said, a petition had been presented against this election on the 15th of November, purporting to be signed by certain freemen of the borough. He now held in his hand a petition from the same place, in which it was stated, that eighteen of thirty names subscribed to the former petition were forgeries, being neither signed by the parties, nor by any one authorized to attach their signatures to the document. One name attached to the petition was alleged to be altogether fictitious. The House would see, that this was a matter touching its privileges, and the right of the subject to petition, very nearly; and he should, therefore, give notice, that he would to-morrow move that this Petition be referred to a Select Committee. In adopting this course he was actuated solely by public considerations, being entirely unconnected with the politics of the place.

presented a Petition which, he had to state, was most numerously and respectably signed—it was from the Freeholders of the parish of St. James, in the city of Westminster. It complained of a great grievance—it complained of the deprivation of an important national right—the loss of which had occasioned much and serious discontent throughout many parishes of the metropolis, and in various parts of the country. The grievance of which the petitioners complained was, the existence in their parish of a self-elected vestry; and they prayed that some measure might be adopted, consistent with the Report of the Committee which sat during two Sessions of Parliament. He was anxious to take the earliest opportunity of stating, that on the very first day after the recess he meant to bring in a Bill, the object of which would be, to remedy the evils which formed the subject of the present complaint. The Bill he intended to bring in would be modelled upon the former bill, or rather, would be an exact counterpart of it, in the form it had been presented in and before it underwent the amendments of a committee. He had conferred with his constituents on this subject, and they had declared, that they would rather have no bill at all, than the Bill as amended by the committee. They disliked Mr. Sturges Bourne's bill so much, that they would have nothing to do with any measure framed on its principles. He wished in an especial manner to call the attention of the House to the prayer of the present petition, for such was the indignation which select vestries had excited, that he would not answer for the tranquillity of parishes, if something speedy and decisive were not done, with a view to the modification of the present system. It was right the House should know, that several parishes in the metropolis had resolved not to pay the rates unless the abuse were done away. The people who returned Members to that House had not the smallest control over the parish funds, though they might amount to 70,000l. or 100,000l. a year. In his opinion, the parishioners ought to have a control over their own funds, and he would support no, bill which did not give them that control.

thought many of the inhabitants of the metropolis favourable to Mr. Sturges Bourne's bill.

corroborated the statement of the hon. member for Westminster, as to the great and prevailing discontent with select vestries.

trusted, that the hon. member for Westminster would persevere in the motion of which he had given notice. It was absurd to talk of parliamentary reform so long as parish authorities could tax the people without their consent.

stated, that the abolition of the select vestry in the parish of Shore-ditch was attended with a reduction in the rates of 2s.—namely, from 4s. 8d. to 2s. 8d. He entirely concurred in the statement, that parochial reform was necessary.

informed the House, that the select vestry of the Parish of St. Marylebone, much to their credit, stated, that they would not offer any opposition to their dissolution; and he would add, that nothing but a confident expectation that the system would be abolished, could keep the people of that parish in their present state of quiet and submission to the existing rates.

said, that select vestries were one of the greatest practical grievances of the present day, constituting not only a gross violation of every constitutional principle, but of every principle of common sense. There was something in them so preposterous, that an English House of Commons was called upon to get rid of them at once, and the mode of doing so was perfectly simple: it was by a recurrence to the ancient constitutional principle, that no man was to be taxed without his own consent.

I hold in my hand a Petition from the Parish of Rahoon, in the town of Galway, praying that this honourable House will be graciously pleased to place the Roman Catholic mercantile and trading classes upon an equal footing with the Protestants, in regard to the Elective Franchise, as at present exercised by them in Galway. The grounds on which they pray for this undoubted right, have been already, on several occasions, exposed in so much detail, and listened to with so much sympathy and consideration in this House, that I should be trespassing unwarrantably on its indulgence, by insisting anew upon the arguments. The anomaly stands singly and unaccountably an exception to the provisions of the Relief Bill of 1829; and had it not been marked by the opposition of the late Prime Minister in the upper House, it might be also imagined an exception to the enlightened intentions of its framers. It is time this blot should be wiped off, and his Majesty's present Administration, pledged as they are by former votes, will consult their own consistency and the just claims of the petitioners, by as speedily as possible pro- ceeding to a legislative enactment on the subject. I have also to present from the parishioners of St. Nicholas, in the same town, a Petition upon a subject of more general interest and importance. They pray that the Legislature will, in the allocation of future grants, for the purposes of Irish education, look more closely into facts, and introduce such changes in the existing system, as will render it more conformable to the wants and wishes of the Irish people. Education, as it now exists in that country, is not national; it is doled out, under party restrictions and conditions, through channels and under influences often hostile, seldom in harmony with the general character or necessities of the country. Moral and intellectual instruction can no more tolerate shackles, than commerce or religion. If, indeed, in any instance, it is here that all trade should be free. The results of a similar system of interference in a neighbouring country, Belgium, are well known. There prescribing the mode by which this mental culture was to be administered, too rigorously, and in contrast with the habits of the people, not only did not advance the purposes for which it was intended, but produced other consequences, which an enlightened Government ought surely to have foreseen,—it kept the people in ignorance, and then plunged them into resistance and revolution. It would appear from the statements of this petition, in strict accordance, I may add, with my own personal observation, that a policy calculated in the same school—a wisdom not inferior to that of the king of Holland —has stood between the petitioners and their fair hopes of the intellectual progress of the country. Their utter inutility (a mild name, indeed, for the intolerable abuses of the Charter schools) is now matter of record in the Reports of the Commissioners of Education—but it is not so well known that the system which succeeded, originating, perhaps, in the best intentions, has been productive of scarcely more advantage to the country, from the purposes to which it was subsequently wrested. I give credit to many benevolent persons, for an anxious desire to extend the lights of mental and moral improvement to their fellow-countrymen, but the means they devised were not the means to attain it: they were inadequately acquainted with Ireland and with Irishmen, and the Kildare-street Society mixed up religious discussions with what ought to have been a matter purely civil, and added new fuel to those burning coals of sectarian dissension and rancour, which have been so long the crime and misfortune of Ireland. Several vain efforts were made by the Catholic clergy—by the Commissioners of Education, in 1824 and 1826—and, which I am happy to add, by the Protestant clergy, so early as 1812 and followed up, as far as his opportunities would permit him, by Lord Anglesey, during the short time of his viceroyalty; but the abuse—the acknowledged, the condemned, the attempted to be corrected abuse—still exists, and calls, amongst the loudest of the many loud grievances of the country, for a searching and immediate cure. It was with this view that I gave, some time since, a notice of a substantive motion for the reform of education in Ireland;—a reform in which I may safely indulge the hope, that I shall meet the earnest co-operation of his Majesty's present Government. When that occasion shall arrive, I shall enter at length into all the bearings of the subject, with a view to some general and final adjustment, satisfactory to all denominations and classes in the country. I have touched only on the principal heads at present, in compliance with the wishes, and in justice to the claims, of the petitioners. I have to add to the petition just presented, another, to which I hope I may be for some moments permitted to entreat the attention of the House. It is a petition of certain holders of chattel-leases or derivative letters there under, householders, and others, in Ireland, praying an extension of the right of voting to such as hold such interests. The disfranchisement of the 40s. freeholders deprived at once of their vested rights nearly 300,000 voters—a dealing with vested rights against which scarcely a murmur was heard in this House. Whatever may be its consequences in other particulars, I hope it will convey, at least, this healing with the wound it has inflicted—that in the discussions which are yet to take place in this House on reform, hon. Members will remember the precedent, great, and searching, and universal as it was, and when the day of borough disfranchisement shall come, they will hold the balance steady, and wield the axe well, and suppress the tender morality and constitutional qualms of proprietors—those holders of the con- science and character of dependents—by pointing to the 300,000 disfranchised voters,—the "deserted franchise" of the people of Ireland. The petitioners do not petition for a repeal of that measure, however narrowing the constituency, or accompanied with evils of a peculiar nature, arising from the distressed state of Ireland—a distress enhanced by the sudden revulsion and numerous ejectments produced by this law; but they point out a remedy,—a remedy, in my mind, most efficient,—a remedy simple and clear,— for it deals with claims which are unquestionable, and with classes whose competency and respectability cannot be suspected. To extend the right of voting in Ireland to chattel interests would enlarge the constituency to a reasonable measure, —it would infuse a wholesome portion of popular vigour into the franchise, and remove a ground of legitimate grievance and complaint. What entitles the freeholder holding on lives to higher constitutional privileges than the holder of chattel interests? — an antiquated prejudice, arising out of a by-gone frame of society, but in no sort of accord with the real merits of the claim on the existing pretensions of the individual. I do trust and hope to see some extensive alteration in this important point. If the object of all legislative enactments on the subject be, or ought to be (I regret that in fact they are not often found together) to give a better guarantee to the country for the independence of the electoral body—surely there cannot for a moment exist a question that a man who holds for a good term of years, has a far better ground for such independence, than the dependent on an old life of seventy or eighty (I speak of Ireland), which may drop off the very day after an election. That such things happen is notorious—that their effect is to chain the 10l. freeholder as much as the 40s. freeholder, to the chariot of his lord, is more notorious still. It always appeared to me, that the Disfranchisement bill, even for its avowed purposes, was inadequate. It was inconsistent with itself. What it did intend to effect, it did not effect; what it did not intend to effect, it has fully effected. At the same time, the results to the popular cause have been far more favourable than were expected. In the late elections these results were conspicuous. But they did not arise from the raising of the qualification, they arose from the preponderance of town voters over the rustic constituency; wherever such towns did not exist, the result was nearly the same as before the Disfranchisement bill had taken place. The 10l. freeholders are quite as dependent as the 40s. had deemed themselves before. The remedy is, therefore, in a more stable tenure; and, under this principle, should come the extension to the holders of chattel interests the right of voting. Such interests are common in Ireland; I believe still more common here. Whether it would not enlarge the franchise too much in this country, I do not pretend to say; but this I may safely assert, that such extension could very easily be balanced; and that in Ireland, at all events, such a result ought to be hoped for, and not be feared. In the arrangements of the great projected measure of parliamentary reform I do hope that this change may have a place. Ireland has much to complain of in a limited constituency—but in a limited Representation still more; 100 Members, with various drawbacks and claims to prevent attendance, are too few. When the franchise (it is hoped) is about to be extended to the great unrepresented towns of England, why not double the Representatives of the chief commercial towns of the sister country? Belfast, Limerick, Waterford, have surely as much want, and as good claim to such a representation, as the numerous insignificant boroughs of the south of England. If balance in numbers be sought, we can spare a certain number of rotten boroughs too. The same observation may extend to Scotland, and perhaps to Wales. I am the more anxious to take this opportunity of urging these remarks, from having observed, that Ireland is not comprehended in the returns moved for by the noble Lord, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Whether this was intentionally intimating that Ireland was not to be comprehended in his plan of reform, I cannot say. I should hope that Ireland has not been excluded from her claim to correction. Should this be the case, she will, I am sure, assert her claim to correction also; and it will become the duty of some of the Irish Representatives, by moving for similar returns, to bring her condition under the notice of the House.—On the Motion that the Petition be brought up,

said he wished to put a question to an hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (his Majesty's Attorney General) respecting a well-known periodical publication, which contained some paragraphs of a very dangerous character, alluding to the disgraceful scenes now going forward in some parts of the country, and calculated to aggravate the present lawless state of some counties. The publication to which he referred was one that was circulated very extensively, and that laboured unceasingly in efforts of excitation—efforts that, if not arrested in their progress, would, sooner or later, destroy that and the other House of Parliament. The circulation of that diabolical publication—he could find no milder term; the circulation he would repeat was dangerously extensive. It was a compilation which he could not but regard with the utmost regret and alarm [cries of read, read! name, name.]

wished to learn, whether the question which the hon. Member intended to put, had anything at all to do with the present Motion, which was, that a certain petition be brought up? However unwilling to intercept any question, the House must feel that the observations of the hon. Member must conclude with a motion, and surely no other motion could, with any regularity, be allowed to interrupt that then before the House.

would reduce his question to a few words. He wished to know, if the publication referred to had come under the notice of the hon. and learned Gentleman, the Attorney General, and whether he intended to do anything relative to it [cries of "name."] The publication was Cobbett's Register.

said, he had to thank the hon. Member for his courtesy in sending him a note, intimating his intention of putting the question which the House had just then heard; but since the receipt of that note, he had not had time to read the publication referred to.

would to-morrow bring the matter under the notice of the House.

presented a Petition from Southampton, complaining of general Distress, and praying for Reform and Retrenchment. The hon. Gentleman stated, that the petition had been confided to him, because the electors of Southampton could no longer place confidence in their own Members, who had made pledges to them, but had not redeemed them. He was extremely happy to have the honour of presenting this petition, as he looked upon it in the light of a species of reform, to choose a Member of that House who would do his duty, when they could not trust to those who represented the place. This petition was signed by 1,649 individuals, and was almost unanimously agreed to at the meeting where it was proposed. The petitioners complained of the pressure of tithes, of the manner in which they were exacted, and of their inequality. They also pointed out the many evils which were entailed on the country by the Poor-laws. They prayed for a reform in Parliament, and the most rigid retrenchment. The petitioners also called the attention of the House to the abuses which had crept into the Church; among which they stated, that the Rector of St. Mary's, Southampton, received 2000l. per annum from that rectory, and 1000l. as the head-master of a public school; and that he did the duties of neither office, but lived in another county. They also pointed out the case of a clergyman who received 1,600l. a year from a neighbouring parish, in which he did not reside. These were adequate causes for the prevailing discontent. He trusted that this petition would meet with more attention from Government than many other petitions of a similar nature had received.

complained of the statement of the hon. Gentleman in saying, that he had lost the confidence of his constituents. The fact was, that the petition which had been presented was one proposed as an Amendment by one lawyer, and seconded by another. When he mentioned the profession of these gentlemen, he did not do it invidiously, but only to show that at all events they were not persons of first-rate consequence in Southampton. It was likewise worthy of notice, that one of these gentlemen had been agent to his opponent at one election, and the other had written to him (Mr. Hoy) requesting to be employed at the late election, with which request, however, he had not complied; besides which, he thought that if the hon. Gentleman would take the trouble to inquire, he would find that the petition was by no means signed by the majority of the electors of Southampton. He also assured the hon. Member, that he had given as independent votes as any ever given by the member for Middlesex, and that he despised not more the man who voted always at the will of a patron, than him who voted with a view to what might occur to affect his popularity at the next election. The hon. Gentleman, however, was very fond of setting himself up as the censurer of the whole House, lecturing every person on his course of conduct. He thought the hon. Member had no right to take another to task for the votes he gave. He had taken on himself to tell them that he would have no Minister of State in the House; next, he would have no East-India Director, no Bank Director—in short, he would have no director there but himself. Nor was this the only course he adopted in his search after popularity; like a true Indian sportsman, he shot at everything, from an elephant to a snipe, setting himself up as redresser-general of grievances, and receiver-general of petitions. He (Mr. Hoy) did not pretend himself to be able to compete with the hon. Gentleman, but he could not help wishing that some sarcastic giant would arise, or that this political Quixote, in some of his numerous sallies to redress real or imaginary grievances, would tilt against some windmill, and then his only task would be to write his epitaph, which should be—

"Procumbit humi Bos."

said, that the hon. Member could not have paid him a higher compliment than calling him the redresser of wrongs. It was to redress the wrongs of the people that he came to that House, and he could assure the hon. Member that none of those who laughed at his joke were more pleased with it than he was. As to the respectability of the petition, he should leave the hon. Gentleman to settle that question with his constituents. This he knew, that it was signed by the Mayor, and delivered to him by the Mayor's brother. With respect to his courting popularity, he knew that no instance could be cited in support of such a position, and he would give the hon. Gentleman, and the right hon. member for Armagh, who had so heartily cheered him, a week to think of an instance. That the right hon. Gentleman should have cheered the attack that had been made upon him did not surprise him; for he had ever shown himself the patron of every abuse that had been brought forward, and the perpetual and interminable supporter of every corruption. If, however, what had fallen from the hon. Gentleman had afforded amusement to the House, he had no objection. All he had to complain of was, that the House should think so much of sarcasm and folly, and be so insensible to the real business of the nation.

said, that as he had been appealed to, he would mention one of the cases where the hon. Gentleman had not always shown himself impelled by that feeling for which he had been so ready to take credit. In citing that instance, he would go no further back than to almost the last transaction of the last Session of Parliament. It was well known that he (Mr. Goulburn) had last Session brought forward a measure for throwing open the trade in beer. On the first discussion of that measure, the hon. Gentleman had concurred in the proposition; but in a subsequent stage of the bill he had recorded his vote against it. It was true, that between the first proposal of the measure, and the period of that vote, the hon. Gentleman had become a candidate for the county of Middlesex; but he would not take on himself to say what influence that circumstance might have had on the transaction.

said, that when this charge had been brought against his hon. friend, he thought that he (Mr. Warburton) had given a full confutation of it; for he had stated, from his own certain knowledge, that his hon. friend had entertained doubts on the subject many weeks before that vote was recorded, and long before he had any idea of becoming a candidate for Middlesex.

said, the hon. member for Middlesex had taken to himself personally what, he had intended in a general sense. He could assure the hon. Member that he should willingly bear his testimony to the indefatigable zeal with which he acted in what he conceived to be for the interest of the country.

said, he rose to answer one of the most unfair attacks he had ever heard made. The right hon. member for Armagh had last Session received the same explanation that his hon. friend (Mr. Warburton) had furnished to the House now. He was able able to state, that the hon. member for Middlesex had made up his mind to vote as he did, before he even thought of becoming a candidate for Middlesex. It was, therefore, a most un- fair charge, to impute such a motive to the hon. Gentleman.

