presented a Petition from the Rev. Sir H. Lees, complaining of certain violent and inflammatory speeches made by associations of Papists in Ireland. The hon. Member, in presenting this petition, said that he was anxious to call the attention of the House to one or two points adverted to in the petition—one was, that the petition stated that the Act for the Suppression of Illegal Associations in Ireland was about to expire; in this he thought the petitioner was mistaken, but upon this point the Solicitor General for Ireland could give the House information as to the correctness of this statement. He understood that the law was to continue another year beyond the present Session of Parliament. The other points to which he wished to advert were also stated in the petition, namely, the conduct of the hon. and learned member for Clare, and others who entertained similar opinions, and if what he (Mr. Trant) had heard was correct, he could not help saying, that the hon. and learned Member was highly blameable in what he had done. What he alluded to was a letter written by the hon. Member to the Editor of a Waterford Paper,^* advising all persons to obtain gold for bank-notes. The consequence of that advice was, that already a considerable run has been made upon the banks in Waterford, and great alarm had been spread through the surrounding districts. The immediate effect was, that every article of trade and produce, especially butter (the principal commodity of the place), had fallen in price. He regretted the hon. Member had taken such a step so soon after the efforts that had been made to establish confidence and security in Ireland upon a solid basis. After all the pains that had been taken to tranquillize Ireland, he was sorry to see the hon. Member pursuing a course which must produce the distress and ruin of thousands in that country. But perhaps his hon. and learned friend had some good reasons for the line of conduct which he had adopted, though what they were he could not divine. If the hon. Member had any he could now explain them. The petitioner entertained much stronger opinions than he was inclined to approve of, but he must say, that on this occasion he seemed to have some reason to complain of certain persons in Ireland since the passing of the Relief Bill. Their conduct had certainly contributed much to disturb the tranquillity of that country, which, it was hoped, would be the consequence. It was true he had warmly opposed that bill, but as it was passed, no man was more anxious that it should be followed by religious harmony; he had never, since the passing of that measure, attempted to mar its good effects by exciting angry discussions, and he appealed to the hon. member for Clare, as a fellow-Kerry man, not to impair his reputation by the perversion of his undoubted talents, which he feared he was doing, in keeping up agitation in Ireland. It had been urged as an argument in favour of Catholic emancipation, that such men as his hon. friend, possessing ardent minds, would come into that House, and give out their opinions for fair discussion, and that thereby the House would become the safety-valve or conduit to carry off all those bad and angry feelings which, it was represented, made Ireland a hell upon earth. Now, he would say, that if agitation were persevered in, he would caution its abettors to beware, lest, in the bitterness of disappointment, a step might be taken to crush all their expectations. The dangers to the Established Church had been increased by the admission of Roman Catholics to power; and they ought to beware, lest they might alarm the friends of the Church by conduct which could only be pernicious in its results. The proceedings of the hon. Member and his friends would, if persevered in, bring confusion and anarchy upon that country. There was one circumstance to which he then wished to advert—at a public dinner given lately in Ireland, another eminent and learned gentleman is stated to have said, "that none of the manna of patron- age had fallen upon the Roman Catholics of Ireland, and that the Government must, (and the word was used emphatically), give substantial effect to the late measure, or that greater evils still would arise out of the disappointed hopes of the Catholics of Ireland, and that men would still be found, who knew well how to minister to the passions of the people of that country." What Mr. Sheil complained of was, that Government did not distribute any of its patronage amongst Catholics. That gentleman, however, should recollect, though the numbers were on one side, that the weight of property was on the other. Such language was used with great peril, for he had great confidence in the people of England, and knew that the energies of the Protestants of Ireland would, if necessary, be assisted by their fellow-religionists in England, and thus assisted, they could crush any attempts made against them. But though not fearful of the result, he again called upon his hon. friend to desist from conduct tending to produce distress and disorders which no man could even contemplate without horror. He was happy to hear his hon. friend, on a former occasion, in a manner which did him credit, refer to personal considerations which made him tender of human life; but his present proceeding might, though no doubt unintentionally, involve him in acts of crime of deeper dye than could arise out of a personal conflict. He entreated his hon. friend's pardon for addressing such observations as might be considered a lecture—but he felt for him personally and sincerely, and he also felt, as an Irishman, for their common country, and in the name of that country he implored his hon. friend to desist from acts injurious to his own fame, and to the interests of their common birth-place.

^* The following is the letter alluded to:—

"To the Editor of the Waterford and Weekly Waterford Chronicles.

"London, June 7, 1830.

"My Dear Sir,—You are quite right—the time is come when Ireland should, one and all, rouse itself to fling off the Administration of the Duke of Wellington. He is, in my judgment, totally unfit for the office of Prime Minister. A portion of Ireland, organized by the Catholic Association, of whom 1,400 were Protestants, forced him to grant Emancipation; but he granted it with the worst grace possible. He added to it the disfranchisement of the forty-shilling freeholders, the suppression, or rather attempt at suppression, of the Monastic Orders, and the insult to our Bishops—add to these that despotic law which has authorised the Lord Lieutenant to issue his late proclamation. In the annals of legislation, there never was so unconstitutional a law. How he was compelled to emancipate is well known, but

he threw as much of bitterness into the cup as he possibly could. I really think that he hates or despises Ireland. His powers, too, of reasoning, appear to me of the lowest class. He is quite the Commander-in-Chief of the Ministry, and rules the men who have the littleness to act with him with a sway almost despotic. I think his foreign policy of the worst possible description, and that the tendency of his public measures is all towards arbitrary sway. It is, in short, essential to the peace and prosperity of these countries that we should have another Minister.

"As to Ireland, the insulting and insane attempt to increase the taxation, at such a period of deep distress as the present, is a proof of utter, total ignorance of our real situation, or total disregard of our wants. The hour, therefore, is come, when every effort should be made, to press on the Administration of the Duke. This is the very time to attack his Government in every legal and constitutional way. I very much approve of your plan of securing a gold currency for Ireland. If gold be good for England, as a medium of exchange, it ought to be equally good for the Irish. Indeed, it is a very formidable advantage that the English have over us in this, that their currency is of actual value as an article of commerce, being gold—and that we, Irish, should have no other currency than mere paper, in itself, as an article of commerce, of no kind of value whatsoever.

"It is too bad that the welfare of Ireland should be thus postponed, as it were, to serve England. It seems, therefore, a duty, to rouse the people to effectuate the necessary change, by calling for gold for every pound note. A man who has a pound note may surely as well have a sovereign. A thousand accidents may make the pound note not worth 1½d. There is nothing which can possibly render the sovereign worth less than 20s.; and let me tell you that it may again become worth 30s. of the then currency. Call, therefore, on the people—the honest, unsophisticated people—to send in the bank notes of every description, and to get gold. Take this as a measure of precaution every where—let it spread far and near, and then at least we will be so far on a par with England.—Believe me, most sincerely, your's,

"DANIEL O'CONNELL."

