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the administration of justice is confided. Not one of them will be either prejudiced or offended—no personal feeling have I to mingle with or introduce into the consideration of so weighty a subject. I feel a confidence unspeakable, too, which rests on other grounds. I have not to cavil or dispute topics before men ignorant of the details of the subject, or prejudiced against the acquisition of information on it; nor do I seek any triumph by the display of technical skill in the exposure of technical difficulties. I am likewise strengthened with the knowlege that, from accidental circumstances, I have derived from professional experience a practical and thorough acquaintance with the topics to which I mean to allude; and I beg to assure the House, that in no one instance will I touch on any defect or abuse in the administration of justice, of which I have not obtained direct knowlege, while employed for one party or another in the progress of my professional avocations. Before stating to the House what I mean to propose for their consideration, I shall mention those branches of the law which it is not my intention to take up.

In the first place, I shall avoid the Courts of Equity in every branch, unless where, from their incidental commixture with the business of the common law, I am compelled to allude to them; not because I think nothing should be done in the reform of those courts, but because they have been, in some sort, already taken up by Parliament, and the Lord Chancellor has himself announced his intention of bringing in a Bill, in pursuance of the recommendation of the commissioners, who have already delivered a report on the object of their inquiry. The condition of the courts of equity in this country has also been long taken up, to his great honor, by my learned friend (Mr. M. A. Taylor), who will no doubt still direct his talents and energies to the completion of the task which he has undertaken. For reasons of the like kind, there are a great many parts of the criminal law from which I am relieved in this inquiry. Happily, since the days when an eminent and lamented friend (Sir Samuel Romilly) had devoted his great talents and long experience to the investigation of the criminal law of this country, and since another honorable and learned friend, the member for Knaresborough (Sir James Mackintosh) had followed up the same arduous inquiry, that subject has fortunately received the countenance and protection of a right honorable gentleman opposite (Mr. Peel), whose patronage of it, coupled with his official power, and consequent means of executing whatever he thinks proper to recommend, is, as it must be, in the highest degree advantageous to the cause to which he lends his aid. Besides, the right honorable gentleman's connexion and influence with the Church and State tended, when he (Mr. Peel) took up the business, to silence

much of the alarm which had been sounded against what was deemed change and innovation. I hope that the right honorable gentleman is seriously disposed to proceed with his good work, for I cannot think he means to sit down now, and say, "So far have I gone, but no farther." If he could so prematurely conclude, then indeed it might be said that little had been yet accomplished. But I trust the right honorable gentleman will still apply the energies of his mind to the further work of reformation that must be effected before the task can be said to be finished.

There is another reason why I propose to avoid bringing in, as if by wholesale, the wide subject of the criminal law into the present consideration. It would not be right to unsettle the minds of the large mass of the people in a matter of so much delicacy and importance as the revision of the criminal law; besides, I know it is in detail in the hands of others. There is also another branch of law which I shall exclude from present consideration-I mean the code of commercial law; it lies in a narrow compass-it has been formed by degrees, according as the exigency of international affairs has called for it. It has been accepted by other states as well as Great Britain, and is not so pressing for alteration as other parts of the law of England. Lastly, I shall not advert to the law affecting real property, which forms so extensive a part of the legal system of this country;-not that I might not derive from it many points, in illustration of the argument which I intend to advance, or that I might not with justice propose many changes in it; but because I flatter myself that the Secretary of State for the Home Department, who has long been working with a systematic view to the amelioration of the law, will not overlook this portion of it. Here I cannot avoid alluding to the reform of the criminal law, and I would say to the general improvement of the law, effected by the meritorious labors of the late Sir Samuel Romilly, and by the strenuous exertions of the honorable member for Knaresborough (Sir J. Mackintosh,) both of whom merited the thanks of their country. The same debt of gratitude is due for the excellent, luminous, and comprehensive investigation of this important subject, by one of the ablest lawyers and conveyancers in this country, Mr. Humphreys. With the exceptions now stated (and I have to apologise for keeping the House so long in pointing them out, but it is necessary for me to explain what I do not mean to touch), I will address myself to this difficult and extensive subject.

After this explanation, the House will, I conceive, see at once the object and purpose which I have in view. I shall not enlarge on the infinite importance of this question, or dwell on the high,

paramount necessity for the representatives of the people taking

it up in the spirit of deep and serious deliberation: but I must say that if we view the whole establishments of the country, as regards the government of the King, and the estates of the realm; be those establishments military, as respects either the land or naval force of the empire, whether we turn our eyes to any other part of the system, to our foreign relations, which are intended to preserve peace with the world, to our domestic relations, which are necessary to cause the Government to be respected by the people, or to our fiscal regulations, by which the expense of the whole is to be supported;-still, I venture to assert that they all shrink into nothing, they become insignificant, when compared with the pure and prompt administration of justice throughout the empire. I would institute no such comparison. All the establishments formed by our ancestors, and supported by their descendants, were invented, and were mainly and principally maintained, in order that justice might be duly administered between man and man. And, in my mind, that man was guilty of no error-he was a party to no exaggeration-he was led by his fancy into no extravagance -who had said, that all we see about us, Lords and Commons, the whole machinery of the State, is designed to bring twelve men into the jury-box, to decide on questions connected with liberty and property. Such was the cause of the establishment of Government-such was the use of Government: it is that purpose which can alone justify restraints on general liberty-it is that only which can justify any interference with the freedom of the subject.