appealed to all who had heard him, whether the first attack had not been on the part of the hon. member for Middlesex? Till that attack had been made, he had taken no part in the debate beyond cheering what had fallen from the hon. member for Southampton: on account of that cheer, the hon. member for Middlesex had thought proper to say that he was the patron of every abuse that was ever brought forward. The hon. Gentleman had challenged him to mention one instance of his inconsistency; and he had therefore stated what had occurred on the Beer bill, of course leaving it open to explanation, if it was susceptible of it.

deprecated one hon. Gentleman imputing motives to another hon. Gentleman.

in rising to make a Motion on this subject, said, that the Committee appointed by the House had unseated the Members that were returned, on the ground of bribery; arid with this charge before the House, he certainly thought that they were bound to consider whether a new election should be allowed to take place. The evidence before the committee had not yet been printed; but, at all events, it was known that that committee had decided against the two Members on the ground of corruption; and this, he contended, was enough to call for the interference of the House, when it was proposed to intrust the borough again with the right of returning Members. All that he at present asked was, that a short time should be allowed for the printing of the evidence, in order that the House might judge for itself; and he should therefore move, that the Speaker do issue his warrant to the Clerk of the Crown, to make out a supersedeas to the Writ that had been issued for the election of two Members for the borough of Evesham.

seconded the Motion, and called the attention of the House to a paper signed Edward Protheroe, jun., in which that gentleman made the following statement:—"I plainly acknowledge my desire to renew our connection. There is no inconsistency in this. With you, gentlemen, I never had the slightest cause of dissatisfaction: it was with the old system of your borough, with that unjust system which, after faithful and diligent services, accompanied by manly independence and disinterestedness in every speech and every vote, left me no hope of being re-elected, unless I condescended to traffic for my seat with those who bartered your privileges."—When such a declaration as this was made by a gentleman who was well acquainted with the transactions of the borough, he thought that the House had pretty good evidence before it of what was the real state of the case; and he therefore trusted, that Evesham would be disfranchised, and the representation given to some more worthy place. He begged, however, to say, that he himself personally knew nothing of Evesham, nor had he any acquaintance with the two gentlemen against whom the committee had decided.

considered, that as the committee had not reported the whole borough as guilty of bribery, a case could not be made out for disfranchising it. If the question were, whether the franchise should be transferred from a small to a large town, he knew how he should vote, but the case was different. There were 426 voters for the borough, of whom only 141 were resident; 235 were living at a distance of twenty miles from the borough, a great many of whom were very respectable persons; only twenty-two were proved to have been bribed. In moving the writ, he did what he conceived was his duty, and hoped he had not acted irregularly. It was not regular, he believed, to allude to the manner in which individuals had voted in the committee, and therefore he would not say on what occasion he had given the casting vote to which an allusion had formerly been made. He did not rise to offer any opposition to the motion before the House, but he did not think that a case could be made out for the disfranchisement of this borough.

said, that he had always been a friend to the disfranchisement of corrupt boroughs, and in some cases had even taken an active part; he must, however, confess, that in this instance he was far surpassed by the noble Marquis, whose new-born zeal for Parliamentary Reform had induced him to make this motion. He was, however, bound to say, that with respect to the present case, he thought that they would be acting unwisely if they established such a precedent; for the report did not contain an accusation of general bribery, but only against the two Members that had been returned.

said, that it was one thing to deal with the question what should be done with respect to a report relating chiefly to the sitting Members, and another as to what should be done with the borough. He would take the liberty of citing some precedents, which he considered would justify the House in adopting the Motion which had been introduced. The first case was that of the borough of Barnstaple. In that borough there were 460 voters; five individuals of whom received bribes, and the House thought proper to investigate that case. In the case of Penryn, eight individuals were reported to have received bribes, and the House proceeded to examine into that. But the hon. Gentleman had stated, that in no instance had the House investigated a case unless the committee had reported against a borough, and recommended the House to inquire as to the manner in which the elections had been conducted in it. The case of Penryn, in 1819, was very similar to the one now brought before the House. The committee reported, that one of the sitting Members had been guilty of bribery; and a similar charge was brought against the Members returned for Evesham, and the report of the committee; therefore, assumed the character of a special report, so far as respected that part of it. In the case of Camelford, the committee reported, that Mr. Stewart had acted in violation of the Bribery Act, and then merely stated, that six individuals had corruptly endeavoured to procure the return of a Member for Camelford. In both these cases, the writs were suspended, and an inquiry instituted, and therefore it did not appear necessary that a report should be presented against the borough of Evesham, in order to afford sufficient grounds for the House to investigate the case. In the instances he had referred to, the House was called on, not only to suspend the writs, but to disfranchise the boroughs. In Evesham there were 426 voters, and of course they did not all vote for the sitting Members; but it had been proved that every one of the non-resident voters who did vote were bribed. Every one of them actually received a bribe. On these grounds he would support the Motion of his noble friend for superseding the writ, which would give the House an opportunity to inquire.

thought no case to justify the Motion had been made out, either by the noble Mover or the hon. Member who spoke last. He put it to the House whether the case, as it stood, could justify suspending the writ. In the other cases referred to, the Chairman of the Committee had been instructed to move for the suspension of the writ; but that had never been done, unless at the instance of a committee. As the hon. Member had observed, that was not the case with the present committee. The House, too, had agreed the other evening to issue the writ; and it would not be very judicious now to suspend its own order. All the persons convicted of taking bribes amounted only to twenty-two out of 426 voters; they were all out-voters, and formed a very small minority. In the case of East Retford, it was proved, that a very large majority of the electors complained of were corrupt. They were proved to be corrupt, not at the last election, immediately before the investigation, but at several former elections, and it was proved that they were a great mass of corruption. The House in that case suspended the writ, and entertained a bill to disfranchise the borough. In the case of East Retford, it was not a single act of bribery and corruption at one election which was proved, but a gross case extending through several elections, and not proved to exist at the last. There was long-continued corruption. Here there was nothing like that. He should object, however, to the Motion, because now there was an Administration formed which had given a distinct and positive pledge to investigate the state of the representation, with a view to amend it. He was disposed to place full confidence in that pledge, and to believe that the Ministers would persevere in that course. If the borough of Evesham required correction and excision, he would leave it to the Ministers to inquire and correct it. When he saw whence the present Motion proceeded, and recollected that the Gentlemen who supported it had last Session supported the motion respecting Bassetlaw, he could not avoid suspecting their motives. The hon. Gentleman who spoke last had always opposed the motion for disfranchising East Retford, and therefore he must have some doubts as to the consistency of his present opinions. If the hon. Member wanted to establish another Bassetlaw, that itself would be with him a reason for objecting to the Motion, and would operate, he hoped, with the House to refuse the Motion of his noble friend. He trusted that one of the first measures of the new Government would be, to rescind the bill for transferring the franchise to Bassetlaw. He did not know any measure by which the House of Commons had so disgraced and degraded itself in the eyes of the country as by its conduct on that occasion. He could now speak of that Mouse in the manner it deserved, for it was, he thanked God, gone Even the right hon. Baronet opposite obtained no credit for his conduct on that occasion, and it contributed, he believed, to the overthrow of his Administration. There was now a prospect of general Reform, and he, therefore, was not disposed to angle with the noble Lord for his minima of reform, and he hoped the House would reject the measure.

said, that he had' been a member of the committee, and contended that a gross case had bean made out, which called for the severest censure of the House. The Report of the Committee had turned out the Members on account of corruption. At least, the writ ought to be superseded to enable the House to inquire. He had good reason to believe that corruption was common at Evesham, and the present opportunity should be embraced to bring to a test the opinions of the House on Reform. In common, he believed, with almost all men, (nobody objecting to punish a case of delinquency, not even the most violent opponents of general Reform,) he was disposed to disfranchise every sinning borough, and transfer its privileges to some one of the large unrepresented towns of the country. He could not agree with the hon. Member who spoke last, that this subject ought to be deferred, because the general question of Reform was to be discussed; for they knew neither when the Government would bring forward the subject, nor what measure it would propose.

meant, in the few words he should address to the House, to confine himself to the narrowest limits. He should not enter into the general question of Reform, nor assert that it would be improper to assent to the Motion, because the House had already ordered the writ to issue. There were many rights to be considered before the House resolved to suspend the writ. An inquiry should be instituted, and evidence received, to ascertain if the borough of Evesham were as corrupt as it was represented to be. There were many points which the House ought to investigate; for he had always been of opinion, that the Grenville Act, by the inquiries it instituted through committees, frequently screened cases of bribery, and prevented them from being so frequently brought before the House as they were before that Act was passed. The opinions of Election Committees were often, he thought, an obstacle to those inquiries which the House was bound to make into cases of corruption. The question, however, before the House, was not whether an inquiry should now take place into the corruption of the borough of Evesham, but whether the issuing of the writ should be suspended or not? The circumstances of the case were these:—That after an inquiry by a committee, that committee had not given the Chairman instructions to propose that no new writ should issue. The first thing the House had to look at must be its own precedents. He had looked at the precedents quoted by the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Ross,) and that hon. Gentleman could not deny that there were numerous precedents of the allegation of bribery made against Members, and yet the writs for those places had issued. There was no instance of a committee reporting merely against the sitting Members, and on that report the House suspending the writ. To justify that, there must be some special report against the electors. It was only said by some of the Members who composed the election committee, that the case implied further corruption; but that must be made a matter of special report before the House could be able to act upon it. The precedents, then, were many in favour of issuing the writ. At the same time, he admitted, that the House was not to be slavishly bound by the precedents of former times, though it was proper and right that the House should always presume, unless something very strong could be urged against it, that the precedents of former times were founded in reason and justice. By the resolution of the committee it appeared, that corruption had been proved in the borough of Evesham; but, as his hon. friend had observed, it did not extend over the whole borough, though, whether it were confined to the twenty-two voters who had been convicted, or extended to more, it was impossible to say. The noble Lord who seconded the Motion thought the corruption was general, and seemed to argue that the House was bound to disfranchise the borough; but the Chairman of the committee seemed to think the corruption only partial, and not to deserve disfranchisement. He was at a loss to say, from the report before the House, whether the borough was so corrupt as to deserve disfranchisement or not. Till that was proved, he thought it was consistent with reason and precedent, that the House should not suspend the writ. The House had generally issued writs as a matter of course, they only conferring on the people the power of exercising their rights. That was due to the electors, and due to the House, which had generally proceeded on the principle that Representation ought to be as complete as possible. Principle, then, as well as precedent, was in favour of issuing the writ. To suspend the writ would be a strong measure, and one for which he did not yet see a sufficient reason; but if any stronger reasons than he had yet heard should be advanced, and it should appear to be due to the character of the House, neither he nor his noble friend, he believed, would oppose any obstacles to the Motion. He certainly wished to know accurately the state of the case, but he did not see how that would be promoted by the Motion. In the last Parliament the writ for East Retford was suspended for three years, and he recollected, that the right hon. Baronet opposite then stated, and he fully agreed in the statement, that such a course was not to be followed, but avoided. He recollected also that his noble friend, now the Lord Chancellor, felt, and stated, the strongest objection to that course of proceeding, and frequently supported a motion for the issuing of the writ. In general, it would be very inconvenient to withhold the issuing of a writ, even though an investigation was going on. He begged the House to pause at least, and not to act upon any impulse, but proceed with due deliberation. He meant to leave the question to be disposed of as the House thought fit.

admitted, that the noble Lord had placed the question fairly before the House, and had discussed it with that same candour which always distinguished his parliamentary conduct; and he felt confident, from the candour of the noble Lord, that he should convince the noble Lord that a supersedeas of the writ ought to take place. He agreed with the noble Lord that the considerations urged by the hon. member for Blechingly should be put out of the question. The House ought not to allow any decision as to the general question of Reform, nor any discussion as to what was to be done, if the Borough were disfranchised, to interfere with the present Motion. The question was, whether the House had evidence before it sufficient to prevent the issuing of the writ, and whether they should call upon the people who had been corrupt at the last election to send two other Members to that House? That was the single question before the House, and the objections urged to it were threefold:—first, there was the objection of the hon. member for Staffordshire, that to suspend the issue of the writ would have a tendency to interfere with the provisions of the Grenville Act, and diminish the power of Election Committees. That argument had no foundation. The election committee had chiefly to decide between the sitting Members and the candidates; and as far as they were concerned, the decision of the committee was final. If the House were to interfere with the suspension of the writ, that would not be dealing with the decision of the election committee. The report of that committee related to the sitting Members, Lord Kennedy and Sir Charles Cockerell; but the committee had also made a special report, as the noble Lord had stated. The ordinary report was, that Lord Kennedy and Sir Charles Cockerell were not duly elected. That was the ordinary report, on which their exclusion was founded. Appended to that, however, was another report, which stated, that Sir Charles Cockerell, or his agent, had been guilty of bribery, and that several of the electors had suffered themselves to be bribed. That was the Special Report. The Grenville Act did not make the special report binding on the House; but it said, that if the committee which is appointed to determine the rights of sitting Members shall instruct its chairman to make a special report to the House, the House may conform to or disagree from the Resolution of the Committee, and make such an order as it liked. If the House adopted any Order, or refused to adopt it, contained in any special report, it would only be acting in conformity with the principle laid down by the House of Commons; and, therefore, he considered the objection, of the hon. Member of no force. The next argument was that of the noble Lord, who had referred to precedents, but stated, in which he agreed, that these precedents, though generally founded in reason, were not to be slavishly followed. He would put it to the noble Lord, if the precedents he should quote would not make the noble Lord admit that the writ ought not to issue. Two precedents might be referred to—those of Penryn and Camel ford, In the Penryn case, the special report stated, that John Goodeve, Henry Durnsford, and Abraham Winn had been guilty of corrupt practices, and Henry Parker, and seven other electors, had received bribes to induce them to give their votes. There was no imputation of general corruption. There were three persons accused of attempting bribery; and eight others accused of receiving bribes! and it was thought by the House of Commons, that it was sufficient to justify suspending the writ that only eight persons had been guilty of bribery; that was the Penryn precedent. In the case of Evesham, though there was no special report, it was stated, that twenty-two persons received bribes. If in Penryn there were only eight persons bribed, and if, as it could not be doubted, that twenty-two were bribed in Evesham, ought the House not to conclude that the issuing of the writ ought to be suspended in the case of Evesham as in the case of Penryn? The House should consider that the motion was not to suspend the writ indefinitely, but only till the evidence should be laid before the House. Would it be decent even, to give those who had been guilty of corrupt practices the power to renew them, till the House had read the evidence. In the ease of Camel ford, what was the special report? That John Stewart had acted in a corrupt manner, and been guilty of bribery, and was incapable of sitting; and that John Rounsevel, and four other electors, had corruptly endeavoured to procure the return of two Members to serve in Parliament for Camelford. In this case there were only five voters corrupt, and yet the House of Commons suspended the writ. There was no general allegation of corruption. Here, then, were two precedents of suspending the issue of the writ—clear cases; and would not the House, therefore, suspend issuing the writ for Evesham, in which twenty-two voters had been guilty of corrupt practices, and had accepted. bribes, only till the House had read the evidence? The noble Lord must see, that the precedents were not in his favour, and were in favour of withholding the writ. If the noble Lord would reject precedents, and try the case by the principles of common sense and reason, he would probably come to the conclusion, that the writ ought not to be issued. Could there, in fact, be any doubt on the subject? One hon. Gentleman had stated, that corruption had been the inveterate practice of the borough for fifty years. In his opinion, among the out-voters the practice was general. They had the testimony, too, of an hon. Member, who had stated, that he had relinquished his connexion with the borough, because he could not conscientiously consent to the demands for bribes made on him. That was in evidence before the House; and did not, then, good sense and reason say, that the writ ought to be suspended till the House could institute a full inquiry into all the circumstances? Was it, in fact, possible to hesitate under such circumstances? The hon. Gentleman indeed said, let the House consider that we have now an Administration pledged to Reform, and let it leave to that the task of inquiring. Admitting that we have such an Administration, he must deny that the Government was competent to inquire into all the peculiarities of resident and out voters. Was it fit that the House should delegate to the Ministers the propriety of deciding the elective franchise of this borough, and of determining, to use a phrase of the hon. Member, which he had well remarked and remembered, on the propriety of excising the borough itself? If it were to be done, let it be done by an inquiry instituted at that bar, and not done by a private inquiry instituted by his Majesty's Ministers. The Government was not fit to institute such an inquiry—it. could not receive evidence, and he did not know any plan more likely to be productive of injustice to the parties, than for the Government to undertake the inquiry. On the ground, then, of the Grenville Act—on the score of precedents, and on the principles of good sense, and reason, and justice, it would be wise to order a suspension of the writ till the evidence was before the House. With reference to the new-born zeal with which the hon. and learned Gentleman taunted him, he must state, he was not obnoxious to the hon. and learned Gentleman's remarks. The hon. and learned Gentleman's motion was not opposed by him; on the contrary, he supported that motion, and was satisfied with much less evidence than others, both in the cases of Penryn and that of East Retford, that the writ ought not to issue. He had always contended that the franchise was given for a public purpose, and that the House had a right to dispose of it when that would benefit the public. He had taken no part in any former Debate that should preclude him, on any fit occasion, from transferring a franchise from a corrupt borough to Birmingham or any other large unrepresented town. In the Penryn case, he had been willing to transfer that franchise to Manchester. Upon the former occasion he had been asked what course he would pursue in any future case of delinquency on the part of a borough. He had declined to answer that question, declaring that he would act on every occasion as the circumstances of the case required. He had reserved himself at full liberty to give the franchise to great towns on any fitting occasion. He was not, however, disposed to enter into the general question. He would only ask, whether it would be wise, after the allegation which had been made by the members of the Committee, to intrust again the franchise to a borough which had abused it? He did not call on the House to decide that it should not be intrusted —that was not the question—but to decide that it would not give the trust till it had seen the evidence.