felt some doubts whether or not he ought to offer any explanation of his conduct; and but for the kind manner in which he had been alluded to by his hon. friend, the member for Dover, most assuredly he should not say one word upon this petition. It was not due to the House that he should explain; he totally disclaimed the authority of the House over any acts of his that were done out of it; and least of all would he stoop to explain to the raving petitioner. In the House he always did and always would act in such away as he thought due to the House and to himself, as an independent Member of Parliament; and while he did so, he must disclaim, in the most distinct and positive terms, the right of the House, or of any Member of it, to call him to account for what he might think proper to do outside the doors. With regard to the question before the House he would say, that he had struggled for Ireland when she had been a prey to every needy adventurer in politics and religion, and when she had been betrayed alternately by the men who attempted to cajole, and those who professed to befriend her. During the era of agitation, which was spoken of with terror by the petitioner, Whiteboy outrages ceased—riots became daily less frequent—massacres and midnight conflagrations disappeared—the people became reconciled to each other—old feuds were forgotten—new alliances sprung up—and peace and harmony succeeded to violence, outrage, and civil war, until at length, pacified and combined, Ireland became too powerful for her enemies, and too big for her chains. And now that he was in the House, had he not a right, on behalf of his country, to complain of the manner in which Irish business was neglected here? There was the Subletting Act, framed for the purpose of depriving the people of their tenements, in order to enlarge the domains and enhance the property of the rich; that Act which had already inflicted such frightful injury on Ireland, and made the poor die by hundreds in the ditches—was not that law still permitted to disgrace the Statute-book? It was true, an amendment had been proposed, but it was still worse than the Act itself; for it legalised the disputed clauses. There was the Vestry Act too—the most infamous that could be conceived. Was it not monstrous, that six millions of people should be taxed by 250,000 for the support of a Church from which they conscientiously differed? "I heard (said Mr. O'Connell) great cheering from the Treasury benches when it was thought that my hon. friend had made a hit at me. Well, did these retainers of the Minister—these unbought, unbiassed, but still hon. Gentlemen—support me in any effort of mine to relieve the distresses of Ireland, by removing existing and flagrant abuses? No, Sir, I was met by a united phalanx; and this, Sir, is the reason why I have acted out of doors—and this, Sir, is the reason why I shall continue to act as I like out of this House. By agitation Ireland became strong; by agitation she put down her bitter enemies; by agitation has conscience been set free; by agitation Irish freedom has been purchased; and by agitation it shall be secured. Liberty was never yet obtained by quiescence. The iron sceptre of despotism and bigotry was never yet broken by apathy. Sir, I ask, if agitation—constitutional agitation—prevailed in England, should we not before this have had a reform in Parliament? If there were not in England an apathy which I hold in contempt, I ask, would a few Lords return the Members of this House?—or would an oligarchy presume to trample upon the rights of the people?—or would the Minister be secure of a venal majority to carry every profligate job he might think proper to advocate? It is the absence of agitation that perpetuates abuse in England; the existence of it in Ireland will ultimately establish the people's rights. The speech of Mr. Sheil has been alluded to as against me. Now, I disclaim any connexion with the sentiment to which my hon. friend has referred. I despise the patronage of any Government—I contemn the name of office. This was always my feeling, and in that feeling I shall die. But I will say, the Government have not treated the Catholics of Ireland well since the passing of the Relief Bill. Their conduct towards the Catholic Bar is disgraceful. I don't want the gew-gaw of a silk gown, and neither do I refer to my friend Mr. Sheil, for we were fellow-agitators, and must be prepared to bear up against the hatred of those whom we succeeded in defeating. But why has not a silk-gown been given to Mr. O'Loghlen, or Mr. Ferrall, or Mr. Cruise, or Mr. Ball? Sir, the reason is, they are Catholics. Now, this is an injury to their clients, many of whom are Protestants. I tell my hon. friend that he is mistaken about the workings of the Relief Bill. It has done well in spite of his Majesty's Government. The people themselves have become reconciled; and now Protestants and Catholics see their own interests, and are resolved to be no longer the dupes of designing mercenaries. But if violence is kept up in some parts of the North, I see on the ministerial side of the House the men who are keeping party spirit alive for electioneering purposes. I have, Sir, given my advice to my countrymen, and whenever I feel it necessary I shall continue to do so, careless whether it pleases or displeases this House, or any mad parson out of it. And will any hon. Member tell me my advice is bad? What did I do? Why merely this—I recommended the people to get gold, as in England, for useless paper. The Members opposite would not go with Mr. Attwood in giving a silver currency to England, and am I to be questioned for recommending the discountenancing of a paper currency in Ireland? My advice has been followed, and this night's discussion will enforce it. I again disclaim having risen to defend myself, because, for my acts beyond these doors I disclaim any responsibility to the House. I rose, Sir, to express my determination to do my duty towards Ireland. My object is the good of Ireland first, and of the empire secondly."

said, he rose principally for the purpose of answering a question put to him by his hon. friend, the member for Dover, who had asked if the act of last Session, for suppressing illegal associations had expired. That Act would continue in force until the end of the next Session of Parliament. With regard to other matters touched upon by the hon. member for Clare, such as the Subletting Act, and the Vestry Act, he did not think that the proper time for discussing them; but he protested against what had been said respecting them. When the time came for such discussions, and it was not his fault that it had not sooner taken place, he should then deliver his opinions; and he wished to remind the House, that he had been induced by the hon. member for Clare to postpone the discussion on the Subletting and Vestry Acts. This, it was true, occurred in consequence of the hour at which he was about to introduce the subject, and he only mentioned it to show that he was most anxious that these questions should be taken into consideration. When the Subletting Act came on for discussion, he believed he should be able to show the House that it was not such a measure as had been described by the hon. member for Clare. That hon. Member had said a great deal in the course of his speech, but he would ask the House whether the observations of the hon. member for Dover had been answered? As he understood the latter Gentleman, he did not arrogate to himself the right to call the learned Gentleman to account for his conduct out of the House; but he had alluded to a letter, addressed to the Editor of an Irish newspaper calling on the people of Ireland to get gold for their banknotes. The hon. Member had justly considered that such conduct would be ruinous to Ireland, or at least the cause of irreparable injury, and without assuming to himself any authority or right to call the hon. member for Clare to account for his conduct there or elsewhere, he did complain that that Gentleman had not availed himself of his high privilege, as a Member of Parliament, to bring forward his views for discussion in that House. This was the course which he had expected from the high talent and station of the learned Gentleman. He did expect that once seated in that House as a Representative of the people, he would have brought all those interesting topics forward for discussion. Then might these questions be fairly considered, when argument would be met by argument, and reason by reason; but this was not the course pursued, and instead of bringing the important question of the currency under the consideration of practical men, the learned Gentleman had addressed a letter to the common people of Ireland, and he had done so by telling those people that gold was useful, and having come to the conclusion that gold was a useful currency, he proceeded to obtain his desirable end, by the singular mode of declaring "war to the knife;" but he knew what the object was it was not to get at gold, but the vain and absurd object of driving Ministers from their situations by the threat of "war to the knife." That was the learned Gentleman's object, and the manner in which he sought to effect it, reminded him of the conduct of a maniac who was refused employment by the manager of a company of players, at a country theatre. He was offended, and declared that he could and would ruin the company, boasting, in his folly, that he had sufficient influence to effect it, by the magic of a single word, and he would take the opportunity of showing his own popularity in the town and of ruining the company. This maniac, in the execution of his purpose, went accordingly to the theatre on a benefit night, when the House was full, and placing himself in a secure place, he set up the cry of 'fire.' The immediate consequence was instant consternation, in which there was a rush to the door, and many were severely injured. Now he would ask, if this was a proof of popularity, or did the success of this mad scheme show that the man possessed influence in the town and such conduct as this it was, that the hon. member for Clare felt himself justified in pursuing. He assured his friends that there would be a run on the banks, and this under the pretence, which any one might put forth, that the banks were in a state of insolvency. It was well known that nothing was more delicate or more easily assailable than the credit of a bank. Let but the slightest report of insolvency be circulated, and a rush ensued. He called upon the hon. member for Clare, as he valued the welfare of his country, to be more cautious in what he undertook. The state of Ireland during the panics of 1821 and 1825 were fresh in the recollection of many, and it was only necessary to refer to those periods to give an idea of what a scene Waterford presented on Saturday last, and what misery was entailed, perhaps, on thousands. He had heard, that upon that day the greatest consternation prevailed, and the produce brought by the peasantry to market sold thirty per cent below its value; and it was the letter of the hon. Member which had produced these calamitous effects. It was not in his (Mr. Doherty's) power nor, indeed, was it in the power of the Government to cure all the sufferings to which, from various causes, the peasantry of Ireland were exposed; but any mischievous person might increase the misery inseparable from want, by crying 'fire,' and superadding confusion and want of confidence Let not the country, in the name of God, have "war to the knife;" let it not be involved in ruin and conflagration, because one individual was not satisfied. That was not right; it was not creditable either to that House or the country. The hon. member for Clare had promised to do great things for Ireland.—What had he done? In that House he had done nothing. He complained, indeed, that the House did not lend a patient and a willing ear to his addresses. He told the petitioners that their petitions were neglected; but he would take the experience of the last twenty years—he would refer to the many hours of patient investigation and close attention given by that House to the affairs of Ireland, to refute the allegation. It was one thing to be indifferent to the claims of Ireland—it was another not blindly to follow the command of the hon. and learned Member. He had witnessed the state of Ireland with much anxiety during the last few weeks, for he had just come from that country;—there were sufferings which, perhaps, could not be averted; but he was sure that exciting alarm, and provoking a panic, must aggravate those evils it was the wish of all good men to avert. It was difficult for wisdom to accomplish good, but evident, from this and other instances, that folly might easily provoke mischief.

thought, that the House was much indebted to the hon. member for Dover for having called its attention to this subject, and was of opinion, after the statements which had been made, that it was high time that the hon. and learned and Catholic Member should be observed. [Cries of "Order!" "Hear, hear," and loud Cheers.]