I now invite the House to enter on an examination of this subject; to proceed into the different Courts to mark what failures, in practice, are to be found in the system, as it was originally formed, as well as the errors which time has engendered by a departure from that system; and then to consider whether we might not, safely and usefully, apply to those defects remedies of a reasonable and temperate nature. In the first place, let us proceed to the Courts in Westminster Hall, and observe the course pursued in them. Let us examine the proceedings in the Courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas. Though the jurisdiction of these two Courts was originally confined within separate and narrow limits, yet now they approach very near to each other on almost all subjects. The jurisdiction of the Court of King's Bench, for example, was originally confined to actions where violence was used-actions of trespass by force-and pleas of the crown. But that Court has, by various fictions, extended its jurisdiction most materially. One of these fictions is, that every person against whom an action is brought is supposed to be in the custody of the Marshal, by which means the whole of that jurisdiction which was formerly confined to the Common Pleas has been handed over to

the King's Bench. The Court of Common Pleas was not so fortunate as to regain the exclusive jurisdiction which once belonged to it. An attempt was made with that view under the Lord Keeper Guilford, but it did not succeed. I trust the House will allow me, as a little divertisement in the midst of so dry a subject, to state the nature of the contest between the two Courts, as described by Roger North, in his Biography of the Lord Keeper -a work with which I am sure my learned friend (the Solicitorgeneral) is as well acquainted as he is with the most profound and learned subtleties of his profession. The biographer says, "the Court of Common Pleas was outwitted by the King's Bench, until his lordship came on the cushion; and his lordship, by an artifice, endeavored to restore the business of the Common Pleas. Sir Matthew Hale complained of this new fiction, though, by a similar triccum in lege, the Court of King's Bench had run away with all the business." The author further observes, "In law there ought to be a competition for practice. The King's Bench was originally confined to pleas of the crown, yet they have, by a fiction, which supposes, whether a man owes any thing or not, that he is a debtor, contrived to draw many common causes to them."

Now, these two Courts have not a competition with each other, which arises out of the peculiar circumstances I am about to state. In the first place, the Court of Common Pleas shuts its door against many practitioners, in consequence of a fee exacted from attornies at the commencement of every term. Although that fee is very trifling, being but 12s. 4d., still it operates to prevent solicitors from going to that Court. There is also a certain proportion of other fees to be advanced by the attorney in a much earlier stage of the legal proceedings than is customary in the other Courts. The attorney in town, or, if he reside in the country, his agent, has to advance this money out of his pocket in the first instance, and is not always sure of having it repaid. There is also another cause which tends to lessen the practice in this Court, to which I shall now refer; but in doing so, I speak with all deference of those most learned persons who possess an especial and exclusive right to practise in the Court of Common Pleas. That Court is not open to all the members of the profession, but to serjeants-at-law only; they alone have a right to conduct causes there. I know perfectly well that very great expense is incurred by these gentlemen in prosecuting their education, and readily admit that they are able expounders of the law; but the question is, whether it is a useful practice to exclude other practitioners from that Court, and whether it does not tend to lessen the number of causes there, and to throw additional labor on the

Judges of the Court of King's Bench? Suitors, of course, have their favorites at the bar, and if they cannot avail themselves of their assistance in the Common Pleas, that circumstance must, pro tanto, drive suitors elsewhere. The Court of Exchequer, in like manner, though in another way, keeps suitors from prosecuting causes there. There is one reason why the Court of Exchequer, as at present constituted, cannot, in my opinion, do much business, or have the reputation of doing it; and that is, the various mixtures of suits which are cognizable to it. It is, in fact, a Court of all sorts of equity and of law-of crown law and of common law-of law which decides between subject and subject, as well as of law that decides between the subject and the Crown; and suitors, seeing the business done in so many different ways, come to the conclusion that it is not so well done as it might be. I do not, however, believe that this is a correct opinion; because gentlemen employed in that Court do not, I am convinced, yield to any body of individuals in their knowlege of equity and law. There are in that Court many distinguished equity and common lawyers. In what, therefore, I have said, I refer merely to public opinion, which, whether right or wrong, has been engendered by the constitution of that Court.

There is, however, another reason which tends to render the Exchequer the least employed Court. If we have a monopoly of counsel in the Court of Common Pleas, there is a monopoly of attornies in the Court of Exchequer. There are, in that Court, four attornies and sixteen clerks; and if an individual wishes to proceed in the Exchequer, he must employ one of those attornies. It is needless for me to say, that such a system has, of necessity, a tendency at once to shut the doors of the Court of Exchequer against suitors. What, then, is the consequence of those causes which prevent suitors from approaching the Courts of Common Pleas and Exchequer? Why, it is this,-wherever there is but little business done, it has a tendency to induce those in power not to place a strong judge in that situation, the small portion of business to be gone through rendering the judge less fit for his office, and, by a natural re-action, the less fitness of the judge reducing the quantity of business. I am here speaking of past times, with a view, however, to what may occur at a future period. We may not always have the bench so well filled as at present. The time may come, when, if a judge is to be made, in consequence of political influence, who is known not to be capable of properly filling the office, it may be said by those who support him, "Oh, it does not matter; send him to the Court of Exchequer." Thus, the small portion of business transacted in the Court of Exchequer the suspicion, originating in the general

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