agreed with his noble friend, and the right hon. Gentleman, that this question was to be decided on the narrow ground of precedent; but that precedents were not to be slavishly followed. The House must decide if precedents authorised the suspension of the writ, and it was a matter of some importance that the House should not make a mow precedent without due consideration. He did not think that the precedents quoted by the right hon. Gentleman justified the suspension of the writ. He differed from him, because, in the two precedents he had quoted, both the committees had reported against the electors. In the present case, the report of the committee was confined to censuring the Members. The right hon. Gentleman said, that members of the committee complained of the corruption being extended to the electors, but that was only the opinion of individual Members, as the committee decided against a special report. In the other cases quoted by the right hon. Gentleman, the Committees had made special reports; but in those cases where special reports were not made, and only the sitting members were unseated, the House had never thought proper to suspend the writ. It was not necessary for him to quote precedents of the kind from the Journals; they were so numerous, that every Member must know it was continually customary for sitting Members to be unseated by the report of a committee, without the writ being suspended. He did not, however, consider it of any consequence whether the writ were suspended or not; and if it was the opinion of the House that, it should be suspended, he for one would not oppose the suspension. In dome; this, certainly it was his opinion that they would act against precedents, and it. was neither desirable nor necessary that the House should make any new precedents. He did not. see any great necessity for issuing it, and he owned that he did not know that any injury would accrue if it were withheld for a short time. If, therefore, the House were disposed to withhold the writ, he should not oppose the measure.

who was a member of the Committee, explained, that the committee had agreed to make a report similar to that made by the East Retford committee. Subsequently, that decision was revised, and the committee were equally divided, when the Chairman gave his casting vote in favour of an ordinary report. There never was a special report resolved on without its leading to a suspension of the writ. He hoped that the House would see the evidence, and not give its sanction to Members being again returned by a place which had been guilty of such corrupt practices. The electors were as corrupt as the elected, and ought to be punished. He did not know why the hon. member for Blechingly should be so ready to attribute improper motives to other hon. Members, unless it was that the hon. Member had been much disappointed, because he was not the sitting Member for Birmingham. He was fully as independent and as upright as the hon. Member, and had no motives of which he was ashamed for his conduct. It was said that there were only twenty-two electors convicted of" bribery out of 426; but the reason was, that only twenty-two were brought forward. The object of those who opposed the Members was only to unseat them, and they brought forward no more evidence than was necessary for that purpose. All the electors who were brought forward were convicted of bribery and if more were not convicted, it was because more were not brought forward. That was sufficient to establish the case, and he should support the noble Lord's Motion.

explained, that what he meant respecting the hon. Gentlemen opposite was, that he suspected that it was their intention, of which he could not approve, not to transfer the franchise to a large town.

supported the motion for superseding the writ. He had resided long in the neighbourhood of Evesham, and there could be no doubt that gross corruption had been very general in the borough.

following the course which his duty prescribed to him, could not, with the most sanguine wishes for reform, feel himself warranted in voting for the proposition of the noble Marquis. He had, in the course of the debate on the East Retford bill, shown the view which he took on questions of this nature; but there was this peculiarity in the present, case—that although the committee had reported the Members to be guilty of bribery and corruption, they made no report that the electors were also corrupt and unfit to exercise their rights. The report of the committee, did not inculpate the borough, although it declared the election void from bribery; and therefore he thought that they were not, as in the case of East Retford, called on to exercise that judicial part of their functions, which might have been called into exercise by a different species of report. The resolution of Supersedeas which the House was now called on to assert, was, as far as he could understand, produced by a division of opinion among the committee with respect to the Report. The committee, however, having reported as they did, he felt absolved from the necessity of adopting any ulterior measure; and he was the less dissatisfied with that resolution, because the great question of general reform would so soon be determined either in that Parliament or in the next, which would doubtless be immediately called together if the present refused its assent to the measures of reformation which would be proposed to it. For these reasons, and because he felt that the cause of staying the writ was not warranted by any precedent, or called for by any extraordinary circumstances, he should vote if the question went to a vote, for the immediate issue of the writ. If, however, it was the general opinion of the House, that the writ ought not to issue, he should not oppose his individual opinion to the opinion of the House.

said, that he could see no advantages they were likely to receive from suspending the issue of the writ, and he should certainly vote against the Motion. In a case of much the same kind —that of Stockbridge— he found opinions stated on the subject by a celebrated Member of the House of that day, Sir Phillip Francis, which so perfectly coincided with his own, and were, withal, so perfectly applicable to the case, that he should take leave, as they were very short, to read them to the House. "If," said that hon. Member, "I saw the candidate pay the money down on that table, and the electors take it up, yet I would not vote for the disfranchisement of the borough; for I ask you, how you can take the franchise away from one or two places, when you refuse every proposition for a general reform?" And he adds, that it is better the abuse should become so glaring that the House would be compelled to put an end to it. This was the language held thirty years ago on this subject, and he thought it still worthy of adoption as a principle. On these grounds he should vote against the Motion.

said, he thought the opinions embraced by the hon. member for Bridport so extraordinary, that they did not require much observation on his part. He would merely say, that if generally adopted, they would go to the extension and encouragement of every conceivable abuse in the system of representation. The noble Lords opposite had stated their opinions with great candour, and he concluded that they regarded the precedents as sufficient to justify the course proposed by the Motion. In his opinion, the arguments relating to the course to be pursued with respect to the borough of Evesham lay in a very narrow compass. They had been very happily stated by the right hon. Baronet; and his precedents of Camelford and Penryn seemed to be so consonant with common sense, that he should not venture to attempt to add any further reason for his agreeing with the Motion of the noble Marquis for staying the issue of the writ.

said, he was always happy to agree with the hon. member for Dorsetshire (Mr. Bankes); but, as an elector of the very borough the rights of which were under discussion, he felt himself called on to say a few words in its defence—in defence of the 141 electors against whom no imputation was laid— and in defence of more than 100 of the out-voters, comprehending a vast proportion of the respectable gentlemen in the neighbourhood, and in the county of Worcester, who, like himself, had taken no part in the late proceedings. He was a friend to reform; but he considered the present case offered no precedent for the suspension of the issue of the writ; because, as it had been already well observed by a noble Lord, in all cases where the report of the committee on the petition declared, that the Members were guilty of bribery, bat found no case to report on with respect to the electors, the writ immediately issued. In the present case it appeared that the committee had not, on the examination of the evidence, felt themselves warranted in declaring the corruption to be so general as to induce them to recommend the disfranchisement of the independent voters, in consequence of the offences of a few; and he trusted that, under such circumstances, the House would not sanction the adoption of a dangerous precedent.

did not intend to take any part in the debate; but as he was connected with the borough of Evesham, through one of the candidates, he felt bound to say, that he would not have suggested that proceeding if he had been aware of there being any irregularity in the conduct of the electors.

declared his determination to vote for the proposition of the noble Marquis, and defended himself from any imputation of inconsistency, in consequence of his having acted differently in the case of East Retford, by contending, that the committee had not in that case gone as far as they might have done, or should have done. In every case, however, if there was a briber, there must be a bribee, and it was therefore idle to argue on the difference between a report of the committee, attributing bribery to the Members, and not reporting corruption on the part of the electors.

thought the precedents were entirely in favour of the Motion, and if it were pressed to a division he should vote for it.

said, that before the House came to a decision on this question he wished to ask the hon. member for Blechingly (Mr. Tennyson) on what grounds he considered his (the Marquis of Chandos) conduct liable to suspicion? The House would do him the justice to recollect, that he had, on every occasion, endeavoured to preserve consistency in the course of politics which his judgment induced him to adopt; and he had at all times laboured to preserve it free from the suspicion of insincerity. He thought he was also entitled to some explanation from the hon. member for Staffordshire (Mr. Littleton), with respect to the charge of a new-born zeal in the cause of Reform. He (Lord Chandos) had always advocated the course which, to his mind, seemed the best, and he should be glad to know how long the hon. Member had himself exhibited a zeal for Reform

felt obliged to the noble Lord for allowing him an opportunity to explain any expression which might have given him cause of offence. He at all times entertained great respect for the noble Lord's conduct, both in the House and elsewhere; and he could assure the noble Lord, that nothing was more foreign to his wishes than to offer him any offence. What he had said was, not that the noble Lord's conduct was suspicious, but that he suspected the objects of those who wished for this delay, as being intended to administer the same remedy to the borough of Evesham as they had already adopted with regard to East Retford, and to make it another Bassetlaw.

said, that as he also had been called on by the noble Lord to explain the meaning of his expressions, he begged to observe, that he did not intend to offend the feelings of the noble Lord, but he might be permitted to say, that during the eighteen years he had held a seat in that House, he had invariably assented to propositions for Reform, and had zealously supported the Motion of a noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) for giving Members to Leeds, Birmingham, and Manchester. He had also expressed his willingness to support the general Motion of the noble Lord on the same subject, if the noble Lord consented to make a slight alteration in his resolutions, and he regretted that the noble Lord was not present to confirm that statement. He could tell the noble Marquis that his zeal in the cause of Reform was not the birth of yesterday. He had merely expressed his surprise that the noble Marquis's opinions differed so much from those they had heard before on similar occasions; but he must again express his regret that his language had given the noble Marquis any offence.

spoke as follows:—Mr. Speaker,^* I rise, in pursuance of the notice I have given, to move for leave to bring in a Bill to establish a General Register for all deeds and instruments affecting Real Property in England and Wales. I should propose a measure of such vast importance with the utmost distrust, if it proceeded entirely from my own opinion of its expediency; but I venture to bring it forward with some confidence, as it is the result of the united labours and the unanimous recommendation of the Commissioners appointed by his late Majesty to inquire into the defects to be found in the law of Real Property in this country, and the improvements of which it is susceptible. Regret has been expressed more than once in this House, that a Gentleman of whose services the world is now for ever deprived,—1 mean my late friend Mr. Humphreys,—was not appointed a member of that commission. I can say

^* The following speech is re-printed by permission, from the corrected copy published by Mr. Campbell.