Mr. Spring Rice rose to speak to order.

[Mr. O'Connell attempted to rise, but was kept down by Mr. Hume; and considerable confusion existed for a few moments—some Members cheering, and some vociferating "Order!"]

was at length suffered to say, that there was one word, and only one word, used by the gallant Officer which he thought it right to take notice of, which in fact, the House was bound, he thought, to find fault with, as quite unparliamentary. The hon. and gallant General had no right, since the law recognized no distinction, to call any Member a Protestant Member or a Catholic Member. It was not parliamentary, and certainly it would not be convenient. This was the first time, he believed, that any such allusions had been made, and he trusted that he did not interfere unnecessarily. If they were not checked at the outset they would lead to serious inconvenience, and in time to great confusion.

said, the House, and no Member of it more than the gallant Officer, must feel obliged to the hon. Member for calling the gallant General to order. The hon. and gallant Officer must feel the impropriety of making any distinction among the Members of that House, since the law had declared that there were to be no distinctions.

bowed to the authority of the Chair, and to the call to order, made by the hon. Member in such good humour. He had only used the word as a means of distinction. There were so many hon. and learned Members, that he knew not how to describe the hon. member for Clare. He was glad that the hon. member for Dover had made these observations in his place. The House had been exposed to considerable inconvenience from the number of petitions presented from Ireland against the proposed scheme of taxation, and all these petitions apparently proceeded from the bureau of the hon. and learned Member. The letter already alluded to was signed Daniel O'Connell, and that he presumed was the same hon. Member. The hon. Member had referred to the petitions from Ireland, and described the apathy of the House as discreditable to it; but, in his opinion, those petitions and their consequences were discreditable to nobody but the hon. and learned Member.

I think it my duty, Sir, to my constituents, my country, and myself, to offer a few remarks upon the discussion that has arisen; and in the very outset, I must again disclaim any submission to this House, and its authority over me, for any act I may choose to do outside of these walls. I cannot command language strong enough to disclaim any, the slightest submission to this House, generally, for any act done out of it, and therefore, Sir, it will be at once seen how thoroughly I repudiate the authority of any Member of the House,—but more especially of the hon. and very learned member for the city of Kilkenny. Sir, I should be exceedingly sorry not to enjoy the blessing of his censure; and on that day should I think myself unhappy and a traitor to my country, when I had the misfortune to be praised by the very learned Member. Sir, in a letter to which allusion has been made by the gallant General, I did speak of "war to the knife" against his Majesty's present Ministers, and that phrase I will now repeat for the satisfaction of the gallant Member. But, Sir, this is not the letter to which my hon. friend, the member for Dover, alluded when he opened this debate; and yet, the very learned Gentleman, the Solicitor General for Ireland, with that tact for which he is so eminent—that species of scenic display, and theatrical manœuvre, which so often supply the want of ability and talent—has confounded the two letters, and brought the sentiments contained in one to bear upon the opinions promulgated in the other. Now, Sir, the letter in which the phrase which has so much excited the ire of the very learned member for Kilkenny, was contained, is a letter written by me upon the subject of the Stamp and Spirit duties, which the hon. Gentleman dares not oppose; or if he do, I presume he will not long enjoy the confidence of the Administration—a commodity which the very learned Member could not very easily dispense with; and if he do not, I here tell him there is not a man, woman, or child in Ireland, from Kilkenny to Derry, that will not be in array against him. I did, Sir, denounce the scheme of assimilation as mischievous and oppressive in its tendency; I now denounce it, in my place in this House, as outrageous and profligate in design. It is another proof—if any were still wanting—of the entire ignorance of the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the real condition of Ireland; and because I have exerted myself to prevent this unwarrantable plan from being carried into execution, I am assailed by the very learned Member, who professes so much affection for Ireland. I always called upon the people of that country to petition against the contemplated measure; and I think my views right, exactly in proportion as they may be arraigned by every hack of the Minister, whether in or out of this House. As to the currency question, I think it right that, as assimilation is the order of the day, we should have the benefit of it in every respect in Ireland. Will the very learned Member tell me that his notion of "assimilation "is not "taxation?" If not, why should not Ireland enjoy a gold currency as well as England? The majority of this House refused a silver currency to England, and the hon. Gentleman would force paper down the throats of the Irish! Knowing, as I do, how the Ministry can command venal majorities in this House, I did not go through the mockery of a motion upon the subject, but I adopted a more effectual course; and then I am met by the very learned member for Kilkenny with all his stage trick, scenic skill, and forensic management—for which latter quality he has of late gained so much celebrity, and all of which qualities are so often found useful in the absence of ability, talents, legal knowledge, and research; and he gravely tells me, that instead of writing letters in newspapers, I ought to bring forward a motion in this House. Sir, not being so good an actor as the very learned Gentleman, I do not choose to appear in a farce; I am not, unfortunately, frivolous and shallow enough to play a part in such mimickry. Nature did not cast me for the character of Justice Shallow. The very learned Gentleman has alluded to the distress in 1821. What, Sir, was the cause of that distress? Why, the insolvency of the country banks. This is the evil that I want to prevent a recurrence of; and by no other means will that end be attained so quickly, as by the discussion of this night. The country will naturally take alarm at the panic, which a Member enjoying the confidence of his Majesty's Government is in, and it will see that the precautionary measures which have been resorted to in Waterford, were suggested by well-grounded apprehension. If the branch bank shave substance, they can suffer no injury from the run upon them for payment of their notes; and if they are insolvent, the sooner the bubble bursts the better. My letter was addressed to a Gentleman upon a local subject: the discussion of this night will make the opinion it contained current throughout the entire island. So that if the measure I have recommended be bad—and I am quite sure it is not—the hon. and learned Gentleman will have to answer to his employers for making it universal. But, Sir, I am accused of writing letters, and in the same breath it is stated by an officer of the Crown, that an Act, the most infamous and despotic that a government was empowered to wield—an Act at war with every notion of constitutional liberty, and fit only for the climate of Algiers; an Act which enables the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, by his mere fiat to put to rout any meeting called for any purpose, or in any place, by a Lord Mayor, or Sheriffs, or Magistrates, or by the people themselves, still stains the Statute-book. Would such an Act be submitted to by the people of England as was tamely borne in Ireland? How, I ask, are the people to be informed of what affects their interests, unless through the medium of the Press? The Press is now the only route of communication to the public; and that route I have entered into; I will continue in it; and, despite of the very learned Member's taunts I will go forward in the same course. If in my communications to the Irish Press—ever faithful and independent—I shall write any thing that is improper, I am sure the very learned Solicitor General for Ireland will feel no repugnance at framing an ex-officio. Sir, I have opposed the oligarchy and the Ministry, because I consider both to be enemies to the welfare of the empire, and of course I could not have been silly enough to expect the cheers of either. I ever did, and ever shall oppose the intrigues of every party in this House. I care not for names—Whigs and Tories I equally contemn if they do wrong. I sit here as an independent Member of an independent county, to do the work of the people and to oppose the oppression of Ministers and of the aristocracy. The influence of the one I ever have, and ever shall despise—the frowns of the other I court, as the best reward of my labours and exertions for the people. But, Sir, I cannot restrain the expression of my indignation, when I see needy professional adventurers, empty jesters, silk-robed harlequins, without talent, without professional capacity or knowledge, known only as the parasites of the Minister and the panderers to power, devoid of every qualification for office, except adulation, subserviency, and tergiversation, ranters in the Senate-house, but briefless in the Court—I cannot, I say, Sir, restrain my indignation, when I see such characters as I have described, rising from nothingness and penury, to station and wealth; filling judicial situations, and if not wearing the ermine, at least aspiring to that elevation, whilst their superiors in intellect, in worth, in integrity, and information, are kept in the back-ground, because they are too sincere to conform, and too independent to fawn. I again, Sir, disclaim any intention of apologizing or explaining to this House. In this House I have been and will continue to be decorous, and out of it I will do every thing that, in my opinion, may serve Ireland.

lamented the course which the hon. member for Clare had thought proper to adopt—a course which he (Lord Howick) should be disposed to consider wantonly mischievous if he did not think that the hon. Member was ignorant of the nature and extent of that injury. Nothing could be more injurious to the country than the recommendation of the hon. and learned Member to the people to demand gold; because it was well known that no precaution, no wealth, could secure a bank from stoppage if there were a general demand for gold.

expressed a hope that the hon. member for Dover would not move for the printing of the petition, as it was calculated, if it went forth to the world, to revive old subjects, and awaken old prejudices, which it must be the wish of every man of sound understanding and good feeling to see buried in oblivion. No one could deny the fact, that the failure of the banks in Ireland had produced the greatest misery throughout the country. But the House, he thought, went too far when it accused the hon. member for Clare of conduct out of that House. For his own part he knew that great inconvenience had been felt by the omission of the Government to give silk-gowns to Catholic barristers, and he lamented, as he was sure the House must do in general, that any course should be pursued which had a tendency to produce attacks, of which they must be tired, especially as the great measure had been carried which rendered them worse than useless.

