcely a week ever passed during, which he had not an interview with Mr. Bellenden Ker, and if their Lordships would read the report drawn up by that gentleman, they would find that the whole subject had been thoroughly sifted, and been put by him in the only practicable mode in which the object desired could be arrived at—namely, the enacting of some one or two Acts of Parliament which should have the effect of embodying the law, which was now scattered about in some twenty or
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more statutes. It was certainly a subject of great difficulty, and to understand the law upon any particular branch of it was also attended with much labour; but nobody could doubt that much of this labour and difficulty might be lessened by the statutes of the land being consolidated, and the law on any given subject being made more generally accessible. That work of consolidation was not only expedient, but was, in his opinion, eminently practicable.
LORD CAMPBELLsaid, that since his noble and learned Friend (Lord Lyndhurst) had combined with his noble and learned Friend on the woolsack in the promotion of this measure, he was now convinced that all that was practicable would be accomplished. He was much pleased to hear from his noble and learned Friend (the Lord Chancellor) that he did not contemplate the codification of the whole of the statute and common law of the realm. It was absolutely impossible to do so. In no country that had ever existed had there been a codification of the whole of the law. They were told to admire, and they all did exceedingly admire, the Code Napoleon; but did that contain the whole of the law of France? No; nor one-twentieth part of the law of that country. There were whole libraries of law to which French lawyers were obliged to refer, which were quite as voluminous as ours, and they had reports which bad to be read; and there existed quite as much reason for calling for a codification of the law of France as there was for calling for a codification of the law of England. We had most excellent treatises upon all the great heads of the law—upon real property and upon personal property—and these treatises answered all the purposes of a code. There were, for instance, the works of Lord St. Leonards. He mentioned the name of that noble and learned Lord with the greatest possible respect and gratitude. Lord St. Leonards had published a book on real property which answered all the purposes of a code. He might also refer to that noble and learned Lord's work on Landlord and Tenant, and on Powers, both of which embraced all the law relating to those subjects, and were, in fact, a codification of the law under those heads. There were similar treatises of equal merit on other heads of the law of England. If at any time there should be discovered any inaccuracy in those treatises, it could be corrected by the judicial decisions of the

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Courts; and if the Courts should differ in their opinion, the question could then be finally rectified by an Act of Parliament. The question of consolidating the law was one of great importance, and he believed it might be applied to almost all subjects. The exceptions, he considered, were but few, in which the process could not be applied. There were, however, some exceptions. They could not throw all their statutes into a crucible, and then recast the whole. They could not take Magna Charta and consolidate it with some Act of last Session. They could not take a statute respecting the election and consecration of bishops, and consolidate it with a law relating to the poor or to the highways. Still, a system of consolidation, within a proper limit, might be most useful, and might work to the greatest advantage.
LORD LYNDHURSTexplained. He was understood to express his concurrence in the terms of approbation in which the noble and learned Lord on the woolsack had spoken of Mr. Bellenden Ker's report. He also said that he had not stated that the codification of the common law had been attempted in the United States. He had merely spoken of the codification of the statute law.
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, that there might be occasions in which it would be useful to introduce a small portion of the common law into a consolidation of the statute law. The rule should be to consolidate the statute law only; but it would be mere pendantry to say that the Commissioners must not in any case touch in the least degree the common law, though, in doing so, they would of course be acting a exceptionally and rarely. With regard to the Commissioners striking out all that might be termed the rubbish statutes, the first direction he had given to the Commissioners was, that they should do just as they had done—namely, reject all the expired and obsolete Acts of Parliament. But, as to their finding what statutes were actually in force, that was quite impossible, unless they went through every clause of every Act. But, so far as ascertaining what laws had expired and what had become obsolete, this they had done, and the result of their inquiry afforded an extremely useful guide as to what were and what were and what were not the statutes to be consolidated.
LORD CAMPBELLobserved, that the statutes at large extended to about fifty
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folio volumes; but all the statutes which were usually required by lawyers for reference might be found in three octavo volumes, compiled by his learned Friend Mr. Welsby, and which he always had by his side on the bench. This circumstance, however, ought by no means to operate so as in any way to relax the endeavours now being made, under the direction of the noble and learned Lord, for the consolidation of certain portions of the statute law.
House adjourned till To-morrow.