truly that I joined in that regret, and I willingly take this opportunity of paying a humble tribute to his memory. He was a man, who, with a profound knowledge of his profession, had an enlarged and cultivated mind, and was actuated by an ardent desire to improve the institutions of his country. To him the merit belongs of first drawing the attention of the public to the present defective state of the law of Real Property; and although I could not concur in all his theories for the amendment of it, I should have been well pleased to have had him as a coadjutor in the great undertaking over which I was solicited to preside. But it has been my good fortune to be associated with others of distinguished acquirements and capacity. In the absence of the late Secretary of State, for the Home Department, I may be allowed to say, that I believe in following up the resolution adopted by this House, upon the motion of the present Lord Chancellor, for the appointment of Commissioners to inquire into the law of Real Property, and the practice in the Courts of Common Law, that right hon. Gentleman was actuated only by the desire that the object might be most effectually attained; and I cannot refrain from declaring, as he is now no longer Minister of the Crown, that both from my own official communications with him, and from my general observation of his career, I consider him a sincere, steady and enlightened friend of legal reform. Nothing better can be wished for the improvement of the law, than that those who succeed him may in this respect imitate his example. With respect to Mr. Humphreys, it may be satisfactory to the House and to the country to know, that although not a member of the commission, he generously supported us;—that we derived valuable assistance, not only from his writings, but from personal conferences with him,—and. that he was a zealous promoter of a General Register. Sir, this measure is certainly, for good or for evil, one of the most important ever submitted to the attention of the Legislature; and I cannot but lament, that subjects of ephemeral interest, which touch party feelings, generally excite more attention in this House than the discussion of laws which deeply affect the property and the rights of the present and future generations. The House having resolved that the writ for the election of Members for the corrupt borough of Eves- ham shall be superseded by the Speaker's warrant, and the hour of dinner having arrived, a general dispersion has taken place, and the benches on both sides of the House are nearly deserted. Nevertheless, under such discouraging circumstances, I shall feel it my duty to explain to those hon. Members who honour me with their attention, the grounds on which I think this measure is necessary, and will be found salutary and beneficial. They must he aware that this can only be done by entering into technical details, which no powers of statement or illustration could render amusing. I can truly say, that I commenced the investigation of the subject without having in any way committed myself, and without any preconceived opinion, or even bias,to mislead me; and the result of that investigation is, that a General Register, upon an improved plan, such as I am prepared to propose, would remove many existing evils in the law,—would render the transfer of real property simple, easy, safe and economical,—and would be found a new power, capable of being applied to the most important purposes. I know there are eminent individuals, for whose opinions I am bound to entertain great respect, who consider the present law of real property a system of almost absolute perfection. Such men must condemn any change in it as unnecessary and mischievous. I am not blind to the merits of the old common law of England, which in its machinery for separating the law from the fact, and assigning each to a distinct tribunal, excels every other system which I have studied; but I think it now labours under grievous imperfections, by our adhering to old rules when the reasons for them are gone,—by not adapting our institutions to the altered circumstances of the country, and by forgetting the maxim which ought never to be forgotten,—-that Time is the greatest innovator. Such is the present condition of the law, that where real property is to be transferred or charged, titles are generally found to be unmarketable or unsafe; those that are safe are often unmarketable, and those that are marketable are often unsafe. From whence does this insecurity arise? I say, from the want of a General Register, where, by a glance, a knowledge might be obtained of all the deeds and instruments affecting any particular portion of real property, or any interest arising out of it. Without this, no purchaser of an estate, and no person who advances his money on mortgage, can be secure. The title to real property in this, and in every civilized country, does and must depend upon written documents; and unless you are sure that you have knowledge of all the documents in existence, affecting any particular subject of transfer or charge, there is no safety for you. Enact that no man's rights shall be injured by any documents affecting real property which are not registered, and the evil arising from the concealment of such documents is instantly cured. There is an obvious distinction in this respect, between real and personal property. A person in possession of a horse or a bale of goods is generally the absolute owner, or his agent; and a very little inquiry will enable the person disposed to purchase, to find out the person with whom he may safely deal. The title does not depend upon writing; and if there has been a sale, even without the authority of the owner out of possession, his right is gone if that sale was in market overt, or by a person whom he intrusted to appear to the world as owner. In experience, the title to personal chattels bought by a bon áfide purchaser, using reasonable diligence, is hardly ever questioned; and no danger is apprehended against which any precaution is ever taken, beyond inquiry of the vendor at the time of sale. There is neither loss to the purchaser from concealed claimants appearing; nor delay, nor expense, nor inconvenience from any apprehended danger in making the transfer. The occupier of land may be tenant at will, or for years, or for life, or in tail, or in fee simple. The interests are almost infinite which may be carved out of one subject-matter, and which maybe concurrent, or made to arise one after another. No notice is given of these by apparent possession, and each may be enforced on production of the instrument creating it. A purchaser or mortgagee is liable to be deceived and defrauded under circumstances apparently free from all suspicion. One known to have been owner of the fee simple, by a secret settlement reduces his interest to a life estate, without any apparent change in the enjoyment of the land. The heir at law enters on the death of the ancestor, concealing a will, by which he is made tenant for life only, with remainder to his children or some collateral relation. The father under a power of appointment, in default of which his eldest son takes the fee, by a deed duly executed appoints to the son for life, with remainders over: the deed is concealed, and the son takes possession on his father's death. In each of these three cases, a perfect unsuspicious title to the fee is made out by the suppression of a single instrument. A cautious man buys the estate, or advances money nearly to the value of it on mortgage. On the death of his vendor or mortgager, he is turned out of possession, or loses his security, on the production of the settlement, the will, or deed of appointment,—which makes a case against him in favour of the remainder-man, admitting of no question. So the owner of an estate may now, with a little dexterity, mortgage it several times over, without the mortgagees being able to discover the nature or amount of prior encumbrances: and what is particularly hard, a mortgagee has to dread, not only encumbrances prior, but posterior, to his own; for a third mortgagee, by getting an assignment from the first, is preferred to the second. This, Sir, is called "tacking," or "squeezing." The second mortgagee is squeezed out, the third mortgage being tacked to the first. Is it not a reproach to the law, that there should be terms such as these, which are quite familiar in the mouths of practitioners,—or rather, that the practices should be tolerated which they are employed to designate? Again, by equitable mortgages, which have recently sprung up, and are lauded by some, enormous frauds maybe practised. These are effected by a mere deposit of title-deeds. A man may by a trick get possession of his title-deeds, which ought to be in the keeping of another, and then, by skilfully parcelling them out, raise money to a greater amount than twice the value of the estate. Even without any fraudulent intention, from mere inadvertence, according to the present system, deeds are sometimes mislaid and forgotten in families; and being afterwards discovered, they must be enforced for the benefit of infants or married women, to the utter ruin of purchasers or mortgagees. From these causes, I do aver, upon the evidence laid before me, that not only is every purchaser and mortgagee subjected to a painful feeling of insecurity, but that actual loss does not unfrequently arise. I have been asked, why there are not more cases in the law reports, in which purchasers and mortgagees have been defeated by a paramount title. The reason is obvious. When such cases occur, they admit of no doubt, and the purchaser or mortgagee having ascertained the genuineness of the deed, which shows that the vendor or mortgager had only an estate for life, on his death can only yield to the person next in remainder. But there are few Solicitors in considerable practice, who have not known some such instances; many are stated in the Appendix to the Report of the Commissioners; and I can assure the House, that since it was publicly known that I meant to propose this Bill, a considerable number have been communicated to me from different parts of the country. The rights of successive encumbrancers, who have advanced their money in ignorance of existing charges, admit of much more dispute; and the law books are filled with cases respecting them. There are valuable treatises on the subject, deducing rules from these cases with all the pride, pomp and circumstance of classification, subdivision, and analysis. But, Sir, a most inadequate notion would be formed of the evil I seek to remedy, by merely regarding the instances in which loss does actually occur from a defective title. Those instances, comparatively speaking, are rare; but here is the great evil which I wish most anxiously to impress upon the House, and upon the public—that, as the law now stands, loss may occur in every instance, and that insecurity of title is a risk against which precautions must be and are taken in every transaction respecting real property. Hence the intolerable delay, expense and vexation which are experienced, and of which most of those who now hear me must in some measure be aware, as often as land is to be sold, or a sum of money is to be raised upon it. To supply the defective information derived from the deeds produced, all sorts of inquiries are set on foot. Affidavits are required from old persons living in the neighbourhood, land-tax assessments are examined, county histories are referred to, grants from the Crown are hunted up, various public offices are visited, where, perhaps, some information may be obtained respecting debts due to the Crown, the Ecclesiastical Courts are ransacked for wills and administrations, and a round is made of the Courts of Common Law, in a search after judgments. But, with the exception of one very eminent Conveyancer who was examined before us, all who have opposed the estab- lishment of a General Register, have admitted that some expedient is necessary to guard against the suppression of deeds; that mere confidence cannot be acted upon; and that the greatest diligence, without such an expedient, would leave the danger of insecurity too great to be encountered. The expedient at present resorted to is so complicated and subtle, that I almost despair of making it intelligible to the House; but its defects and inconsistencies and mischiefs are such, that, they may easily be pointed out to any one, however unacquainted with the science of jurisprudence. There are certain entities, called outstanding terms, or legal estates, which are said to attend and protect the inheritance. They originate in matters wholly unconnected with the security of title. I believe there has been yet no instance of a term being created, that it might be assigned as a protection against mesne incumbrances, although there is no saying to what length the system may be pushed by perverse ingenuity. According to the law of England, terms for years of any duration may be carved out of the inheritance; and whatever their duration may be, they are considered less than a freehold for the life of another; they are treated as personal estate, and they pass to the personal representative, instead of the heir at law. When these terms are once created, the person in whom they are vested is deemed at law to be entitled to the possession of the land, although his title be a mere shadow, and he has no substantial interest. They usually originate in mortgages and marriage settlements. Land is mortgaged for 1,000 years. When the mortgage is paid off, it frequently happens that the term is not surrendered to the owner of the fee, but it is allowed to remain outstanding in the mortgagee or his personal representative, or is assigned to a trustee to attend the inheritance. So by a settlement a term for 500 or 700 years is given to trustees, to raise portions for younger children, or some such family purpose. When the purpose is answered, without some proviso for cessor, the term is still outstanding in the trustees or their representatives; or it is assigned, as before, to a trustee, in whom or whose representatives or assigns, according to the doctrine of Courts of Equity (although Common-law Judges sometimes rule differently) it ought to be considered as vested. till it expires by effluxion of time. These terms confer what is called the legal title to the land, the person beneficially entitled, while they are running, having only an equitable estate. Now, if a bona fide purchaser or mortgagee, who deals with a person appearing to be owner of the inheritance, can get in one of these terms, it will protect him from all alienations and charges since it was created; for any subsequent alienee or encumbrancer can only have an equitable interest; these equities are supposed to be equal, although accruing successively; and among equal equities, he who has the legal estate prevails. An old term, therefore, is said to supply all the security proposed by a public register, because no prejudice can arise from the suppression of deeds which have been executed since its creation. Is it possible that machinery so complicated, so clumsy, so ill adapted to its object, can work well? Sir, I do not hesitate to express my decided opinion, that outstanding terms are a substantive evil; that instead of palliating, they aggravate the mischiefs arising from our present ignorance of the true state of any title; and that, even if a Register should not be established, they ought all to be swept away. In the first place, let me remind the admirers of outstanding terms as giving security to title, that over full one-half the landed property in England no outstanding term is to be found; for they have nothing to do with beneficial leases, and are only known to exist where an estate has been within a reasonable time in mortgage or settlement. These Gentlemen, to be consistent, should propose an Act of Parliament for the creation of such fictitious estates over the whole realm, —the result of which would be to prefer in every instance the person who last acquired the right, — although a prior party, whose interest has not vested in possession, may have been guilty of no default. But let us take a rapid view of the mischiefs which the existing system of outstanding terms occasions. In the first place, a man now holds his estate by several titles instead of one, and each title must be formally deduced. Your Conveyancer does not like to ride at single anchor. He is not satisfied with one term; he must keep up several, lest one or two may not cover the whole of the premises, or one of them, if very old, may be presumed to have been surrendered, or, if rather modern, may be defeated by a prior term brought forward by another party. By one set of deeds, the title to the fee must be deduced without any reference to the terms as if they had never existed. Then each term must be deduced as if the estate entirely depended upon it; and the assignment of the term is generally a more lengthy instrument than the conveyance of the fee; for it ought, according to the rules of good conveyancing, to trace the title to the fee from the last assignment of the term, in order to show that the term is assigned to the party who is properly entitled to the protection of it, as attending the inheritance. Think of the multiplication of voluminous deeds which this system occasions! But this, though a formidable evil, is as nothing compared with the difficulty, delay, expense, and vexation experienced in finding out the individuals in whom these terms are vested, and obtaining the necessary probates and administrations to make a good title to them. The trustee in whom a term was vested is often found to have been an attorney's clerk, of whom or whose family no trace can be discovered; and there can be no certainty whether he has died intestate, or whether administration may have been granted of his effects. Then there is great danger of miscarriage from the will not being proved, or the administration, whether general or limited to the term, not being granted by the proper jurisdiction. Of all the grievances the people of this country have at present to complain of, this cries the loudest for redress. There are now about 370 Courts which grant probates and administrations. If the probate or administration be taken out in a diocesan or any inferior Court, and the testator left bona notabilia, that is, personalty to the value of 51., in another jurisdiction, or if the premises to which the term applies be in another jurisdiction, the probate or administration is absolutely void. I have in my own practice known repeated instances of parties relying on terms being turned round at?nisi prius, upon the objection that a probate or administration was void. There are now right reverend, noble, and learned Commissioners sitting to inquire into the abuses of the Ecclesiastical Courts. I have the highest confidence in their intelligence and liberality, and I entertain the highest expectations from their labours, which I know to be unremitting. I hope to live to see the day when, for the purpose of proving wills and granting administrations, there shall be no distinction between the provinces of York and Canterbury, or the different dioceses, peculiars, and other districts within those provinces,—when the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts upon this subject (which is wholly unconnected with the Church) shall be taken away, and when there shall be one general Court of probate and administration for the whole of England and Wales. The delay, expense, vexation, and disappointment now experienced in getting in outstanding terms would then be greatly mitigated. But even then these terms, when got in, would not deserve to be much relied upon. The party who has got the term regularly deduced and assigned to his trustee, has formidable dangers to encounter, both in equity and at law, before he can render it available. A Court of Equity says it shall not protect him against any prior encumbrance of which he had notice. Now, notice may be actual or constructive; and the party is supposed to know whatever was communicated to his counsel, attorney, or agent, or is mentioned in any deed submitted to them, or in any deed referred to in such deed, or any fact which he or they might, from what they knew, have been expected to inquire about, and so might have ascertained. Thus, title is made to depend upon loose recollections, and the mistakes and falsehoods of parol testimony. Nay, lis pendens is notice, and all the King's subjects are supposed to know the contents of a bill in Chancery, although the suit has been languishing for twenty years. Let us suppose that equity has decreed that the party, as a bonâ fide purchaser without notice, is entitled to the benefit of the term; if he carries it into a Court of law, the Judges there will very likely tell the Jury to presume that it was surrendered before the last assignment. The equity Judges have bitterly complained of the common-law Judges for venturing to presume the surrender of a term once assigned to attend the inheritance: but the common-law Judges have persevered in their opinion and their practice; and the poor purchaser can never tell whether, when an ejectment is brought against him, the term, which was so highly prized, and which has cost him so dear, will be of any service to him. Then he never can be sure that an older term may not be set up against him, and through this he may be defeated by a party whose title is posterior to his own. The subsequent purchaser or encumbrancer may have acquired this term by something approaching, but not quite constituting, the offence of burglary, and be still allowed the benefit of it. The hon. member for Weymouth, in one of those publications for which the profession and the public are so much indebted to him, mentions an anecdote of a man, who, in passing a house in which he suspected there was a deed evidencing the existence of an old term he greatly wanted, observed that one of the windows was open, although the door was locked;—whereupon he clapped a ladder to the window, entered the house, found the deed, carried it away, and was held to be entitled to use it against a bonâ fide adverse claimant. But every Member who has followed me must already have observed, that this expedient of an outstanding term does not operate in any respect as a guard against fraud, or general protection from loss, and that, with a view to the good of the community, it is utterly worthless; for it never operates for the benefit of one man without detriment to another, and it merely changes the victim who is doomed to suffer. It is familiarly called "tabula in naufragio." The plank will carry but one. If one man wishes to mount it, he must shove off another, who goes to the bottom. Nay, the system works positive injustice. The rule of natural equity is " qui prior est termpore potior est jure;" but the rights of contending parties are made to depend upon the accident of which can get a fictitious title, in itself of no value.] ought to observe, that the system, instead of preventing, positively assists fraud; for when a purchaser It has a term offered as part of the title, he sometimes abstains from easy inquiries, which would show that the estate had been before charged or sold to another, and he shuts his eyes lest he should see what he suspects to exist. I would finally observe on this part of the subject, that the fortunate or unfortunate person who is adjudged, both at law and in equity, to be entitled to the protection of the term, has at best but a chattel interest instead of the fee, for the reversion is in another; and to the present day it is unsettled, what rights he has under the term during his life, and what interest goes to his heir or personal representative, if he dies intestate. I may be thought to have dwelt at unnecessary length upon this part of the subject, but I can assure the House that if I have succeeded in exposing the futility of the protection alleged to be derived from outstanding terms, I have, ex concessis, established the necessity for a General Register. Although to protect purchasers and encumbrances from concealed deeds be the chief object of a general Register, there are other evils now severely felt which it would remedy, supposing the original deeds or authentic copies of them to be deposited in the Register Office. Great facilities might be afforded, and much expense saved, when they are to be given in evidence. At present, title-deeds are not unfrequently lost from being left in solicitors' offices, and from various casualties to which they are exposed. Titles thereby become unmarketable; and with respect to tithes, and some other interests, the most serious prejudice may be sustained by the person in possession. The Register Office would put a stop to all inconvenience arising from the loss of deeds for the future. A more serious mischief, and one which gentlemen unacquainted with the details of conveyancing can hardly be made adequately to feel, arises from covenants for the production of title-deeds, and the obligation to give attested copies of them. As property is subdivided and sold in lots, these covenants become every day more common. But infinite difficulty arises in enforcing the performance of them, and on the sale of small properties the expense of giving attested copies to the purchaser sometimes is nearly equal to the value of the fee simple. A well authenticated case lately occurred, where a gentleman sold an estate to an attorney, and was bound to furnish him with attested copies of the title-deeds. It was found that the expense of these attested copies would be enormous: but the attorney insisted upon having them, and threatened to file a bill in Chancery for that purpose. However, he relented to a certain degree, and said to the vendor, "I will not be too hard upon you. Let me have the estate without paying the purchase-money, and I will waive my claim to the attested copies of the title-deeds." The proposal was joyfully accepted. I need hardly mention, that after the establishment of a Register, all that would be necessary on such occasions would be a reference to the books or compartment in the office in which the, deeds would be found. For the same reason, deeds may in future be most mate- rially shortened. It is well known that they are swelled out to their present unwieldy size chiefly by the recitals of other deeds: such recitals would become unnecessary, and would be discontinued. By this and certain other improvements in conveyancing, which will arise from obviating the necessity for livery of seisin or entry to perfect an estate, and allowing the creating of all estates directly by deed which can now be created by will or through the medium of the Statute of Uses, I hope to see deeds shrink into their ancient dimensions,—when a grant or conveyance seldom occupied more than a piece of parchment ten inches square, instead of consuming, as at present, the skins of a moderately sized flock of sheep. The shortening of deeds will thus be a consequence of the Register, and will be again found greatly to facilitate its operations; so that, although it may have obstructions to encounter in its outset, when it is once in full play it will proceed with celerity and smoothness. Sir, I am now brought to consider the objections to an institution which prima facie offers such advantages. It shall be my endeavour to overlook none of them, and by no means to understate them. I allow that they deserve the most serious consideration of the House; but when deliberately and dispassionately examined, I believe they will be found to arise partly from false reasoning, but chiefly from a misconception of facts. The first grand objection is, that a General Register would be a great innovation; and we are told to respect the wisdom of our early ancestors, to whom such an institution was unknown. Sir, not one in ten thousand of those ancestors could read or write, for which reason land was transferred, without writing, by corporal delivery; but they did their best to give notoriety to the transaction, and to guard against fraud, by requiring the delivery to be made on a public occasion before the Peers. And this precaution probably was sufficient; for, at that remote sera, the diversified interests in the same land, which are now familiar to us were unknown, and the person in possession was generally owner of the fee. But the necessity for registration, as a guard against secret conveyances and charges, was felt in the reign of Henry 8th, as soon as the Statute of Uses allowed livery of seisin and entry to be dispensed with; and there can be no doubt that the Statute of Inrolments was intended as a general register, although the measure was very clumsily contrived, and was soon entirely evaded, as it was held not to apply to a chattel interest in land. Hence, in due time, sprung up the celebrated assurance of lease and release, by which all the property in the kingdom is now conveyed, having secrecy for its object, and gaining that object so effectually that if the grantor himself prepares the deeds, the fact that he has executed them, and denuded himself of his interest, may rest entirely in his own breast. There is nothing like this in any other country in the world. Over the rest of Europe, independently of a Register, an interest in real property can only be transferred by an instrument executed by the parties before a notary public, and left in his care for the inspection of all persons interested in it. The Legislature of this country has at various times since the reign of Henry 8th shown its sense of the necessity of guarding against secret conveyances and charges, although hitherto no general measure has been adopted for that purpose. Judgments must be docketed or registered for public inspection before they bind the land. Unless annuities are inrolled orregistered within a certain time, they are absolutely void. So an entry at the customhouse, or registration, of every instrument conveying an interest in British shipping, is a condition precedent to the operation of the transfer even against the grantor—a much more rigid enactment than any we propose respecting real property. Registers for real property have been long established in England for Middlesex and Yorkshire, containing one-fifth of the population, and probably more than one-fifth of the wealth of that part of the United Kingdom, and, defective as they are in their arrangements, they have been found beneficial, and no proposal has ever been made to abolish them. Sir, it is a curious and important fact, that no country in any part of the world has ever established a public register of deeds affecting real property, and afterwards laid it aside. The experiment has been repeated often enought to justify the conclusion I draw from it, on the most cautious principles of induction. There has been a General Register for the whole of Ireland upwards of a century. Some sinecures have been fastened upon it, and the indexes have been imperfectly kept; but not with stand- ing these abuses and defects, I believe there is no Irish Member who will not bear testimony to its general utility; and amidst the extravagant and factious cry for a repeal of the Union, no one in that country has been so extravagant or factious as to cry for a repeal of the Register. In Scotland there has been a General Register-office since the year 1617. It is the glory of the law of that country, and the boast of every Scotchman. I can say of my own knowledge, that it gives a feeling of security to purchasers and creditors, which in the unregistered counties of England is wholly unknown. Holland had the honour of setting the example to Europe of a public Register as well as of civil and religious liberty; and since the time of the Emperor Charles 5th, she has had this institution, to which some have ascribed a great portion of her prosperity. The institution has been adopted with various modifications, in France, in Switzerland, in the greatest part of Germany, in Sweden, in Norway, in Denmark, and in most of the States of Italy. It has travelled across the Atlantic, and it now flourishes, I believe, in all the States of the North American Union, and all his Majesty's Colonies in the West-Indies and America. And we are told, that the establishment of a General Register in England would be a dangerous innovation. The next objection is one which I find greatly relied upon in certain meetings which have lately been held in the North, by anticipation, to petition against the Register Bill,—I mean, Expense. Now, Sir, I take it upon myself to declare, upon calculations that cannot deceive, that it will occasion no expense at all to the public, and. that the expense to the parties will be extremely moderate, being overbalanced tenfold by the expenses which they will then avoid. Sir, I propose no sumptuous buildings, at least until they can be afforded out of the fair profits of the establishment. I denounce all sinecures; let efficient service be liberally rewarded, for so the public good requires; but let there be no pay except for efficient service, and let regulations be enacted to ensure the appointment of competent officers, and continued diligence and fidelity in all departments of the institution. Sir, I could show, that from very moderate fees for searches, for registering the deed, and for giving attested copies—that is to say, about 10s. for a search, 1l. 5s. for registering a deed, and one half the charge now made by solicitors for attested copies,—a fund would be raised much more than sufficient to defray all the necessary expense of buildings, officers and other outgoings-; so that the Register Office like the Post-office, while it is of the greatest use to individuals, may not only pay its own charges, but fairly contribute to the public revenue. The fees I have mentioned, in large transactions would not be felt;—and in a transaction of any magnitude, who is there that would not willingly give twenty times the amount, to be absolutely sure that his title never could be questioned? In small transactions the fees may be lowered or entirely waived, so that no one may complain. What are these fees, compared to the expenses now incurred by the machinery of terms for years? A popular objection, of which I expect ample use to be made by some who oppose the measure, in truth on other grounds, is Disclosure. I meet this with some apprehension, for it appeals to the imagination, and there is some difficulty in knowing how far the impression which it makes will be removed by facts, however strong. Let me first correct a misconception which has gone abroad, that existing deeds are to be registered. The proposed measure is purely prospective, and all transactions prior to the establishment of the Register will rest unrevealed. Even as to the future, disclosure is not essentially necessary to gain the chief objects of the institution. A Register might be framed which would be open only to persons proving an interest to examine it. But, for my own part, I must acknowledge that disclosure seems to me to be a benefit instead of a drawback. With respect to men not in trade, there seems no reason why they should be allowed to appear to the world as owners of property which they have made away with. A mortgage by a country gentleman, to raise portions for younger children, or to defray the expense of an election, does not hurt, his dignity or importance, and at present is well known in the neighbourhood as soon as it is executed. "Danger to commercial credit" has a more alarming sound; but here my case must be allowed to be triumphant. Who ought to be the best judges upon this point?