The Petition to lie on the Table.

said, that the accidental circumstance of several Gentlemen in succession having spoken on the same side of the question, had induced the hon. Member opposite (Mr. R. Grant) to forego the right of addressing the House first, with a view of giving something like variety to a debate which had already been denominated (and probably with too much truth) "tedious." He felt very fully the disadvantage of being followed, instead of preceded, by the hon. and learned Member, being quite aware of the power which he was able to bring to bear upon this and every other subject of discussion. He was, however, though inferior in other important particulars to his hon. and learned friend, resolved to imitate his usual tone of moderation, which so entirely befitted the present occasion, on which a question of great importance in itself, and in relation to other subjects, was under consideration. He observed, that the opponents to the measure (as they chose to consider it—he would venture to say measures) were by no means agreed in the ground of their opposition. His hon. friend the member for Plympton (Sir Charles Wetherell) had objected entirely, in whatever view the question was considered. The hon. member for Kircudbright (Mr. Fer- guson) did not leave the House to discover, from the tenor of his observations, that he differed from the hon. member for Plympton, but, very early in his speech, informed them that he did so, and expressly founded his opposition upon the arithmetic of the case, and upon the reduction of the amount of business in the Courts of Equity within a certain recent (and, it must be observed, very limited) period of time. He (the hon. member for Kircud bright) professed that the Lord Chancellor had brought forward the measure with the purest motives, and, most certainly, it would appear, when that part of the subject came to be examined, that the Lord Chancellor could acquire no additional leisure for himself, but directly the reverse. If, therefore, it should appear that the reduction of business was upon too small a scale, and during too short a time, when compared with the long-continued and great increase for a series of years, which was undeniable, and further, if that reduction was, to a certain extent, accidental and open to explanation, the opposition of the hon. member for Kircudbright should be converted into support. His hon. friend, the member for Rippon (Mr. Spence) also, was qualified in his opposition. He did not hesitate to declare, that he was in favour of a fourth Judge, provided the scheme of amendment had begun in the proper place. His hostility depended entirely upon the alleged neglect to provide, in any degree, for the improvement of the Masters and Registrars'Offices. Upon this circumstance his hostility to the Bill, or Bills, depended; as, indeed, his whole argument had proceeded upon the assumption, that neither the principal measure, nor the accompanying ones, had any tendency to produce any reform in those offices. He, (Mr. Williams) however, should endeavour to show, that in all those measures there was such an operation, which his hon. friend the member for Rippon had overlooked, or rather the converse of which he had assumed. He observed that all the Gentlemen who were adverse to the measures, had, without exception, treated the subject as if it had been volunteered, and gratuitously, if not causelessly, obtruded upon the House; as if the subject of the Court of Chancery were new; as if there had been no complaints upon that subject, no motions, year after year (by his hon. friend the member for Durham, who was the great and veteran champion in the cause) for upwards of twenty years last past; no committee in 1811; no motion for inquiry in 1824, and no commission issued in consequence. Such, however, every Gentleman, upon the slightest recollection, must be aware was the fact. Of that Chancery Commission, having alluded to it, he (Mr. Williams) would say, in passing, that it had not fared quite so well as some others of a subsequent date. Those latter ones had been well praised, and well paid. The Chancery Commissioners, on the contrary, had fared but abstemiously as to the higher and more refined food of praise; but, as to the coarser and more vulgar aliment of profit, they had absolutely been starved altogether. Yet it was only common justice to add, that many individuals of that commission had, with great labour, and considerable loss, devoted themselves to the execution of what had been deemed their useful (though he had always thought it to be, and did still, too restricted and limited) task. About eighty orders had been framed upon their suggestions and observations, and, what was more to the present purpose, though it had been wholly overlooked, two of the measures, now before the House originated from them likewise. With respect to the third, the appointment of a fourth judge, he was quite aware that the Report of the Commissioners contained nothing. It had, however, always been considered, by those who thought favourably of that commission, that one principal recommendation was their reporting the opinions of others, in the shape of evidence, as well as their own. And accordingly, in this particular, the Report afforded some powerful arguments. Mr. Bell, whose opinions, from a recent pamphlet, had been quoted, was, as every body was aware, fully examined. That learned gentleman, not content with the deliberate and advised answers which he gave during examination, but desirous more fully to explain himself, drew up a paper which, in his humble judgment, was, both in composition and argument, every way superior to the modern pamphlet, and in that paper his opinion was, that the present judicial establishment was insufficient. That pamphlet is stated, and appears to be hasty, and one of the best parts of it is the promise of a fuller and more deliberate view of the subject. A learned friend of his, for whom he had long entertained the highest esteem and regard—he meant Mr. Heald—had originally expressed his opinion to be, that two Judges, with the Chancellor were sufficient. Upon deliberation, however, his friend, when he again appeared before the commissionerswished to retract, to a certain extent or, at least, vary his former evidence in this particular. The opinion of the present Vice-chancellor was perfectly well known, not merely from the energy and vivacity with which it was expressed, but also from the accidental circumstance of its having been conveyed in a metaphor upon oath, a figure of speech which, so far as he knew, was left untouched by Longinus, Dionysius, Quintilian, and all other reverend authorities in the courts critical. He, however, would place no reliance upon that passage, which his hon. friend, the member for Plympton, denounced as a nisi prius trick, unless it had been followed up by a plain, direct, intelligible, and unmetaphorical answer to the same effect. The Commissioners asked, "Then you are of opinion that the present number of Judges is insufficient for the despatch of business with due expedition." Answer of Mr. Shadwell.—"Indeed I am." So is the Report. But the gentleman whose testimony was the fullest upon the point, and, indeed, much fuller than that of all others, was his friend Mr. Bickersteth. Whether the Commissioners happened at that moment to be particularly inquisitive, which upon this point they generally had not been, or that his friend Mr. B. had been more unlocked and unreserved than any other witness, he could not say, but certain it was, that his communications were so full and ample upon the subject, and the reasons so fully detailed, that he should hardly consider any Gentleman as having given himself a fair chance of forming a just opinion who had not attentively read the whole of the testimony to which he was then alluding. It would be observed, that he confined his remarks to what was printed. As to the present opinions of more than one eminent person, the House must have seen that there were various representations. The reporters differed. As to the effect of these opinions, he did not mean to say that they could be con sidered as binding upon those who were competent to form better, but when authorities were quoted the other way, and particularly the pamphlet to which allusion had been made, it did seem singular to attach no weight to the information obtained under that inquiry, and that too given under the solemnity of an oath. He perceived with regret that no hon. Member who had preceded him had held out a hope that the quantity of business in the Court of Chancery was on the decline. No such good was announced to the country, at present or in prospect. On the contrary, all the documents, returns, and opinions, unfortunately tended to show a great and rapid increase. This subject had been so often before the House, and admitted of so little doubt or question, that it would be inexcusable to enlarge upon it. He would briefly relate some leading particulars. In 1823 the late Lord Gifford stated (doubtless from information) that in the year 1810, 1,700 bills had been filed, and in 1823, 2,400! Comparing the period between 1790 and 1800 with that from 1810 to 1822, the number of Commissions of Bankrupt sued out had actually been doubled. At the time of the report of the Committee in 1811, there were 114 causes standing before the Lord Chancellor. At the last return (viz. up to the first day of Trinity Term last) the amount was tripled. In the middle of the last century, he believed the sum standing in the name of the Accountant general of the Court of Chancery was under two millions; it had been lately stated in that House to be now about forty millions. But it was unnecessary to go further. The result was undeniable. With fluctuations and variations such as might be expected, the increase was, in the main, uniform. That those fluctuations might occur occasionally, and yet lead to no certain conclusion as to a permanent result, was apparent from this,—that he had been informed, from authority he could not question, that the Master of the Rolls, in the sittings after Hilary Term, 1828, had actually cleared his paper altogether; and there were then upwards of 300 "matters and things," as he, (Mr. Williams) believed the phrase in thoseCourts to be, standing at the Rolls to be disposed of; obviously an accident. The adverse argument overlooked the numbers that would be suitors, if time and expense were diminished, and hearing and decision more prompt. How many persons, if possessed only of moderate prudence, abstained from seeking redress rather than plunge themselves into the sea of difficulties and anxieties which they heard in all quarters beset those who fancied that they were seeking relief? It could not be doubted that the quantity of business would increase with the facilities of despatching it. This was so natural and reasonable that it seemed hardly to stand in need of any confirmation. It did so happen, however, that the fact in this case coincided with the speculation. Those Gentlemen who would take the trouble of referring to the returns, would find the increase that obtained when the Vice-chancellor came into full operation. His occupation at first had, of course, been in reducing arrears, and it was not until after some time that a judgment could be formed. He had then before him a statement of the quantity of business in the years 1814, 1815, 1816, and the years 1827, 1828, and 1829 respectively,—during the former period the arrears having been in a course of reduction. As between the two periods (without troubling the House with each item, which he, nevertheless, had before him), the increase in the latter had been verynearly a third. And more recently still, the Vice-chancellor, having sat during sixteen holidays since Christmas last, had cleared off all the bankrupt petitions, and within a fortnight of the time he was addressing the House, sixty-two bankrupt petitions had been set down. As the work was done more sprung up. Those who founded their arguments upon the reduction of the business, spoke also with praise of the great exertion by which it had been done. His hon. friend, Mr. Ferguson, had more than once noticed and praised the "extraordinary efforts," by which the Judges had been able to bring down the amount. He could not, of course, be so unreasonable and perverse as to deny its appropriate praise to industry and labour; but he must at the same time observe, that this very exertion, so much commended, bespoke pressure, and he doubted exceedingly whether it could be desirable in any point of view, even that of expense, to have the judicial power of the country upon such a scale as to be compelled to strike off business