—Surely, the great merchants and bankers of London: Who would suffer from disclosure, if it were dangerous to commercial credit?— The great merchants and bankers of London. Accordingly, the following question was circulated among the twenty-four most eminent merchants' and bankers' houses in London, without the smallest preconcert or regard to any circumstance, except the extent of their dealings, and their reputation in the world. Sir, the list will be found to contain the names of Thomas Wilson and Co.; Fletcher, Alexander, and Co.; Smith, Payne, and Smiths; Jones, Lloyd, and Co.; Grote, Prescott, and Co; Williams, Deacon, and Co.; Robarts, Curtis, and Co.; Thompson, Bonar, and Co; Masterman and Co.; and Barnard, Dimsdale, and Co. The question was, "Do you consider that the disclosure which an open Register would afford of mortgages and encumbrances, would be productive of more evil or good?" Their unanimous answer, in writing, signed by them respectively, is in these words:— "We think, upon general grounds, that any measure which tends to prevent misconception, and to secure accurate information respecting the circumstances and property of commercial men, must, on the whole, produce more good than evil; nor do we see reason to apprehend any serious mischief from the disclosure which an open registry would afford of mortgages and encumbrances, inasmuch as we are confident that more mischief arises in the mercantile world from false appearances of property, and erroneous impressions as to the real circumstances of parties, than from any other cause whatever." But I can appeal to experience to show that this apprehended disclosure is a mere bugbear. In Scotland, the register of sasines may be inspected by all mankind, and no inconvenience has arisen from this publicity. I need not remind the House, that no country in Europe has advanced more rapidly in commerce and wealth than my native land. In Ireland, all encumbrances upon any property may be known, and settlements, to be secure, must be registered; but no inconvenience has been felt. Need I draw the attention of the Mouse to the West Riding of Yorkshire, where there is an open Register, and where manufactures and trade, as well as agriculture, have probably flourished more than in any other part of England. It is a curious fact, that in Middlesex so little account do they make of disclosure, that the memorial, which is only required to state the parties and the premises, usually goes on to state the consideration and the uses, thereby publishing all the secrets of the deed. The disclosure made by memorialising annuities must be very disagreeable to both parties; for I believe no one would like it to be known that he is either grantor or grantee of a life-annuity; yet no one has proposed to repeal the Annuity Act. The registration of shipping has unquestionably been found very salutary in preventing false credit from being obtained. In the port of London it is a common practice for a tradesman, before he supplies stores to a ship, to send to the Custom House to ascertain whether she has been mortgaged. It is a mistake to suppose that people inquire into the affairs of others from mere idle curiosity. There is an open register at Doctors' Commons of all wills proved in the diocese of London, or the province of Canterbury, for centuries, and any one will may be inspected for a shilling. I believe such an inspection is rarely made except on behalf of some one who in justice ought to be permitted to know the contents of the will. Are we told that flaws might be discovered in deeds, if any person might pore over them, or obtain copies of them? For one dispute about a title that arises from a defect in a deed, there are at least one hundred that arise from the defective framing of wills; yet wills have always been open to inspection, and no inconvenience has been felt from this publicity. The only other objection which I have to mention, as it is the only other I am aware of, is the danger of failure to a purchaser or mortgagee from defective search or registration. I allow, Sir, that if fatal mistakes could arise, the lowest degree of ordinary care being exercised, the objection would be insurmountable. But if the exercise of the lowest degree of ordinary care must effectually guard against all mistakes, the objection is removed. Now, that this may be easily accomplished, accords not only with reason, but experience. All that is to be done is to afford the means of ascertaining by search, what deeds and instruments have been registered respecting any particular property, and to provide a form, by observing which, a deed shall have the benefit of being considered registered. These are far less complicated and difficult operations than what are daily going on in the General Post Office, and in the Bank of England. With the defective indexes in Middlesex, Yorkshire, and Ireland, and in Scotland without any index at all, few or no mistakes have arisen, and the English and Irish cases respecting registration, to be found in the books, turn upon the doctrine of notice, and not on any mistake in the mode of search or registration. It may be remarked, that if registration is not made essential to the validity of a deed, and, unregistered, it is valid as against the grantor, the instances must be very rare in which any question can arise touching the mode of registration. The fraud of concealing a deed may be committed by one unconnected individual, though not a professional man. The fraud of executing a second deed, to defeat a deed imperfectly registered, can only be committed by several persons in combination, and with professional assistance. A fatal mistake can only arise from the want of a low degree of ordinary care in the party himself, his agent, or the office. If it arise from his own gross negligence, he has himself alone to blame; if from that of his agent, he must seek his remedy in damages, as in other cases where an agent is guilty of a breach of duty; and if from that of the office, a remedy may be given to him against the office, or against the public, to whom the officer would be answerable with his sureties. Gross personal negligence can alone bring a loss without indemnity, and against a man's own gross personal negligence he has no right to be indemnified. I will now proceed, with the permission of the House, shortly to give an outline of the particular plan of registration which I shall have the honour to propose, and which, after great deliberation and repeated discussions, has been unanimously recommended by the Commissioners. I am very desirous that the House and the public should bear in mind, that various parts of this plan are not essential to registration, and that they may be either omitted or varied, without affecting the principle of the measure. I propose, that there shall be one General Register Office established in the Metropolis, for the whole of England and Wales. Some individuals, and especially country attornies, profess a preference to a Register Office in every county or division of a county. You would thus have about sixty establishments instead of one. I may give a notion of the degree to which the expense of the whole would be increased, by mentioning an accurate calculation which has been made, showing that the expense of the General Metropolitan Office would be very little greater than the expense of the several offices now established in Middlesex, and the different divisions of Yorkshire. But the increased expense would be the least evil. It would be impossible to find officers of competent learning and skill for so many establishments; they would soon vary in their rules and practice, and great confusion would be produced. Premises comprised in one deed, or will, often lie in different counties, and the same instrument might require to be registered several times over in remote parts of England. In one Metropolitan Register Office there must be a great concentration of talent and experience, and there being no waste of power, the work that is to be done will require much less machinery, and much fewer hands. Uniformity of practice must necessarily prevail. The head of the Register Office may be a gentleman of high eminence in the profession. He may have a sort of judicial authority vested in him respecting amendments, subject to an appeal to one of the Courts at Westminster; and regulations for the details of registration may from time to time be made, repealed, or varied by him, with the concurrence of the Lord Chancellor and the Judges. It must be an unspeakable advantage to be able to make all the searches that can be necessary respecting any title, under one roof. A search for judgments must now be made in London, on a country purchase, and not unfrequently a search for probates or administrations—and it will be easy to make searches for deeds at the same time. It is a mistake to suppose that a London agent must be employed for that purpose. Every country solicitor will be allowed to correspond directly with the Register Office through the post, both for directing searches and the registration of deeds. England may now be considered as one great city, and the communication between many remote places and London is easier than with the county-town. Rail-roads are not entirely to be left out of consideration; as there is reason to think that in a few years London may not be more than a few hours distant from any part of the kingdom, the charges may easily be equalized without consideration of dis- tance, so that registration for Cumberland or Cornwall may not be more expensive than for Surrey or Essex. Next comes the mode of Registration. Shall it be by memorial, inrolment, or deposit? The memorial is intended only to give notice that there is a deed between certain parties affecting certain premises; so that its production may be required from the vendor or mortgager. The plan of memorial, though plausible, seems to me objectionable. To prepare the memorial requires some skill, and we have ascertained that the expense of preparing it in Middlesex exceeds what would be the average expense of making a full copy of the deed, which requires only manual labour; and it seems much better that all the contents of the deed should at once be open at the public office to the person making the search. Inrolment, therefore, I prefer to memorial. But the deposit of the original deed, executed by the parties, would in my opinion, be best of all. If any party thinks his deeds are safer in his own strong box, or at his attorney's, than they would be in the Register Office, he has only to execute a duplicate. Now, there being no stamp imposed upon this, it will cost no more than a copy, which I have shown costs less than a memorial. Thus, without any additional expense, and without any risk or privation to the parties, an original of every deed may be deposited at the office. The building may easily be made fire-proof, and I hope, in spite of Swing and his adherents, that it may be effectually guarded against the fury of a mob: but if, by some accident or public convulsion, the Register Office should be destroyed, the duplicates in the possession of the parties would remain, and titles would be at least in as good a situation as before registration was established. It would lead me into too tiresome a detail if I were to point out the many collateral advantages which would arise from the deposit of the original deeds at the Register Office—of which, preventing the forging and falsification of deeds would not be the least. I should have observed, that the attorney always charges a fair copy to keep, although such copy is seldom made; and this item alone, in a conveyancing bill, for which hereafter there could be no pretext, would more than cover the expense of what I suggest. If deeds are shortened, as I sanguinely hope soon to see them, the expense of a duplicate would be too trifling to be regarded by the most miserly. The next consideration is, What instruments shall be registered? On this point, different States have acted differently. In some the registration is confined to transactions inter vivos; and in others, hypothecations or mortgages only are registered, and not absolute sales. But a register cannot be perfect unless it embraces all written instruments which in any way affect the title to real property. I therefore think, that the Bill should extend to every deed or writing which creates any estate at law or in equity, or passes any interest in land, or gives any lien upon it. Thus, executory contracts ought to be registered, as well as deeds, wills, commissions of bankrupt, &c.; but, to obviate this inconvenience, permission may be given, that the vendor may grant a caveat, whereby no deed or instrument touching the premises can be registered within a certain time, unless in favour of the purchaser. This will be put upon the register, and will effectually protect the purchaser and others, while it is in force. The same expedient may be resorted to for the purpose of protecting a purchaser in the interval between the search and the time when the purchase deed is registered. This will completely obviate the danger of a subsequent deed from the vendor, in favour of another person, being fraudulently registered first, and will avoid the necessity of fixing any time during which a deed shall absolutely prevail before it is registered. Upon registration of the deed the caveat has performed its functions, and a certificate of the act will be the warrant for payment of the purchase-money. I ought to mention, that it is not intended that surrenders, or any instruments respecting copyhold estates, which now appear upon the Court rolls, should be included in the General Register. But if a lien for purchase money is to be claimed, it must be put upon the register; and, above all, Crown debts and obligations must be registered, or they shall not bind the land. A grievance of the most serious description is now experienced from the land of any person indebted, or under obligation to the Crown, being bound, although there are no means of knowing who is so indebted, or who is under such obligation. How the grievance or abuse (for so I must call it) should have been so long endured, is to me, I own, inexplicable. If there be any suspicion that a man who wishes to sell or charge his estate is a Crown debtor, there are various Government offices at which some imperfect information may be irregularly obtained. But it not unfrequently happens that a man has given bond to the Crown as surety, or has in some way received Government money into his hands, without the fact being suspected by any one; and at present no man can certainly tell that the person from whom he purchases an estate may not be in this situation. It follows, that the day after the purchaser has taken possession, or fifty years after he and his family have been in undisputed enjoyment, an extent may come in without the slightest previous notice; the superior title of the Crown admits of no question, and the estate is sold to pay the Crown debt. It is absurd to suppose, that a registration of Crown debts would be any infringement on the prerogative of the Crown. Let the Crown, for the public good, have all its remedies against its debtors; but let not those remedies, without doing any good to the public, work the ruin of innocent individuals, who are not even chargeable with the least particle of incaution. I can see no difficulty in a list being kept of persons indebted or under obligation to the Crown. The parties are more likely to object than the Crown, but they can have no laudable motive for concealment, and justice imperiously requires that their situation should be known. The most material consideration in the plan of a new Register is the framing of the Index. Indeed, the difficulty of showing with ease and accuracy all registered documents concerning any particular property is, in my humble judgment, the only serious objection to a Register; and the true question is, whether this difficulty can be surmounted. How they have hitherto contrived to get on in Scotland without an Index, I confess I do not comprehend. Considerable inconvenience has been felt, and an Index is now in preparation under the superintendance of a gentleman of great learning and ingenuity, who has long presided over the establishment at Edinburgh. In the English and Irish Registers, the Indexes are alphabetical; but the labour and expense of searching them are often very burthensome, from there being many persons of the same name, and the same person sometimes conveying a great many separate tenements,—as a speculator in houses, who buys ground and builds new streets. Where there is a purchase to be made from a man of a given name, all deeds or memorials appearing in the Index with a man of this name as the grantor, must be inspected. I have been told of a search in the Middlesex Register which lasted three months, and cost above 100l. A. plan has been under consideration, of having a general survey of the kingdom, with maps on a large scale, showing the minutest subdivision of property, with numbers to be referred to in the Deed and affixed to the Index; but beside the objection of expense, the boundaries of property are often so indistinct, and shift so often, that it was thought the parcels supposed to be designated by numbers could not be certainly known. This plan has been beneficially followed in the Bedford Level, an agricultural district, where the boundaries arc distinct, and are seldom changed; but, in my opinion, it is wholly inapplicable to a great kingdom. The Index which this Bill proposes, proceeds upon a classification of deeds; the first registered deed respecting any property being considered the root of the title. This will be registered under a particular symbol, and all subsequent deeds respecting the same interests will be registered under the same symbol. By referring to the symbol in the Index, all the deeds respecting the property may at once be found. Provision will be made for adding to or taking from the property contained in the first deed, and the Index being kept somewhat on the principles of book-keeping, no search will, in general, be required beyond a certified copy of the entries under the symbol. The essentials of registration will be an entry of the deed in the Index, under the proper symbol, with the date of the deed, the date of registration, and the book or compartment in the office where the deed may be found. Various regulations will be introduced respecting wills, legacies, commissions of bankrupt, &c. With these details I will not fatigue the House. Where such a vast variety of objects must be provided for, it is in vain, and it would be unreasonable, to expect that the enactments of the Bill can be few, or that they should appear simple to persons unacquainted with the subject. There is no royal road to astronomy; and abstruse legal discussions can only be intelligible to lawyers. The specification of a patent is reckoned suffi- cient if the machine can be made from it by an engineer, although it should be above the comprehension of all the Members of both Houses of Parliament. I therefore hope that this Bill will not be condemned by any lay Lord, Knight, or Burgess, merely because it may contain some clauses which he does not fully comprehend. I can assure the House that the utmost pains have been taken to make it as short and as simple as possible. There is one point which I must bring under the notice of the House, the importance of which will at once be seen by the hon. member for Borough bridge, and upon which, in my judgment, the success of the measure, in a great degree, depends; that is, whether the preference of a registered to an unregistered deed shall be taken away by evidence that the party claiming under the registered deed had notice of the unregistered deed. The Commissioners, who agreed unanimously in favour of a Register, were nearly equally divided upon this point; but I am bound to say, that I have a very strong opinion, with the majority, against giving effect to notice, either constructive or actual, to defeat a registered title. I purpose to bring in the Bill with a clause to this effect. The reasons for the contrary opinion will deserve to be weighed with all respect; but I think the party who has neglected to register his deed, has no cause to complain if he loses his estate. " Vigilantibus nondormientibus subveniunt leges." It is of the greatest advantage to have a broad rule, not subject to except ions, which fritter it away, and involve parties in constant litigation. To defeat a registered deed by mere constructive notice, shocks every one; and the boundary between actual and constructive notice is often only imaginary. If the registered title does not rigidly prevail, you subject every man who purchases an estate, to the loss of it by fabricated parol evidence, or the caprice of a Judge. Lord Hardwicke, and the greatest Equity Judges, have lamented that any effect has been given to notice under the present local Register Acts; and it seems to me that their beneficial effects have been thereby materially impaired. The example of other countries leads to the same result. The Chancellor D'Aguesseau, having consulted all the Parliaments of France upon a question the same in principle, they all, with one exception, agreed that notice was to be disregarded. In Scotland the rule is rigid, that the registered deed shall prevail, notwithstanding notice of a prior unregistered deed; and no inconvenience has ever arisen from it. The Code Napoleon lays down the same rule. In England, even notice of a contract void by the Statute of Frauds operates nothing; the title of a purchaser cannot be impeached by showing that he had notice of a voluntary settlement; and it has been expressly determined, that under the Ship Register Acts notice of an unregistered bill of sale is quite immaterial. The vital principle of a General Register is, that title shall entirely depend upon the written documents entered upon the Register. How is this consistent with letting in the doctrine of notice? Fraud will still be open to the cognizance of a Court of Equity; and a contrivance between two or more to prevent or delay the registration of a deed, that a deed subsequently executed may have priority, would be the subject of an indictment at Common Law for a conspiracy. A remedy may likewise be given by action, without affecting the registered title. Sir, I have been asked whether any provision is to be made in this Bill for preserving evidence of pedigree. The law upon this subject is most defective. It is easier in any old family to prove a descent five hundred years ago, than in the beginning of the last century; and there has been since little improvement in this respect. There is no public evidence of pedigree, except from parish registers, which have been kept with the most shameful negligence, and which do not comprehend those who dissent from the Church of England,—a very large proportion of his Majesty's subjects. The parish register, in recording baptisms, does not profess to give the time of birth, which is often so important, and it contains nothing to identify families beside similarity of name. Sir, there ought certainly to be in this country, as there is in France, and almost every where on the Continent of Europe, a civil register of births, marriages and deaths, comprehending persons of all religions, and of no religion, if unhappily there are any such—with a description of the parties by residence, profession, or parentage, to leave no doubt as to their identity. This measure, however, is essentially different from a register of deeds, and must be reserved for future consideration. It will be greatly facilitated by the establishment of a General Register Office Copies of the district registers of births, marriages and deaths, would be transmitted to the General Register Office, —and in one place all searches of all sorts respecting title and pedigree would take place for the whole kingdom. Sir, when this Bill has been brought in, it must be judged of by its merits, and the House will act upon their own opinion in adopting or rejecting it; but in moving for leave to bring it in, that it may be submitted to discussion, I think I may fairly mention some of the great names by whose authority the measure is recommended. Lord Hale, and the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the state of the Law in the time of the Commonwealth, and who suggested some of the noblest improvements which the law has undergone, prepared a Bill for the establishment of a General Register. They proposed to erect an Office in every County, the only mode in which the measure was then practicable, when communication with London was so slow and uncertain. After the Restoration, and when filling the highest judicial offices, Lord Hale continued to recommend the measure with unabated zeal. When local registers had been partially established, and were found beneficial, Mr. Justice Blackstone, and other sages of the law, regretted that they were not universally established. Upon several occasions it has been proposed in this House to establish registers in every county; but as the bills introduced for this purpose did not remove the defects in the local registers already established, they did not pass; although the principle of registration appears to have been warmly supported by Sir Samuel Romilly, and the greatest men who then sat in Parliament. Since the second report of the Real Property Commissioners was published, recommending the plan of registration which is the subject of this Bill, I have the satisfaction to say, that it has met with the approbation of the late Lord Chancellor, of the present Lord Chancellor, of the Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, of the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, of the Lord Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer, and of a considerable majority of the Judges. There is an illustrious Ex-Chancellor who has declared a decided hostility to the measure. I need not mention that I mean the venerable Earl of Eldon; but I must use the freedom to say, notwithstanding the reverence with which I have been accustomed to regard his judgments, that I think he knows better how the law is than how it ought to be. He has devoted his life so entirely to the task, first of practising and then of interpreting it, that he has left himself but little leisure to consider the improvements of which it is susceptible. He regards all change in our jurisprudenceas unnecessary and mischievous; and perhaps he is of opinion that a General Regisier is a modern invention for abridging labour, which ought to be prohibited along with power-looms and thrashing machines. If any weight is to be given to the publications which have issued from the press, public opinion is strongly in favour of the measure. Many able pamphlets have been published in support of it, and only one, that I am aware of, against it. But there is a formidable body of opponents, against whose influence I feel it my duty to caution the House: I mean the Solicitors. In that branch of the profession there are many men of high honour and liberality, who would be ready to sacrifice their private advantage to the public good. Many of these have communicated valuable information to us, and are ready cordially to co-operate in the establishment of a General Register. But a notion has gone abroad among solicitors, chiefly in the country, that this measure will materially interfere with their professional profits; and I have reason to know that on this ground they are prepared to oppose it, and to get up petitions against it. In these petitions we shall hear nothing of loss of profits to Solicitors, but a great deal of "innovation," "expense," "disclosure," and "danger." Many Members of this House, and particularly country gentlemen, are so much under the influence of their Solicitors, that I cannot look upon their opposition without some dismay. But I must entreat hon. Members to judge for themselves; I would ask such as have been concerned in sales or mortgages, to refresh their memories by reading the bills of these Solicitors. No blame is to be imputed for making such charges, which arise, not from the fault of individuals, but from the defective state of the law itself. But the burthen thrown upon the landed interest by the enormous expense of the present mode of conveyancing, is a grievous tax upon them, which they ought to submit to no longer. The whole ex- pense, whether nominally paid by the vendor or purchaser, obviously by so much lessens the value of the subject sold. In mortgages, if the law-charges are added to the interest or subtracted from the sum borrowed, the harassed mortgager will often find, that instead of four or five, he pays six or seven per cent for the loan. The expense of transferring funded property is one-eighth per cent, and the whole proceeding is completed in a few minutes. It would be vain to expect that real property can ever be transferred with the same despatch and economy; but I entertain the firmest conviction, that the delay and expense now experienced might be most materially diminished, and that the first step to be taken for this purpose is the establishment of a General Register. Another mode may be adopted of remunerating the Solicitors, who ought always to be treated as belonging to a liberal profession; but it is desirable that the recompense they receive should depend upon the confidence reposed in them, and the skill and assiduity they display in any particular transaction: not upon the length of the deeds, which, without personal trouble or responsibility, they procure to be drawn by a conveyancer and engrossed by a stationer. I have now, Sir, sufficiently explained the nature of the plan which I have proposed, to enable the House to decide whether leave should be given to bring in the Bill. I will venture to make one remark with some confidence,—that the measure must either be at once adopted for the whole of England and Wales, or entirely rejected. It has been suggested, I will not say insidiously, that a partial trial should first be made of the new system of Registration, either in one of the register counties, or in a single maiden county, where no register has yet been established. Sir, this would not be a fair trial, and it ought not to be attempted: it would be effectually thwarted by the enemies of the measure. The object is, to change the existing system of conveyancing, and the habits of professional men. This cannot be effected unless the new system be universally introduced. Therefore, Sir, thanking the House, for its indulgence, and not further trespassing on its patience by any recapitulation of the topics which I have touched upon, I will conclude by moving for leave to bring in a "Bill for establishing a General Register for all deeds and instruments affecting Real Property in England and Wales."