at a heat. Two hasty and inconsiderate decrees might well be supposed to be accompanied with costs equal to the annual salary of a Judge. He was not so sanguine as to suppose that he could in that House, or elsewhere, create any sensibility about the fate or condition of lawyers, knowing well that no emotion would be felt if they were tossed in a string into the Red Sea; otherwise, he should question the policy, whilst the profession retained the name of liberal, of converting them into mere drudges. It was also of some public concern (and that, he was aware, was the only point on which he had any right to claim any attention), that there should be men of some acquirements, if not out of the profession, at least in it, which could not be if it was all work and no reflection. In a word, in his opinion, the judicial power ought to be rather above than below the actual demand of the country. He had observed that his hon. friend opposite (Mr. Spence) had overlooked all tendency in the present Bills, or any of them, to alleviate, in any degree, the mischiefs in the Masters' and Registrar's Offices. The great expense incurred by the length of the decree, and by the copy-money in the Masters' Office, he had often noticed, giving instances of it, and he saw nothing but what tended to confirm his opinion. He then held in his hand a pamphlet, said to have been written by a solicitor, Mr. Taylor he believed; but, by whomsoever written, he would say that it was justly entitled to great consideration for the useful and practical hints which it contained. [The hon. Member then read from that pamphlet extracts of considerable length, proving, by instances, the actual expense to the suitor from taking copies, and the endless repetition of it,—in one case a payment having been made for the fifth time.] He had also very recently been informed by a solicitor, upon whom he could depend, that the taxation of the bill, in the memorable Portsmouth cause, had actually cost more than 700l., and that 400l. had been paid for copy-money, and that too for what was not wanted, for the taxation might well have been performed from the original bill itself. He must beg pardon of his hon. friend, the Solicitor General, and the member for Rippon (Mr. Spence) but his ignorant aversion to the Court of Chancery, as administered, remained unimpaired. He, however, was far from agreeing with the latter that these measures had no tendency to afford any remedy, for that, in his judgment, they all had. And first, as to the principal measure, the appointment of a fourth Judge. Formerly, before the pressure increased, and "extraordinary efforts" became necessary, the decrees and orders were settled in Court, leaving nothing doubtful or uncertain. Then the labour of the Registrar was rather that of an amanuensis than a draftsman, every thing being done to his hand. Now, much subsequent difficulty had sprung up; nobody knew what, or how much, precisely, had been decided; disputes arose, amounting nearly to something more than wordy warfare, in the presence of the Registrar himself (at least so it appeared from the evidence of Mr. Jackson) as to mere matter of fact increasing trouble and expenditure of time. In the Master's Office, also, the more precise the decree, the more easy of course was his duty. The want of precision, and of sufficient comprehensiveness and distinctness led to evils of no small magnitude. If the report was imperfect for want of sufficient precision, it might, when the whole cause came to be reviewed upon "further directions," be impossible to carry it into effect, and then it was not for him to say what waste to the suitors might be occasioned. If the report was made upon an erroneous principle, "exceptions" to that report brought under review and reconsideration at last, what ought, with more deliberation, to have been settled at first,—that is, the true scope and bearing of the case. Whether, as is the state of things now, when the Judges were compelled to run a race against time, the mischiefs pointed out must not often happen, he must leave to any Gentleman's own reflection to determine, as, also whether more command over the business, by additional help, must not have a direct tendency to relief. With respect to the two accompanying measures, he was surprised that his hon. friend (Mr. Spence) should have overlooked them altogether, seeing that nothing could be more likely to abridge orders and decrees, and strip them of superfluous and costly redundancy, and to take away the mischief of copy-money, than the making it no longer the interest, in the one case and in the other, that surplusage and copy-money should be continued. In each of these Bills there was a provision to withdraw the fees from their present destination, and apply them to another fund, over which the persons deriving benefit now from the grievances complained of would no longer have any control, and who would, therefore, cease to have any motive for perpetuating them. He should here take leave to notice a supposed correction of his hon. friend, the member for Wootton Bassett, (Mr. Twiss) as to the average time of cases standing in the paper of the Master of the Rolls and the Vice-chancellor, particularly the latter. The correction was, indeed, of a very fringy and limited nature, inasmuch as it respected a very small portion of the whole mass of business, namely, "exceptions and further directions," and would not have been noticed at all if it had not been received with so much acclamation. When his hon. friend had stated that the average run of cases before the Vice-chancellor were six terms old, and before the Master of the Rolls, four (if he mistook not), his hon. friend opposite (Mr. Spence) threw a doubt upon its accuracy by stating, that (in the instance of the former) the head of "exceptions and further directions" was reduced to nothing, or next to it; and so they were; but then, by a recent order of the Vice-chancellor, they had been transferred from the particular into his general paper, and were accordingly found in that paper which he then held in his hand, after upwards of 260 cases, which must, in due course, be disposed of before them. He would then appeal to his hon. friend opposite (Mr. Spence) and begged to ask whether he was not aware that all improvements were, very usually, assailed in quarters perhaps unforeseen and unknown, with numerous difficulties and impediments;—whether the wish to amend and reform, in whatever quarter entertained, and however sincerely, was not, in practice, very different from accomplishment? whether, from that very circumstance, there was not a necessity to qualify and compromise, or abandon all chance whatsoever? and whether his hon. friend, as a real legal reformer, (which he cheerfully gave him credit for being) ought, consistently with that view and object, to be so nice and exceptious as to the precise point at which the improvement began, and the extent to which it was at once carried; or rather, whether he should not, if there were a progress at all, suspend his objection, from an apprehension that, if every zealous friend to improvement should oppose because he did not wholly approve, a final stop should be put to all improvement, and friends and enemies be mingled confusedly together. Such at least was his apprehension, and which would certainly be far from alleviated if he found the opposition of his hon. friend continued. With respect to the reduction, upon which such reliance had been placed, he had before observed that there had been, in other instances, fluctuations, and that they might be expected. It seemed probable that the quantity of business growing up would be much the same; but that the rate at which the whole amount to be disposed of, or, as it was generally termed, "arrears" are got rid of, must, obviously, vary very much. It was plain that there could be no comparison between the periods comprised in the three months, beginning with August and ending with October, and in the three months reckoned from the 1st of February. And accordingly it would be found, upon reference to the Returns, that in the years 1827, 1828, 1829, and 1830 respectively, in three cases out of four, the whole amount was less on the first day of Easter than on the first day of Hilary Term. It was to be observed also, that, according to the latest Return, there was some increase in the whole quantity of business, though he candidly admitted, not enough to place any great reliance upon. His hon. friend (Mr. Ferguson) had entered pretty much at large into the composition of many of the Appeal Courts in this country. The constitution of the highest Court of Appeal, the House of Lords, and the coarse and clumsy fiction by which all the Peers were supposed competent to sit in judgment (as the last resort too) upon the decisions of other Courts, composed, really, of lawyers, had not failed to attract, for a long time, much observation and remark. Supposing, however, his hon. friend's suggestions upon this subject entitled to due consideration (and he was far from saying that they were not) they did not appear to have any particular application to the present subject, but so far as they had, they seemed to furnish an argument in favour of the principal measure, because, so far as the Court of Chancery was concerned, the formation of an Appellate Court, consisting of the Lord Chancellor and the two other Judges, to review the decisions of the third, according to the scheme opened by the Solicitor General, did seem a very considerable improvement. His hon. friend (Sir Charles Wetherell) amongst his many other objections, had enlarged, with much variety, upon the disastrous effects, as to the Chancellor, which were likely to result if the measure should be carried.—That the head of the Court of Chancery would inevitably perish, as a lawyer, by the very assistance which it was intended he should receive; that his being confined to the duties of an Appellate Judge would limit his experience and confine his knowledge, and that, henceforth, farewell to all recommendations in the choice of a Chancellor from professional attainments; for political sagacity, and adroitness and power in debate, would be the desired objects in the choice. Giving his hon. friend full credit for the powers of illustration with which he enforced this topic, he must take leave to suggest that the objection came too late. The mischief was done, and the evil incurred. Those distinguished persons who had opposed the Vice-chancellor's Bill—Sir Samuel Romilly, Mr. Canning, the hon. member for Dorsetshire, (Mr. Bankes) and the present Master of the Rolls—took that very ground, whilst yet they were in time. The former had said that the scheme was one to give the Lord Chancellor holidays, and the suitors appeals; and the prediction was speedily verified, for very soon the item "Cause" disappeared from the Chancellor's paper of business. He therefore was, and long had been, an Appellate Judge, and nothing could make him more so. He was ready spoiled to their hands, and might, according to his hon. friend's argument, be considered as incurable. To him, therefore, it did seem, that the only effect upon the Lord Chancellor must be to diminish his leisure and add to his occupation, by adding to the number of appeals. He was far from venturing to cast any censure when Gentlemen who might be sanguine enough to expect immediate benefit from any measure, of whatever description. He would, however, appeal to all those who had attempted to carry, unaided, any scheme of improvement, whether the difficulties to be encountered did not lead to a conclusion that it was advisable to lend a hand to whatever was going on, provided it were only in advance, though not entirely satisfactory. The present measures ought not to be viewed separately, but in conjunction with others which had been announced in what had been called by the hon. member for Clare, the "seductive" speech of the right hon. Secretary, at the commencement of the Session. There was ground, then, for hope. Time was, indeed, when the most sanguine might well have despaired, and that was (and within his short recollection of Parliament) when any statement of grievance, however true, public, and notorious, was met by flat contradiction and peremptory denial. Admission went a good way: the principle became recognized. His hon. friend (Mr. Spence), in his great and deserved, but perhaps somewhat too exclusive, aversion to the Masters' Offices, had not hesitated to declare, that if the Solicitor General would only cleanse those Augean stables, he would class him amongst "the highest benefactors of mankind"—language by which had been designated the heroes and demigods of fabulous antiquity.