disclaimed any intention of offering a captious opposition to the proposition of his hon. and learned friend; although he would take a future oportunity of stating in what he differed in opinion from him. He now, however, wished to ask his hon. and learned friend, whether he brought the measure in on his own responsibility, or whether it had been previously submitted to his Majesty's Government?

replied, that he had brought in the Bill with the concurrence of the present Lord Chancellor; but not as a measure to which Government was at present pledged. Government was not at present determined whether to support or to oppose the measure. The measure was, in the first instance, brought forward by him as a Member of the House of Commons; but with the full concurrence and approbation of the Lord Chancellor.

observed, that the commission which had been appointed to inquire into the laws affecting real property was authorised to investigate, but not to originate any measure themselves. It was the bounden duty of Government to consider whether the measures recommended by the commission ought to be adopted: and if they thought so, to originate them on the responsibility of the Law-officers of the Crown.

hoped, that when the Bill came to be discussed, the House would have the benefit of the presence of every county Member who might prefer having the title-deeds of his estate in his own house, rather than in the recondite mausoleum of parchments which his hon. and learned friend proposed to erect. He trusted that every county Member especially, and that the House at large, would hesitate before they adopted what, he could not but think, was a proposition pregnant with the greatest mischiefs. He would not have risen on the present occasion, however, but for his hon. and learned friend's ambidextrous allusion to Lord Eldon. His hon. and learned friend certainly patted that noble and learned Lord with the one hand, but then he knocked him down with the other. The vocabulary of praise was exhausted on that noble and venerable person in the first instance, but then it was added, that he was so learned in the law as it stood, that his mind was not strong enough, or liberal enough, to consider of what amendment it was susceptible. The noble and learned Lord was certainly not a hasty reformer of the law, because he knew what the law was; but there was a class of persons in the country who wished hastily to change the law, because they did not know what the law was. Those persons had not had quite so much experience of the law as the noble and learned Lord. He (Sir C. Wetherell) had a great respect for all the members of the various law commissions; but with all that respect, he must take the liberty of saying, that he could not put their knowledge and experience of the law into competition with the knowledge and experience of the noble and learned Lord. With respect to the proposed measure, the present was not the proper time for discussing it. Otherwise, he should be disposed to ask, who was to build the immense fabric, the construction of which was contemplated by his hon. and learned friend? It would be necessary to have recourse to the assistance of the Board of Works in building so enormous an establishment. He thought that the plan of a general registry never could be realised. On these grounds, therefore, he should hesitate before he gave his concurrence to the plan proposed by his hon. and learned friend. He gave his hon. and learned friend the fullest credit for the ingenious and pleasant speech he had made in introducing the measure—a speech in which he had attained an object not often attained by lawyers—that of making a legal subject intelligible to all, and a dry subject the means of much pleasantry, though his pleasantry, by-the-bye, consisted chiefly of some goodly fictions. With these facetiae, however, he had inclined the House to lend a favourable ear to his measure, though it certainly had not met with the approbation of some of the highest names in the profession; and for his part he might say with Lord Eldon, that though evils did certainly exist at present in the mode of transferring and assuring the titles of real property, the evils which the proposed system might introduce, would probably be at least equivalent to those from which the owners of land were at present suffering. He could not, therefore, give his concurrence to the measure.

might perhaps feel, with the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, that it was a little extraordinary that a measure, introduced by a Gentleman who was a commissioner to inquire into the laws regulating real property, and who was at the same time a Member of that House, should not have received the concurrence of his Majesty's Government; but still, whether it had that advantage or not, it should most unquestionably have his best support. There was, however, no wonder that the plan should have wanted the approbation of Lord Eldon, for it was a plan of reform, and that noble Lord was no reformer, as was clearly proved by the fact, that he had presided for twenty-five years in the Court of Chancery, and yet, though the abuses of that Court had been so manifest that no man now ventured to defend them, that noble Lord had not once in the whole course of his judicial career, proposed a single reform, but seemed to have found the whole of the law of that Court to be the perfection of human reason. The measure now proposed fully deserved the support of every man in that House.

said, that whether the hon. and learned Member who introduced this measure did it as a commissioner, with the authority of the Government, or as an individual Member of that House, he was equally entitled to credit for his exertions, and for the learning and ability he had so usefully directed to this subject. The measure was one of very necessary reform, and he would give it his cordial support. Having heard much praise of the Register system of Scotland, he wished to see that system introduced here. He trusted, therefore, that the House would not be led away by the opposition of the hon. and learned member for Boroughbridge, nor by his fearful pictures of a metropolitan mausoleum of deeds. In spite of what had been said on a former occasion, he (Mr. Hume) wished to have law so intelligible that everybody could understand it—he amongst the rest. The lawyers might wish it otherwise, but the statement of theirs, that law was and must remain a science, amounted to this—that the people could not and should not do without them. Now he wished to do without them altogether, and therefore he should support the measure of a General Register.

observed, that this was not a fit moment for the discussion of the merits of such a measure as that of a General Register: he should, therefore, abstain from entering into the details of the question, but would give his opinion decidedly in favour of the measure, as far as he had been able to consider it at present. He should reserve his opinion on the details till the proper time came for the discussion; and all he should now state was, his opinion that, when it had been fully discussed, it would be found worthy of the ability and learning of the gentlemen who had devoted their time and talents to its formation.

said, that the expressions employed by an hon. Member with respect to Lord Eldon were probably not intended to apply to that noble Lord alone, but to the other members of the profession, for lawyers were not generally considered a reforming tribe. But that very circumstance gave additional value to this measure, proposed as it was by a lawyer of great eminence, and having the support of many of the most learned members of the profession. He should be surprised if, on the fullest discussion of the subject, the opinions of the best educated men, lawyers or not lawyers, were not found to be in its favour. It was no objection to the measure that it had not obtained the declared support of the Government, for it did not require authority, founded as it was upon sound good sense, and upon the necessity of the case. The measure, however, if authority were wanted, had the authority of the hon. and learned Gentleman who introduced it, himself a very learned lawyer, of the former and present Lord Chancellor, and certainly of a majority of the present Government. That fact ought to relieve the lawyers from the imputations that had been cast upon them. Suppose the necessary calls on the attention of the Government at the present moment had prevented them from considering it so that they could not give it their declared support, still the House were obliged to the hon. and learned Member for bringing it forward, and he was certain the Government would do nothing to stifle the measure, even if they did not support it; but he hoped it would be found they could give it their full and cordial support.

defended the branch of the profession to which he had the honour to belong, from the imputation about their fear of their occupation being gone. He was sure that the Attorneys and Solicitors were as ready as others to sacrifice their personal interests when the public welfare required them to do so; and hon. Members had no right to suspect them of opposition to this or any other measure of reform till they had declared themselves opposed to it.

As I do not find that there is any opposition to bringing in the Bill, although some hostility is threatened to it in its future stages, I shall have to trouble the House very briefly in reply. I should regret exceedingly if it were thought that I had reflected upon the Solicitors as a body; but I considered it my duty to throw out a caution to some of them, to consider whether, in the steps they are taking to excite a prejudice against the establishment of a General Register, they are not actuated by an exaggerated apprehension, that it will materially interfere with their own gains. And I thought I might, without offence, offer a suggestion (which I am sure, if it could be carried into effect, would be most agreeable to my hon. friend, the member for Penrhyn, who is so eminent in this department of the profession), that another mode should be adopted for remunerating the valuable services of Solicitors employed in conveyancing, whereby they may no longer appear to have an interest against their duty. Considering the unbounded confidence reposed in them on the most important occasions of life, there can be no doubt that it is for the public advantage that their remuneration, by whatever rule it may be determined, should be ample. The only argument as yet brought forward against the measure itself, is the apprehended expense of erecting the building in which the deeds are to be deposited; and I am happy to be able to tranquillize the fears of the hon. member for Boroughbridge upon this subject. We do not mean that the Register Office in London should be one of the wonders of the world, like the tomb raised by Queen Artemesia to her husband Mausolus,—to which my hon. and learned friend has been pleased to compare it,—but should be composed of plain brick, mortar, and iron; and I can tell him, that of these materials a commodious, substantial, fire-proof building, sufficient to contain all the deeds to be executed in England for 100 years to come, may, by estimate, be constructed for the sum of 20,000l. Sir, I feel as much as my hon. and learned friend, the member for Weymouth, the importance of this measure being supported by Government; and I frankly own, that, unless it be cordially supported by Government, I despair of its success. But I differ from him as to the indispensable necessity of Government being pledged to it before it is introduced into this House. Under the peculiar circumstances in which the present Government is placed, obliged suddenly to deliberate and decide upon many important measures of urgent and immediate necessity, great and inconvenient delay must have arisen in bringing forward the Bill for a General Register, if it had been previously discussed in the Cabinet, and formally submitted to the law-officers of the Crown. Till it shall be determined whether the unanimous recommendation of the Real Property Commissioners upon this subject shall be adopted by the Legislature, they are at a loss what course to pursue; for they consider this as the basis of all reform; and upon its adoption or rejection must, in a great degree, depend the ulteterior measures for the improvement of the law which they may feel it their duty to suggest. It gave me the most sincere pleasure to hear, that my hon. and learned friend, the Attorney General, as an individual, is favourable to the Bill; and I was much gratified by the liberal and handsome tone in which he spoke of the manner in which it has been brought forward. I do confidently expect, that upon examination it will be found to deserve, and that it will receive, the approbation of his Majesty's Ministers, and of the enlightened individuals of all parties; that it will pass both Houses of Parliament with applause; and that it will be received with satisfaction by the country. For myself, after what has passed, I may be allowed to say, that my only motive in proposing it, is a sincere and ardent desire to improve the institutions of my country. This is my ambition; for this I have made some sacrifices, and I am ready to make more; and I cannot help thinking, that this ambition is nobler, and gives a better chance of lasting fame, than the common-place longing after office and professional advancement. Sir, I have only further to observe, that instead of urging forward the measure with precipitation, I am anxious that the most ample time should be allowed to consider and discuss it. Therefore, if leave be given to bring in the Bill, I propose, that after being read a first time, it shall be printed; that it shall be circulated as generally as possible, so that not only Members of this House, but all classes of his Majesty's subjects, may have an opportunity of objecting to its principle or its details; and that the second reading, when its fate will probably be decided, shall be fixed for a distant day.