"Hâc arte Pollux et vagus Hercules

Innixus arces attigit igneas."

For his part, he should not grudge the Solicitor General his immortality upon the proposed terms. A no small share of his own worship must, however, be reserved for him who should abridge the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery, however obtained, by concession or by assumption; who should rid the country of the double jurisdiction of Law and Equity, not (as had been arbitrarily assumed) harmoniously combining, but thwarting and traversing each other in many instances; who should bring back to the Courts of Common-law some of their abandoned or lost jurisdiction—a jurisdiction (as the pamphlet which he had before commended had shewn) more cheaply and expeditiously exercised than the/jurisdiction by which it had been superseded. For which reason he heard with great delight, in conformity to an old prepossession of his, the right hon. Baronet advert "To the expediency of investing the superior Courts with new powers of a summary and equitable kind, calculated to economise time and money in legal proceedings, and to prevent the too frequent resort to the aid of Courts of Equity,"—a purpose to which he would at all times be ready to give his most zealous though subordinate assistance. The Court of Chancery, as now administered,—with its bill, a thrice told story—its answer, a recipe for making a party state what was not the truth, with all the guilt, but without the responsibility of perjury—its commissions of endless variety, duration, and expense—its cumbrous scheme of depositions, with those appurtenances of offices to which so much allusion had been made, was a fit arena for a contest of giants in fortune. The Duke of Bedford and Lord Fitzwilliam, Mr. Baring and Mr. Rothschild, if they had a dispute, might (or rather some of their posterity might) obtain a decision at an expense befitting them, according to the most perfect scheme of absolute wisdom. But for the 500l. disputants the Court was not open, except as the London Tavern was open, according to the taunt and sarcasm of Home Tooke. That the work of reformation was seriously begun, he firmly believed. How far it was practicable, by any compendious method, to abridge the quantity of litigation, he would not undertake to say. Whatever thanks (and he thought they were great) were due to Mr. Humphreys for introducing into public discussion and notice a plan of such a comprehensive nature, which was calculated to remove so many grounds of expensive controversy, it would be presumptuous in him when he knew what authorities were against the practicability of that scheme, to express an opinion in its favour; he would venture merely to give utterance to a hope that it might hereafter be looked upon in a more favourable point of view. He felt that it would be an attempt at gross deception and imposture, to pretend that these measures would effect all that was to be wished: he considered them as a part of a system. He believed them to be beneficial in themselves; and they were still further recommended for adoption to the House, by being accompanied with a promise of other similar measures. They were a practical recognition that improvement was necessary, and a pledge for its future progress, and from a fear of arresting that, he should certainly support the measures and vote against the Motion.

said, that notwithstanding all he could do, by a most violent effort of mind, to keep alive a conviction, that the hon. and learned Member was in favour of the Bill, yet, through the greater part of the hon. and learned Gentleman's speech was he well persuaded that he was arguing against the side which he professed to advocate: for all that the hon. and learned Gentleman had urged respecting the terrible delay and defective system of the Chancery Court only proved the necessity of inquiry and deliberate consideration, not of erecting a new Court upon the principles of the old one, to ensure further delay. The hon. and learned Gentleman had talked of the march of the proceedings proposed by his Majesty's Government, towards legal reform; but in his eyes they were no march at all; they were merely a contemptible turning round without making any advance. The measures proposed were not, in his opinion, suitable either to the wants of the country or of the suitors of the Court of Chancery; nor were they such as were demanded from the faithful followers of the recommendation contained in the Speech from the Throne. He felt that he had at best only a superficial knowledge on this subject; and when he declared himself opposed to any measure supported by his very learned and much respected friend, the Solicitor General, it gave him considerable pain. He knew that a legal reform was a very arduous thing; and he also knew that it would, on the contrary, be a matter of extreme facility if it could be effected by the means which were proposed; and the difficulties would indeed be slight if they could be at once removed by the precipitate and ill-advised legislation to which the House was then called upon to assent. He would not, however, dwell upon this subject, for the proposition of the hon. member for Plympton sufficiently explained his view of the measure; and it might be, perhaps, enough for him to say, that it had his cordial support. That hon. and learned Member did not say that he would not, under any condition, assent to an increase in the number of Judges; but he contended that this addition should be the result of mature deliberation, not the prelude to legal reform. The hon. and learned Member sought for delay, but not for indefinite delay. He entirely concurred with him; and his view of the measure was precisely this. The arguments urged in favour of this change were the positive necessity arising from an accumulation of business in the Court, for which there were no means of providing. Now this, he conceived, was attempted to be set up without the semblance of a cause. The hon. Gentleman who had advocated this additional appointment travelled back two centuries in the history of the Court, and alluding to all the Lord Chancellors, from my Lord Bacon to my Lord Lyndhurst, declared that this new Judge would have been a specific for the evils which had existed. Now really he could not see the benefit of wandering in this juridical circle. The advantage of this ramble through antiquity he was entirely at a loss to understand. A light, it appeared, had at length broken in upon his Majesty's Government: but why had it not broken in two years before, when the hon. member for Durham introduced his motion, and supported it by arguments as cogent as any he had since heard advanced upon the subject? He did not want to hear the history of our legislation respecting the Court of Chancery for the last two centuries, but merely for the last two years. Why did not Ministers then at once accede to those alleviations two years ago, when the delays in this Court were made a subject of debate, and when the delay between the setting down of a cause and its being brought to trial, which was now strongly insisted upon, was insisted upon by the hon. members for Durham and Wootton Basset, in an equally forcible manner? The hon. member for Wootton Basset declared that he was consistent; but in making his own vindication he pronounced a bitter satire upon his colleagues in office. The hon. Member opposite (Mr. Williams) had, in contending that further inquiry was unnecessary, asked, had they forgotten the labours of the Commission of 1811? Certainly not; but it as simply a Commission to inquire into the Judges' fees and emoluments. Again, the Commission of 1825, to which he had also alluded, had, in fact, no reference to the subject before them. The hon. and learned Member had touched upon his long absence from those walls, and seemed to contend that his labours in the cause of legal reform were forgotten by the House, while he spoke that night as if he had forgotten them himself; but he could assure the hon. Member that his labours were not forgotten—they were of too high a character not to establish a permanent memory of him in that assemblage. He might say to him (he dared not quote the original, though he might venture on the translation)—

"Thou sleep'st, Achilles—sound thy sleep may be;

But ne'er can we forget thy deeds or thee."

And surely he himself could not forget his own pungent satire upon the 190,000 propositions of their Commissioners in 1825, which he declared he had never received, although he now taunted hon. Members with not bearing them in recollection. Then, as to the evidence of the witnesses, on which the hon. and learned Member so much insisted. It was true that Mr. Bickersteth had recommended some of the measures which it was proposed to adopt; but had he not made many other important suggestions which were negatived? Had he not recommended the separation of the jurisdiction in bankruptcies and other causes from the Court of Chancery? Undoubtedly he had; and, consequently, they were nowpresented with a fragment of the remedies he proposed for the existing evils. The hon. member for Plympton did not declare that no reform was necessary; he merely contended that they should not set about making alterations, till inquiries had been instituted; and that, in carrying into execution what might be recommended after inquiry, they should not pause a moment. Next, as to the evidence of Mr. Bell, and the Vice-chancellor, and others, upon which the hon. and learned Member had enlarged, it was but fair to consider that every one of them had since retracted their opinions; and were they to abide by their first or their last declarations?—by the one, which might be considered the result of a crude impression, or by the other, which might be regarded as the decision of their matured judgment? For himself he did not deem it quite fair, when men had retracted an opinion, to endeavour still to affix it to them. Were they to determine the question of the necessity of this new Judge upon evidence? If so, were they to take the evidence of the Vice-chancellor, who had expressed an opinion opposed to it? Were they to adopt that of Mr. Bell, who had likewise opposed the appointment—or were they to take the opinion of the Chancery Commissioners, who had expressed no opinion at all? Was he to forget the sentiments that had been expressed on this subject by some who were now high in authority in his Majesty's Government? Was he to forget the opinion of the Solicitor General?—to be sure it might be said that the opinion of that hon. and learned Gentleman had since been changed, but there was possibly a balance of altered opinions upon this subject. Two years ago the hon. and learned Gentleman had said that there was no necessity for an increase of the number of Judges. It was impossible to know what had since ocurred to alter the state of things, and create a necessity, the existence of which at that time had been positively denied. Was he not to take the opinion of the Attorney General, expressed on the same occasion, who stated then, that which might be taken as a text upon this subject, namely, that "he would not contend that the Court of Chancery did not require improvement, but that that improvement was not to be effected by an increase of the number of the Judges in that Court, but by an alteration in the forms of its procedure?" The fact was, too, that in a very high quarter the same opinion had once been entertained—and yet, in twelve months after that opinion had been expressed, this very measure had been concocted in the other House of Parliament. He asked what had happened within the last year to make this measure, which had once before been proposed, and dropped, and which was now again proposed, he knew not why;—he asked what had happened to make it at present so irresistibly necessary? They were told at the same moment at which the eminent person who had chalked out this measure first brought it forward, that, not content with a legislative alteration, he had proposed an alteration in the practical forms of the Court; he had addressed himself to the Master of the Rolls, with a view to change the hours during which the business of that Court was transacted. That alteration was a measure more important than the Members of the House who were not lawyers would imagine, for it created two distinct Bars, and the prospect of a new Judge was at once dropped. The _ proposition of that eminent person came before the House indeed, but having once made its appearance, it died, and was heard of no more. Not so with the suggestion to the Master of the Rolls. That able and excellent Judge, with a promptitude, and (considering his state of health) with a degree of fortitude that did him honour, at once adopted the proposal, and changed the hours of his sitting. The arrear of causes vanished before him, and the success of that auxiliary measure was at once complete. The Vice-chancellor also had adopted a measure that rendered the increase of the number of Equity Judges quite unnecessary. He had sat in vacation to hear bankrupt petitions, and that branch of business, previously so much in arrear, was in a short time considerably reduced. But then it was said that these were cases of extraordinary exertion, and that the House would not and could not think of quoting as rules and examples those great exertions, which must be considered as exceptions, and that these preposterous sittings must not always be expected. His answer was, that these extraordinary exertions would not only not be expected, but would not be required in future, for the same arrear of causes would not again exist. On this subject he would quote a very high authority, who had thus expressed himself—"My proposition is this, that when you have subdued the present extraordinary arrear by extraordinary exertions, you may proceed in the ordinary course, and that a new Judge is not necessary to effect that object." If he might quote the same high authority, when declaring his opinion in another place, only two months before, it fully confirmed his view; the highest legal authority then declared "that if the arrears were once got rid of, he believed they might be kept down by the present strength of the Court of Chancery."^* In his opinion, the measure now proposed not only would not reduce the difficulties under which the suitor laboured, but would rather augment them; an opinion which was supported by that of the hon. and learned member for Rippon. If the fact stated by that hon. Member was true, namely, that the body of the measure now before the House would not touch the evils of the Master's Office, and of the Registrar's Office, it was not only not good for anything, but was in itself an evil of no inconsiderable magnitude, since all that it would do would be to plunge the unfortunate suitor eighteen months earlier into those offices, where the justice of his claims would be suffocated in delay. He could not avoid, at this period of the discussion, bearing his ready and willing testimony to the totally different character of the reforms introduced into the law by the right hon. Secretary for the Home Department; and he certainly should be surprised if that right hon. Gentleman gave his cordial support to a measure which undoubtedly would not diminish, but might possibly increase, the evils now felt in the progress of a suit in Chancery. It seemed that the hon. and learned member for Rippon had made a slight mistake in asserting that only-four cases had been set down for further directions, since the number really amounted to sixteen; but though the statement of the number was erroneous, he believed it would be found that there was an equally important error committed by those on the other side, who had asserted that these cases for further directions had been in the paper for six terms. If he was rightly informed, they had only been in the paper one term.

^* Parl. Debates, Vol. xxiii. Sess. 1830, p. 683.

said, that they would be in the paper six terms before they were heard.