in rising to call the attention of the House to the Administration of Justice in the Court of Chancery, reminded it that when he was in office he had given notice to bring forward a measure relative to the imperfect Administration of Justice in that Court. As he had now retired from office, he was no longer the person to introduce that measure, which would fall into the hands perhaps of abler men, but certainly not of men more zealous than he in the discharge of so important a duty. Had he continued in office, he should have possessed the power to introduce a measure, which he verily believed would have been of great benefit to the suitors of the Court of Chancery, for he had had the honour to belong to as virtuous a Government as ever presided over the councils of Great Britain—a Government that he was sure would have put down whatever abuses were clearly shewn to exist, without regard to the interests of friends or foes, He felt that he should have received their full support, and on that support he should have relied had he brought in his Bill. Whenever the present Government should bring forward any measure of a similar kind, he should give it his support. He must say, that the subject of the Court of Chancery had never been fairly met, but had always been used for party and political purposes. It was that circumstance which had hitherto prevented it from being made the subject of Reform; for never could an abuse in any office be mentioned, with a view to correct it, but a proposition was instantly made to do away with the office altogether. That House had thus, in many instances, thrown difficulties in the way of the late Government which would not exist with respect to the present, In what he was about to state he wished it to be understood, that he did not pledge the late Ministers; but he would now mention, that he had been desired to undertake the introduction of certain plans of Reform. He did undertake them; but before they could be matured and presented to the Ministers for the expression of their opinion upon them, they had gone out of office. His opinions had been mistaken the other night, and he now wished to correct the mistake. He would say what seemed to him a proper course to adopt. He would cut down all patent places now held in reversion—all incomes obtained from fees paid by the suitors of the Court, especially when paid to persons who took no part in the Administration of Justice. There was one place of that description with 10,000l. a-year. Could anything be more monstrous then that an office of 10,000l. per annum should be held by a person in reversion, which sum was obtained by means of fees that came out of the pockets of the suitors?—Was this system to go on?—Now, he ventured to suggest, that from that large sum 2.000l. a-year should be paid in part of the Lord Chancellor's salary—of which salary he now gave no opinion—and the 8,000l. should be struck off altogether.—Cheap and expeditious justice he was anxious to see administered, and that alteration would be a great relief to the suitors. Another evil at present existing was the state of the Court of Chancery itself. If the Vice-Chancellor's Court and the Rolls' Court had been properly settled at the time the first of them was created— and if at the same time the offices connected with them had been properly regulated, with a view to clear off the business—the complaints now made would never have been heard. Such a course would have been much more advantageous than it would be to separate the business of bankruptcy from the Lord Chancellor's jurisdiction. In his opinion, nothing could be more mischievous than such a separation, and he hoped never to see the day when that would be done. That the general administration of bankruptcy was bad he was ready to admit; but he did not think it ought to be made a separate jurisdiction. It had been said by some persons, when it was proposed to institute the Vice-Chancellor's Court, that that Judge would do no business. That supposition had proved to be utterly un- founded. The Vice-Chancellor's Court had become, to all intents and purposes, the Court of Chancery, and the Court of Chancery had become a Court of Appeals, and little else. Nobody intended to produce that effect at the time; but the effect had been produced, and it was beneficial, in some respects as it regarded the Administration of Justice, but injurious and detrimental in other respects, as it impeded the course of business in the offices, and created as much delay in one way as it got rid of in another. The persons who produced the measure for instituting the Vice-Chancellor's Court never imagined that that Judge would do so much business that four Registrars could not keep up with him; but if they had foreseen that fact, they ought not to have appointed him, without appointing at the same time those officers who would have removed the impediments that stood in the way of the discharge of the business of the Court. As the Vice- Chancellor's Court and the Court of the Master of the Rolls now stood, in relation to the performance of the business of the Court of Chancery, they clashed with each other; for if two parties were about to make cross-motions in the same cause, though both these motions ought to come on together, one party could take his motion to the Vice-Chancery Court, and the other could take his to the Court of the Master of the Rolls. In consequence, too, of the present state of these two Courts, the Vice-Chancellor's Court, and the Court of the Master of the Rolls, each had a Bar of its own; but the Lord Chancellor's Court never could have a separate Bar, but must draw its Bar from one or other of the two other Courts. The Lord Chancellor could not hold his sittings there regularly, on account of his political functions, and of the appeals he had to hear in the House of Lords. His proposition would avoid that difficulty. He would make the Rolls' Court a Court for the transaction of all business except that of bankruptcy, as the Vice-Chancellor's was now; for as they were at present constituted, one set of Counsel might be heard in one of the Courts, in discussing a motion that really decided the merits of the cause, and yet when the cause itself came on again in the Court of Chancery, different Counsel were also of necessity employed. He should propose, that in future no draftsman should draw a bill, without fixing on it a mark to show in which of the Courts that Bill should come on. It had been the intention of the late Government to make a most important alteration in the Vice-Chancellor's Court; for he had had the authority of Lord Lyndhurst for proposing a measure that would have made the Vice-Chancellor an independent Judge, instead of being, as he was now, at the beck and call of the Chancellor. Having said thus much with respect to the Court of Chancery, he now came to the alterations he proposed to make in the Court of Exchequer. In consequence of the appointment of an additional Judge in the Court of Exchequer, he would propose that he, or one of them, should be the First Baron of the Court, and that the Chief Baron should confine himself wholly to Equity; and that in cases where he felt a pressure, he should call in the assistance of the First or most competent Baron; and, that, on the other hand, the First Judge on the Law side should, on questions of difficulty, more particularly connected with Equity, call in the assistance of the Equity Judge. This would render the Exchequer a most effective Court for the decision of cases, both of Law and Equity. There would, by this means also, be established an efficient Court of Appeal in all Equity cases—a Court of which the want was very greatly felt. The entire removal of the Court of Exchequer had been contemplated by some, but he would take that opportunity of stating, that such an intention had never been for an instant entertained by him. He saw no reason why that Court should be abolished; its antiquity was as great as that of the King's Bench or Common Pleas; and, with the alterations he had suggested, he thought it could be rendered fully as useful as either of those Courts. Before he came to the subject of the appellate jurisdiction, he would make one other observation on the subject of the proceedings in Chancery; and that was, that the whole of the Orders of that Court should be revised and remodelled. The new orders had not by any means been attended with the good effects that had been anticipated from them, and nothing would answer the purpose except a revision and remodelling the whole of them, both new and old. And they ought all to be made so clear and simple, that even a member for Middlesex might understand them. And as to the orders and system of proceedings in the Exchequer, he would propose that they should be the same as in Chancery, that the country might be saved from the inconvenience and disgrace of having two systems of Equity procedure. He had said, that no set of men were more disinterested than the Equity lawyers when the question came to be what was best for the public: he was about to give the House an example of that disinterestedness. There were such things in the Court of Chancery as motions of course, which were really of no use. These were wholly in the hands of the junior Counsel, and the fee on each was half a guinea. These he had proposed to have abolished, but feeling some delicacy in proposing an improvement which would cost himself nothing, without communicating with those who were to be affected by it, he mentioned the matter to the junior Chancery barristers, and they, one and all, concurred in the propriety of the abolition of these motions. Some of these fees came into the hands of the Master of the Rolls, but they served no necessary purpose in the progress of a suit, and, therefore, ought to be abolished. There was one remark on the subject of the despatch of business in the Courts, which he felt himself called upon to make. It was very common in that House to praise a Judge for despatching a great deal of business in a short time, and the natural consequence would be, that Judges would be anxious to deserve that praise without, perhaps, duly considering other essential requisites in the progress of a cause. Celerity was only one thing to be considered. It was of the last importance that the thing should be well done, as well as speedily done; and no despatch could be proper that interfered with due deliberation. It was of the last consequence that causes should be managed in such a way as to satisfy the suitors that their interests had been sufficiently attended to, and they never would be satisfied unless their causes were considered with deliberation, and not hurried on in such a way as to give occasion to a suspicion that they had not been properly considered. These praises for despatch ought, therefore, to be used sparingly, otherwise they might do a great deal of mischief. He could not help admiring a rule of Cromwell made two centuries ago, which was, that when, after a cause had been heard, and the Judge was ready to proceed to a decree, the decree should be drawn up and read in open Court, in the presence of the Counsel on both sides, before any other business was gone into. This was a most wise and judicious regulation, and he wished it had always been adhered to. But as the matter was managed at present, there was no time to set down and settle what had been done in one cause before another was called on, so that it could not immediately be exactly known what had been decided. The consequence was, that perhaps in three weeks after, it was necessary to have a second hearing at the Registrar's Office, in order to settle what had been decreed. That was not a mode in which the business ought to be conducted. Time ought to be taken after hearing a cause to settle the decree at once; and if that could not be done according to the present system, then it was his opinion that a new Court should be appointed for the purpose. Without care in this respect, there was danger that they would forget the case, and have the whole of their work to do over again. Another most material point, in his opinion, was, that, as Lord Bacon had said, the Judge should take the law out of his library, and not out of his head, as otherwise there might be reason to apprehend that the law would escape him, and Counsel would be at a loss what opinion to give; and very little dependence could be placed on the opinion, when given, with reference to the ultimate determination of the cause. There was another thing which he was most anxious to see established in the Equity Courts, and that was Special Paper Days, when they might argue the law upon a settled state of facts, and not be always disputing, as at present, on cases of mixed law and fact, each stating the facts of the case in his own way, and applying the law to his own state of facts. The practice of the Court of King's Bench afforded an admirable example in this way. In that Court, difficult and important causes were turned into what were called Special Cases, in which the facts were settled and agreed upon by the Counsel for the parties, with the assistance of the Judge, if necessary; and then the cases came on to be argued on the special paper days upon the law only, upon a settled and indisputable state of facts; whereas, according to their practice in Equity, every man made his own statement of facts, and applied the law to that particular state and view of the facts. They had also causes which were called short causes, in which it was understood that important and difficult points ought not to be introduced. Nevertheless, it was not uncommon at present to introduce delicate and important questions of law into such cases, so that they were decided without that deliberation which their importance demanded. Another proposition which he would, therefore, have made, was, that such points should be carefully excluded from short causes. He now proceeded to state a greater evil than any that he had mentioned, and one which imperiously called for a remedy; and that was, the preliminary references to the Masters in some cases. For instance, a man died intestate; and then, when a person claiming to be his representative, instituted a suit, it was referred to the Master to consider, and report whether the person claiming to be the representative was really entitled to that character. Now, he would maintain, that the very contrary practice would be the safer rule to proceed on, which was, that when the persons who claimed the effects of an intestate came before the Court, the Court ought to decide at once upon their rights, and afterwards, if any necessity existed, to refer their several claims to the Master to report upon. By this means a vast unnecessary expense would often be avoided, and many references be abolished. As an instance of the necessity of such a proceeding, he would mention a case which came within his own immediate knowledge. When Lord Eldon presided in the Court of Chancery, an intestate's effects were sought to be obtained by a man who claimed as next heir. Instead of referring the claims of this person to the Master, his Lordship proceeded at once to examine into the right upon which the claimant founded his demand, and discovered, after a very short investigation, that the man had not the slightest right to claim the intestate's effects, by which the enormous, and, it would have proved, the useless expense of a reference to the Master was entirely avoided. He lamented that Lord Eldon, for whom he entertained the highest respect, had not introduced some of those improvements into the Court of Chancery while he presided over it. With the great knowledge of the law which that noble Lord possessed, the introduction of such improvements would have raised an eternal monument to his fame. Indeed, shortly before Lord Eldon left the Court of Chancery, he expressed his conviction, seeing the evils which had arisen from this mode of reference in a particular case, that the Court should always decide the right in the first instance, before a reference was made to the Master. Another evil which called loudly for a remedy was the putting off motions from day to day; a practice which introduced a great deal of inconvenience and confusion into the administration of justice. What he should propose was, that all the motions which came on on a Seal Day should be disposed of before the Court proceeded with other business. No more time would be lost by this proposed mode, and the convenience of it would be immense. Another alteration which he should propose was, that the practice of giving preference to causes should be utterly abolished. The causes ought to be heard in their regular order, and in no other way, and this would save a great deal of useless expense, time, and labour. This was the first rule that ought to be adopted when the cause was ready for hearing. A second was, that there should be no delay in the hearing after the cause should be ready; and a third rule, which applied to the Judge particularly, was, that after the hearing there ought to be no more delay in pronouncing the judgment than was absolutely necessary for right decision. This was the most important point of all. The Judge himself, for the most part, had no conception of the extreme anxiety of the suitors to have the judgment given as speedily as possible after the hearing had been finished, and of the constant applications to the Counsel to know when the judgment of the Court would be given. What he should propose was, that an officer of the Court should hang up in some conspicuous part of it a list of all the causes in which judgment was in arrear for six weeks, that the amount of the arrear might be constantly under the eye of the Judge, the Bar, and the suitors. From this simple plan he expected much benefit in the prevention of undue delay in pronouncing judgment after a cause had been heard. There were one or two other points in which he wished amendments to be made; and one was, in the mode of keeping the accounts of certain funds deposited in the Court, of Chancery. For instance, a residuary legatee filed a bill, and brought the fund into Court, which accumulated for his benefit at compound interest, while, as to the other parties interested it lay as a dead fund. This formed a very strong temptation to the residuary legatee to delay the final disposal of the cause, and the distribution of the fund, as long as possible; as, during the whole time the suit was depending, the fund was accumulating for his benefit, without regard to the other parties interested; and it sometimes happened, that by this means residuary legatees, whose interest at the commencement of the suit was scarcely worth a shilling, became entitled at the close of it to thousands of pounds. This was an evil that demanded correction. There was another point on which he was desirous to touch before he came to the matter of appeals, and that was, that the Judge in Equity might be called on to decide on particular points without having the whole of the causes brought before him. The opinion of the Court on one particular point was, in many instances, all that was wanted for the distribution of a fund; and in Scotland the Court had the jurisdiction to decide upon such special points without having any more of the case brought before it; and the power was wisely exercised. But in the Court of Chancery here, before the opinion of the Judge could be had on any one point, it was necessary to file a. bill, and bring the whole circumstances of the case before him, whereas his judgment on one point might be all that was requisite for the distribution of the fund. What he should propose, therefore, was, that the Judge might be called upon for the adjudication of the material point, without having the whole of a cause brought before him. And now he came to the consideration of the appellate jurisdiction. It was certainly extremely difficult to find a person for the head of the law who was sufficiently well informed in Law and Equity and other particulars, so as to be able in the best manner to perform all the duties attached to his situation. He did not mean to say that it was a decided objection to the advancement of a man to the head of the law, that he had not practised chiefly in a Court of Equity; but it certainly was a great drawback on the administration of justice. It was unquestionably a great inconvenience that a man's first essay in Equity should be made as Judge of that particular Court where Equity was administered. It might be an evil which they were bound to bear, but it was a great reflection on the country. Every person who had a cause to be heard in the Court of Chancery must desire to have at the head of that Court a person possessing a knowledge of Equity. It was the more necessary when there was an appellate jurisdiction in the same Judge. If a Lord Chancellor decided against the judgment of a Judge below him, there was no appeal, or nothing but an appeal from the Judge to the Judge himself. He trusted that in any remarks which he had made it would not be supposed that he referred personally to the noble and learned person lately elevated to the Woolsack. The same course pursued in his case had been previously acted upon in the case of Lord Lyndhurst. The observations, therefore, applied as strongly to Lord Lyndhurst when he was Chancellor. As to the present Lord Chancellor, no one who was in the habit of hearing him in that House but would admit that his powers of eloquence and of debate were, perhaps, never exceeded, and that he possessed great general knowledge. There was one drawback, however, to all this, which was, that the present Lord Chancellor was entirely uninformed on the law of Equity, which he was called upon to administer. Now, if the Lord Chancellor should decide wrongly in any case (and nothing was more likely), there was an appeal to the House of Lords; and who were the parties met by there? By the same Judge who had decided the case before. Not only the Court of Appeal, but the appellant jurisdiction, therefore, should be put on a different footing. The appeal should not be from the Judge to the same Judge. In the first place, then, he should propose that a sort of Equity Exchequer Chamber should be appointed, and that the Court should consist of the Lord Chancellor, the Vice-Chancellor, the Master of the Rolls, and the Chief Baron. He proposed also, that the Counsel should be made really responsible for the appeals which should be brought before the Court. He remembered when it was a matter which considerably reflected on a Counsel, to sign an appeal for which there were no reasonable grounds; but now that was done away with, and the most frivolous appeals were brought and heard, to the great inconvenience and loss of time of those who had cases for appeal "which were really worthy of coming under the review of the appellate jurisdiction. What he should propose, therefore, was, that a moral responsibility should be restored, or created, and that it should be deemed a matter of reflection on Counsel to give their sanction to appeals for which there were no reasonable grounds. Of course, Counsel could not be made responsible for the success of their appeals, but every Counsel had it in his power to take care not to sanction an appeal for which there were no reasonable grounds. The Court being thus constituted, he would give the parties appellants, the option to go before three of these Judges, who had not before heard the cause; before the Lord Chancellor and two of the other Judges; or before the other three Judges; or to go to the House of Lords. If this plan were adopted, he was satisfied that it would stifle nine-tenths of the appeals which were now preferred, more particularly if the moral responsibility of the Counsel should be well established. Then look at the appeals, from Scotland. The grounds of appeal were hardly ever investigated before they were entered in the Upper House, and they were for the most part brought, not for the sake of the difficulty of the question of law involved in them, nor on account of the value, but merely to try who should bear the expenses of a long litigation. Great improvements remained to be made in these particulars, and the time was ripe for them. Almost all these had been suggested nearly two centuries ago, but there they were still where they had been; and it was fitting that they should not remain there any longer. Many inquiries had been made with a view to these improvements, and the new Administration had great facilities in carrying them into effect. Another part of the general plan ought, in his opinion, to be, that the Lord Chancellor should have the power to call one of the Equity Judges to his assistance in cases of appeal in the House of Lords. He meant, that that Judge should sit with him, and not over him; for it was obviously inconsistent with the station which the Lord Chancellor held, and ought to hold, that he should have any Judge over him. He ought not to be under the control of any Judge. The object was, to provide that the appeal should not be to the same Judge, for an appeal to the same Judge was little else than a mockery. If the remedies which he suggested were attended to and applied, the greatest advantage would be gained, for the law would be uniform and certain. Now to pass to the consideration of Offices in the Courts, without which justice could not be done. With respect to them, his intention was of this nature: he would adapt them to the real and full discharge of the duties required by the interests of the suitors; and if it should be found that the duties could be done by smaller numbers, then he would abolish the unnecessary parts of the offices as vacancies occurred. In the Court of Chancery there were the Six Clerks (as to whom a reform had been proposed two centuries ago), who had l,200l. a year, with very little duty to perform. That institution ought not to remain on its present footing. Now the Court of Chancery had no proper taxing-officers, and the duty of taxing costs, upon the plan of the Courts of Common Law, ought to devolve on these six Clerks, and costs would thus be taxed in a cheap, expeditious, and satisfactory manner. The duty had been, that one of them attended in Court in each Term, in a box, where he was sometimes employed in reading- evidence; but latterly, even that duty had been dispensed with, and the attendance was to no purpose. What he should, there fore, propose was, to relieve the Clerks from that useless attendance, and to employ the six Clerks to assist in taking accounts. The next office to which he would advert was that of the Sworn Clerk, whose services might be dispensed with, and no great inconvenience would follow. The next office was that of the Accountant-general, whose salary had been staled at 3,1841. It was not quite so much, however, and he did not think that any reduction ought to be made in the salary of that officer, who had most important and effective duties to perform. The next Office was the Report Office. He was never more astonished than when he saw the Return from that Office. It was a mere copying-office, and yet the allowance to the Master of the Report Office was no less than 4,5891.— a sum so enormous, that he scarcely could believe it to be correct; but if it was correct, it very much required to be corrected. It was absolutely necessary that the Report Office should be investigated: it ought to cost no more than about l,200l. instead of between 4,000l. and 5,0001. a year. He next approached a very important office—that of the Registrar— and nothing could be worse than the system there established. The Registrar was allowed to take any number of Clerks, who each paid him about 1,000l. for the chance of succession, for they followed in rotation up to the highest place, without the slightest inquiry into their qualifications. Business had so accumulated that it was absolutely necessary two new Registrars should be appointed, which was one of the provisions of the bill he introduced last year. He was then authorised to say, that Lord Lyndhurst would give up the patronage annexed to the appointments; and what he proposed was, that each Judge in his own Court should name his own Registrar, taking care that he was properly qualified. He was inclined to think that they should be Barristers, and not Attorneys; but whether the one or the other, their competence ought to be duly ascertained. He did not mean to deprive of their claim those now entitled in the order of succession, but that their competence should be examined, and those only selected who were found most capable. The accumulation of business prevented the attendance of the Registrar, and this non-attendance had been the subject of just complaint. The public ought not to suffer from the appointment of new Registrars, and if four were not sufficient, six must be provided, with the same emoluments now obtained by the four. He meant to suggest, that the Registrars should attend from ten to two in the morning, and from six to eight in the evening. With respect to the framing of decrees in the Registrars' Office, it had become the practice to draw them up at an unnecessary length. At the period when pleadings were single, it was useful to state in the preamble of the decree the particulars of the case, the answer, and the prayer. But this had degenerated into a vicious system. It was customary now for the Registrar to take the Counsel's brief, and striking out such parts of it as he thought proper, and retaining such facts as he thought showed the case, to have it copied into the decree, which led to great and unnecessary expense, for it was not in the power of a Registrar to do this as it ought to be done. He proposed to leave out altogether the unnecessary preamble. He would press it upon the attention of the noble Lord opposite (Althorp), that in cutting off fees, without discrimination, which might be paid into a public fund, the country might be burthened unnecessarily with salaries which could be paid out of that fund. Thus, with respect to copies, they must be had, and there could be no objection to fees being paid for them. But the office copies, as at present drawn, were cumbrous things, and perfectly useless to the persons who took them, until they abridged them, and obtained the abstract of a copy. He proposed that these smaller copies should be procurable, and that the fee should go to a public officer, who should account to the public for them. The Registrars were now induced to make such long decrees because they were paid in fees. This evil ought at once to be remedied, by paying the Registrars out of a fund, to be formed by moderate, yet sufficient fees, to be vested in the public, and to be dealt out to the Registrars in the shape of salaries. The vast price of office copies ought also to be reduced, and they ought to be made useful to the parties, by being written in a form which rendered them legible. At present only a few words were written upon each page, so that a bill or answer extended over a vast mass of paper. The Registrars, who were mere copiers, in point of emolument were now nearly on a level with the Judges of the land, and it was quite time that their salaries were reduced. He now arrived at a still more momentous point—the Masters' Offices: they had been a subject of great and just reproach; for, though filled by most honourable, intelligent, and competent men, they were the sources of great evil. The Masters were not responsible for the abuses which were of long standing, and had been transmitted and accumulated from generation to generation. Their salaries were only 200l. a year, so that their principal incomes were derived from fees, and those fees were multiplied in every way by the prolongation of business before them. The first ground of complaint was, that the attendance of the Masters was not such as the public had a right to expect from the amount of remuneration. The next was, that they issued hourly warrants, which occasioned an almost indefinite repetition of them, without arriving at any thing like a decision. The consequence of this practice was, that parties were put to the expense of paying Counsel and Attorneys for attending hourly to no purpose. Thus suppose the Master had four cases to hear, he would appoint four separate hours, each hour to be appropriated to a case, which, if unfinished, was postponed to a future day; and this, though it was previously known that any one of the cases might occupy the whole four hours. Thirdly, the Masters sat, and dismissed matters submitted to them in a private chamber; and fourthly, the parties were put to a vast expense, by being compelled to take office copies. He was happy to say, that the Masters were so anxious for a reform of their offices, that the House might consider itself legislating with and not against them. He was most anxious to see those abuses put an end to, and he thought the time had now arrived when Government could do more for the benefit of the suitor in Chancery than any Government heretofore had ever an opportunity of doing. Great abuses also existed in the sales of estates; and instances had come to his knowledge where, although the fees to the Master were not exorbitant, yet, by some mismanagement, the costs of proceedings relative to the sale of an estate came, in one case, to 400l. and in another to 900l. He should propose to give the Master a fixed sum of money, instead of fees arising out of such sources. The Masters were called upon to attend the Lord Chancellor and the Master of the Rolls, which consumed their time, while it was only a mere matter of empty parade. This he would abolish, except in cases where the Chancellor or the Master of the Rolls thought it necessary for greater dignity, to require their presence, as, for instance, on the first day of Term. He did not object to their attendance on the House of Lords, of which they were the proper messengers. The first thing he would do would be, to declare their chambers open Courts, and enable them to sit as Judges, three Masters at a time, with the assistance of counsel, deciding points submitted to them. He proposed that they should so sit for three or four hours two evenings in every week, and that the causes should be regularly set down in the paper. The hours of business with the Masters had greatly varied. In remote times lawyers were in Westminster hall at five in the morning; and even in the reign of Charles 2nd, the Masters sat from seven to twelve in the morning, and from two to six in the afternoon. In 1798 they attended from ten to three in the day, and from five to eight in the evening; in 1816 the hours of business had been reduced to seven, and at present he be- lieved, that, on an average, they were not more than five. Thus, as the emoluments augmented, the labour was decreased. He wished to restore the time of sitting twice a week to seven hours, and if that were found too much with the present number of the Masters, he would reduce that number, by not supplying vacancies as they occurred. On the other four days of the week he would have the Masters sit only in the day time for six hours, viz. from ten until four. He next came to the question of emoluments. In 1798 the highest sum received by a Master in Chanceyr was 1,615l, and the lowest 976l., but at present the income varied between 3,800l. and 4,000l. His proposal was, that each master should have a fixed salary of 3,000l. per annum, giving him no interest in the prolongation of a cause, and making it the common interest of all to get the business before them done. The emoluments of the Clerks had also increased surprisingly, until they now amounted to about 1,400l. a year. The regular fees amounted to between 500l. and 600l. a year, and the rest was made up of gratuities for supposed expedition. His intention was, that the salaries of the Clerks should not be entirely fixed; that they should have a certain income of 600l., and the means of increasing it to 800l. by fees in matters of importance, where peculiar speed was required. Another object was, to put an end to the discrepancies in the Masters' offices; for although they were under the same roof, in every office different rules prevailed, which suitors were bound to know and observe. He wished the Masters to meet —to agree upon a general body of regulations—to submit them to the three Judges of the Courts, and with their approbation to establish them for the Government of every office, that in all, the practice might be uniform. He also highly approved of the establishment of an Accountant's-office; but he wished the Accountant to be an efficient sworn officer, who might be referred to by the Masters on points of difficulty, and to be liable to appeal from only where the sum in dispute was large, or where some question of principle was involved. By these changes he hoped to make the Masters' office as much respected as it was now reviled and censured. He was anxious, also, to avoid the expense occasioned by the taking of affidavits within twenty miles of London. If a person lived in the country, but within twenty miles of the metropolis, a Master must go to swear him, at a very heavy expense, amounting in some cases to 13l. 10s. and in others to as much as 27l., whereas, if the man lived at a greater distance than twenty miles, the business could be done for a mere trifle, comparatively, by a Master Extraordinary. There was another matter to which he also begged to call the attention of the House. The Registrars of the Court, who had to transact very important duties in making minutes of the transactions of the Court, &c, were generally Attorneys actually in practice. He did not object to them on the ground of ability, but he thought they ought never to be admitted, while practising, to sit under the Judge, and be the Registrars of the proceedings in the cases, perhaps, of their own clients. It was also the practice to appoint Attorneys as Secretaries for bankruptcy and lunacy; the effect of which was, in many instances, to poison the minds of the suitors, and render them dissatisfied with the Administration of Justice. He thought that the noble Lord, at present at the head of the Court of Chancery, had materially increased the evil, though he did not mean to say that it had originated with him. He certainly considered some of the appointments made by the Lord Chancellor highly objectionable, and among them those of the Secretaries, who acted as Registrars. He referred particularly to the Secretaries for lunacy and bankruptcy; the first of whom had an income of 1,300l. a year, and the last of not less than 2,700l. The noble Lord now at the head of the Court of Chancery, had much increased the evil, although he was certainly not answerable for the introduction of the abuse. Lord Eldon had appointed an attorney in great practice a Secretary and a Commissioner of lunatics, and at the time of the appointment nothing could have given greater dissatisfaction than the union of those two characters. Lord Lyndhurst had named, as Secretary of lunatics, a gentleman who was also a Solicitor of great eminence in the profession, of full business, and of high character. It was his opinion, and that from which he scarcely imagined he should experience any dissent, namely, that no Solicitor should hold a situation in the Court of Chancery, which might supply a temptation to litigants to employ him in preference to others, from a hope that doing so might lead to a favourable decision. The appointment of the Secretary for bankrupts was particularly open to the force of that observation. With respect to the lately-appointed Secretary for bankrupt cases, he had this much to state, namely, that that gentleman did not think himself at liberty to practise, yet he thought his partner quite free to do so; and now he would ask the House, wherein the difference was to be found, between the influence which any man might exert —he would say might be supposed by suitors to exert—over the decisions of the Court, when he acted for himself alone, or by his partner. In adverting to those topics, he begged it to be understood that he meant no hostile allusion to the character or conduct of the present Keeper of the Great Seal. He then, in expressing his sense of the high qualifications of Lord Brougham, professed that he was not influenced by any other than strict considerations of public duty. [Here some remark made behind him called off the attention of the hon. and learned Member.] He said, he could not avoid hearing the hon. member for Middlesex say, "here's a splash." He contended for his right of making the observations which he was making, and in the manner he adopted, without being made the subject of that sort of animadversion. He then proceeded to say, that he hoped some course would be adopted to facilitate the great work of accomplishing a Reform in the Court of Chancery. Nothing, he was satisfied, would prove more acceptable to the country at large, than to put the Court of Chancery on a sound and advantageous footing. He could assure those hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House, from whom such a reform was expected, that they should experience no opposition on his side of the House. He could assure them, that neither he nor any of his hon. friends would take up the matter upon grounds of party or of faction; but. deal with it as fairly, and with as much disposition to effect improvement, as if the proposed alterations had originated with themselves. He concluded by moving "That there be laid before the House an account of the number of Appeal Cases, Bills, Demurrers, Exceptions, and Further Directions, which stood before the Lord Chancellor or the Vice-Chancellor, on the 6th November, 1830."

said, he had too much compassion, though he felt none for the hon. Gentlemen who usually sat below him. but who were not now in their places, to detain the House by entering then into the abuses of the Court of Chancery. With the speech which they had just heard, or rather, with the results which it was likely to produce, if there was one man in the country who ought more than another to be gratified with them, that man was himself. Of all the abuses of the. Court of Chancery he had told them, or rather not all, but some—merely a few; but now he had the satisfaction of hearing the hon. and learned Gentleman below him calling upon his Majesty's Government to bring forward the necessary alterations—now for the first time it was admitted on all hands, that alterations were necessary—while it must be full in the recollection of the House, that the late Lord Chancellor, in the course of the last Session, brought in two bills, which he abandoned, and that the hon. and learned Gentleman himself also abandoned his own measures of last year. As to what had been said in reference to the appointments made by the present Lord Chancellor, he had only to observe, that that noble Lord had done nothing but what had been sanctioned by the example of every one of his predecessors; and why should not he, as they had done, surround himself with men of honour and character, in whom he could confide? He was enabled to say this— that Mr. Vizard, the Secretary for Bankruptcy, assured the Lord Chancellor, that he would no longer practise in cases of bankruptcy or lunacy. Once more he would congratulate the House, and he trusted he might in a peculiar degree felicitate himself, that at length the country would, by common consent of all parties, enjoy the benefits of reform. For very obvious reasons, the House must feel the impossibility of his entering into the various matters which the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman presented for consideration, and therefore he thought he should best promote the object which he earnestly pursued, by moving that the debate be adjourned to Monday next.

in seconding the Motion for adjournment, said, that though his hon. and learned friend had, in some respects, censured the conduct of the present Lord Chancellor, he had not advised his noble predecessor, though a member of the same Government with his hon. friend the member for Weymouth, to avoid that course for which he was now censuring the present Lord Chancellor. His noble friend had, in the several appointments which he made, only followed the example which had been set him by Lords Thurlow and Erskine, by Lord Eldon, and by every Keeper of the Great Seal. It could not be for a moment denied, that the present Lord Chancellor had great difficulties to contend against; and though, in meeting those difficulties, he had felt himself called upon to appoint those, and none but those, on whom he could rely, yet in the case of two gentlemen connected with his Court, the giving away of whose offices would have been to him a source of considerable patronage, he had not availed himself of his unquestionable power and authority, but had permitted those gentlemen to remain in the situations in which he found them. Not an iota of patronage had he availed himself of for the benefit of any one of his connexions. Now, more especially with respect to his private Secretary, the fact was, that antecedently to that gentleman's appointment, the Lord Chancellor had not the slightest knowledge of him, and merely received him into that office from recommendations which gave him assurance that the gentleman was well qualified. As to the other Secretaries, respecting whom some observations had been made, he must be allowed to say, that the noble Lord had no other choice but to appoint Solicitors. It might be extremely desireable, if Barristers could be found to fill them, to appoint gentlemen belonging to that branch of the profession; but there were few Barristers, sufficiently well qualified, who would give up their profession for the hazardous situation in question. Under all the circumstances, he hoped his hon. friend would permit him to say, that it would have been rather better for him to have waited a few months, to see what the Lord Chancellor could do, than thus to appear against him with what he might be permitted to call premature condemnation. On occasions such as that, other persons, having to speak of the present Lord Chancellor under the circumstances in which he had to mention his name, might feel called on to pronounce a splendid panegyric—he was, he trusted, incapable of betraying so much bad taste, but he would entreat the House and the country to look to the conduct of the noble Lord; and though he might not be so practised an Equity lawyer as the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, yet he confessed that he should feel himself most grievously mistaken if his noble friend did not turn out to be one of the greatest Equity Judges, and one of the greatest Equity Lawyers, that ever presided in the Court of Chancery; if he did not, in a word, equal all the expectations which that House had formed of him—if he did not fulfil all that was hoped from a man to whom no subject was too great for his comprehension, nor any detail too minute to elude his research. Of this at least he was certain, that no one ever entered the Court of Chancery with a more sincere and earnest disposition to advance the great work of reform, and to put an end to the abuses of that Court. He really was unable to comprehend, from what had been said respecting the appellate jurisdiction, that it at all applied in any degree to the present question. That an appeal to the House of Lords would have been an appeal from the Lord Chancellor to the Lord Chancellor any more in present times than it was at former periods, appeared to him incomprehensible. Surely there were as many Law Lords now as at any former periods and as able. There was no decision to which the present Lord Chancellor might come, which, being appealed from, would not come under the consideration of Lords Eldon, Lyndhurst, and Wynford. With respect to his learned friend's remarks on the evils of the Vice-Chancellor's Court, there was nothing new in them. The disadvantages of that Court were pointed out by Sir Samuel Romilly, when it was first proposed to erect it. He could not conclude without observing, that whatever reforms might be effected in the Court of Chancery, all the honour belonged to his hon. friend, the member for Durham, who had taken up the subject year after year. It was said, that it had been brought forward for party purposes. He repelled the accusation. It was brought forward from the impulse of public spirit; and it was unjust to say, that it was introduced merely because a great judicial character happened also to be. a great political character. It was not brought forward in 1810 for party purposes, but it was then defeated on account of party and political feelings. He could not see why, as his hon. and learned friend the member for Stafford had said, he could not see why reforms of this kind should be thrown on the Cabinet, who had such multifarious business to dispose of. He considered that it was more proper to leave them to his learned friend and others, who had given so much of their time and attention to the task. He was sure, that if they introduced useful reforms, they might rely on the support of every Member of that House, and particularly on that of every Member of his Majesty's Government.

in explanation, said, he was no friend of the Lord Chancellor, and did not feel that he was authorised to intrude, in order to tell him what he meant to say in that House. In making the observations which he had addressed to the House, he was merely actuated by his feelings as a public man. He had a duty to perform, and he would perform it; he had a station to uphold, and he would uphold it.

said, the practice always had been, to appoint Solicitors to the situation of Secretaries. When Lord Macclesfield was impeached, every thing that could be was alleged against him; but his appointment of Solicitors as Secretaries was not amongst the charges; and it was, therefore, to be inferred, that there was nothing improper in it. He did not know whether his learned friend meant to introduce a clause in some bill to prohibit the Chancellor from appointing whom he pleased as Secretaries. If he did, he thought that that Chancellor would not be a very spirited man who submitted to be over-ruled by such a clause. The present Lord Chancellor, as his learned friend the Attorney General had said, had done no more than a long series of his predecessors had done.

begged to explain to the hon. member for Weymouth (Sir E. B Sugden) that what he had said, and what the hon. Gentleman had overheard, had been addressed privately to a friend that sat next him, and not at all intended to interfere with his speech. His friend had asked him, on what the motion was? To which his reply was, that it was not a motion, it was only a splash. If the hon. member for Weymouth wished to know what a splash meant, he would tell him: he meant a speech on a subject, but no motion on the speech. The hon. and learned Gentleman had been three years in office without ever complaining of the abuses of the Court of Chancery; and now, with the greatest inconsistency, he made an attack upon Lord Brougham, who had scarcely taken his seat, for permitting abuses. Of the speech of the Attorney General he must say, that since he had been in the House, he had never heard a speech from a lawyer which had given him so much satisfaction. His speech did honour to him as a lawyer, and would be gratifying to the public. He was sure that the hon. and learned Gentleman would not, like his predecessor, defer complaints till his removal from office.

said, that whilst he was in power, he had given due notice of this motion.