observed, that he must have had the gift of prophecy to be enabled to discover such a fact; and from the activity recently displayed in the Court of Chancery, he felt somewhat disposed to doubt the assertion of the hon. and learned Gentleman. The arrear of causes was, as he understood by the observations of the hon. and learned member for Plympton, 713, and they had been reduced to that number from 1061 at Hilary Term. He furtherunderstood, that even since the measure itself had been introduced, eighty-three more had disappeared; and he warned the Government, that if they did not hasten its adoption, the whole arrear would be swept away, and by the time the new Judge was appointed, there would not be a single cause left for them to try. To adopt the illustration of the hon. and learned Member for Plympton, he would be Vacua Rex solus in aulâ. He would ask the House how far they thought this remedy would meet the evils which existed, chiefly in the Masters' and Registrar's Offices? The expense to the suitor was terribly increased by the length of the recitals which the clerks in the Registrar's Office deemed necessary. The hon. and learned Gentleman who proposed the measure expected to remedy this abuse by giving these officers salaries instead of fees. But, unfortunately, the fees were still to be received, and the clerks were to account for them, and to carry them to a fund mentioned in the Bill. The clerks interest in these fees did not cease by giving them a salary; for the fees were to form a fund, out of which their superannuations were to be paid, and the amount of these superannuations was to depend on an order of the Chancellor, and, to a considerable degree, of course, on the extent of the fund. All the clerks, therefore, had a common interest that the Registrar's fund should be as large as possible. Another objection to the present measure was, that as the clerks, whose business was now stated to be beyond their means of performance of it, were to be limited in their labour to certain hours, and were no longer to receive fees to expedite the business that must pass through their hands, or to reward them for extra labour, the stimulus to such exertion would be taken away, and the delay in the Registrar's Office would be greater than ever. Upon this subject Mr. Bell had said, "The Registrar's bill appears to me wholly objectionable, for reasons, some of which I have stated before the Chancery Commissioners, and especially as I believe that the business of the office will never be regularly and properly done if the officers are to be paid by a salary." He had said that, not because payment by a salary was in itself objectionable, but because the forms of the office, and the small number of men employed in it, would render it impossible for them to do all the work required within the time allowed at present. The measure, therefore, appeared in this respect not likely to be efficient. The Master's Office was the source of most of the great evils that were now the subject of complaint. The statement of that able and excellent officer, Master Stephen, in his answers to the Commissioners of the Court of Chancery, was quite conclusive upon that subject. He stated, that from the time an order was made for a reference to the Master till he made his report, a great delay ensued, and a great expense was incurred, and he believed that the chief delay in the progress of a suit took place in the Master's Office. That view of the subject was fully confirmed by the speech of the present Lord Chancellor, then Sir John Copley, in 1827, who, on introducing a bill relating to this Court, observed, "I believe that the great secret of the delay in the proceedings in the Court of Chancery resolve themselves into the delay occurring in the course of the proceedings before the Master." Every one must feel that the expense of these proceedings was in itself a very considerable evil, but its effects were, if possible, a greater evil, for they produced a very considerable increase of delay, since a suitor was often obliged to pause in the midst of a suit for want of the means to carry it forward through the expensive process of the Master's Office. There was no remedy in this Bill against such an evil. The same observations that he had before made with respect to clerks in the Registrar's Office having an interest to increase the superannuation fund, applied with equal force to the clerks in the Master's Office; and of the latter, Master Stephen himself had said, "That while the office was constituted as at present, there was no sufficient stimulus to the clerks to drive on a cause." Master Stephen had once made the experiment of putting a case into the hands of one particular clerk in the Master's Office. It was the case of Simcox v. Bell, which was referred to the Master's Office in 1802. The Report was not made till 1822, and not till 1823 were the funds in Court divided among the claimants, who were 115 in number, and who received 360l. each. He would leave it to the House to appreciate the injustice and injury occasioned to the claimants in that case. The stimulus which Master Stephen represented as not existing in the Master's Office was certainly not provided by this Bill, and the evil of delay would remain as great as ever; and as he had before said, the only effect of this Bill would be, to send the unfortunate suitors eighteen months sooner into this office. In his opinion the reform of this Court ought to begin at the other end. The first proposition was that of the hon. and learned Member, and that was, that it was necessary to make the addition of one Judge to the Court of Chancery; but they had heard a second proposition, the effect of which would be to transfer a considerable portion of the Equity jurisdiction to the Courts of Common Law, or, in other words, to take away half the trade of the new Judge before his appointment. The transfer of business to the Court of Common Pleas, from the Courts of Equity, was one of which all Equity lawyers were disposed to underrate the value, but of which, he might say, the Common Lawyers thought very differently. Another point was the appeal business in the House of Lords which occupied the Chancellor a great deal too much. In support of this opinion he would beg leave to quote the opinion of the highest living authority, he meant the late Lord Chancellor (Eldon), who said, "that it was highly important that some arrangements should be made for restoring the Chancellor from the appeal business in the House of Lords to the original business in his own Court." The present Bill, however, utterly omitted such an alteration—it provided no means of getting rid of the appeals, but made provisions that would create double the number of those entered at present. As matters now stood, the Chancellor hardly exercised his authority enough in the original jurisdiction of his Court to teach him, if an Equity lawyer, the proper business of his Court; certainly not enough to teach the proper business of that Court to any lawyer, whatever might be his abilities and his learning, who might be selected from the practitioners in the Common Law Court to preside in the Court of Chancery. There was one other question on which he wished to make a few remarks, though he approached its discussion with reluctance. One question put to the Commissioners was, whether there was any portion of the ordinary jurisdiction of the Chancellor that could be properly separated from his Court? That was precisely the inquiry on which, with all respect for their talents and learning, he must say they had acquitted themselves least to the satisfaction of anybody. That question was, how far the Chancellor's present jurisdiction in bankruptcy could be separated from the Great Seal? The opinion he held on that subject was not one which he had hastily formed—he had arrived at it after due deliberation, and had hitherto abstained from expressing it only because he had hoped that the whole of this important subject would be properly treated in the conclusion of the Commissioners' Inquiry. At length, indeed, the subject had been mentioned, but the change had been avoided by the proposal of the present measure. There were arrangements within the reach of those who had the power of adopting them, by which four-fifths of the bankruptcy business might be removed, so as to prevent its interfering, as it now did, with the other business of the Court. He thought that the opinion of the Commissioners was capable of much improvement on this point; but he would not now enter into that discussion, though he wished not to be prejudiced by having passed it over at that moment. The great question was, what ought to be the subject and what the mode of appeal from the decision of the Commissioners to that of the Great Seal? At present an appeal was, in fact, a rehearing upon new evidence, and was decided, not upon an examination of witnesses, but by a confused and tumultuary battle of affidavits. Instead of clearing away the dross of the case, the present mode was to collect all the dross, and throw it in the way of an equitable decision. Instead of this practice, he thought that every thing that was now heard before the Chancellor ought to go, in the first instance, before the Commissioners, and should then be decided, if any appeal took place, upon the same evidence on which they had originally formed their opinion.—As the case at present stood, the Chancellor was only able to give thirty days to the hearing of appeals, while twenty-five days were devoted to bankruptcy cases; now if by any plan this latter number could be reduced to five, it would be equal to making him a present of twenty days; and he would then have fifty days for the hearing of appeals. This of itself appeared to him to be sufficient ground for one branch of inquiry. He agreed with the hon. Gentleman who had preceded him, that they ought not to take on themselves to ascribe motives for what was proposed; but this he must say—that a measure like the present formed a great and striking contrast to the reforms in the law that had been introduced by the right hon. baronet. With those reforms they might not, perhaps, all agree, but it was impossible not to see that the intentions on which they were founded were of the most laudable nature. He, therefore should be very glad if the right hon. Baronet would look into the whole question of Equity as well as of Law; and then he was persuaded that he should have his vote against the present measure as most inefficacious, for it did not pretend to meddle with that enormously increasing mass of business, which, till it was conquered by some feasible means, must leave them only on the threshold of any real reform of the Court of Chancery.

defended the conduct of the Masters in Chancery with respect to the mode in which business was transacted in their office, particularly with respect to copy-money and warrants; and with respect to the latter, observed, that if there was any fault, it rested with the Solicitors, for the Masters were always in their office by ten o'clock; at which hour, however, it frequently happened that the Solicitors did not choose to attend, but preferred allowing the day to slip by rather than inconvenience themselves.

said, that after the many years during which he had called the attention of the House to the important subject of the Court of Chancery, he should not have risen to address it upon the present occasion, had he not felt himself imperatively called upon to state the opinions which he entertained upon the Equity Bills now before the House. He had so often fought this battle alone, that be should have been glad to have left the task of fighting it upon this occasion to his able coadjutors; but the turn which the debate had taken compelled him to buckle on his armour afresh, and to re-appear in that field where he had already once and again broken a lance with his present opponents. Before he entered—and on the present occasion he did not intend to enter at large—on the existing condition of business in the Court of Chancery, he had wished to let other Gentlemen declare their opinions upon it, in order that the statement of the expensive delays to which it gave rise might not, as heretofore, rest upon his humble opinion alone. His hon. and learned friend on the other side of the House had risen to vindicate the conduct of the Masters of Chancery in their respective offices. With all deference to his hon. and learned friend, he must inform him, that his vindication of those learned personages was quite uncalled for. He had never heard any imputation cast upon their personal character: he had never heard any invidious remarks thrown out against their professional conduct: if he had, he should have risen in his place in Parliament to state that, from his own personal knowledge, there never were men in their situations of greater personal integrity and intelligence. He did not find fault with the Masters of the Court of Chancery, but with the system of their offices, which he considered to be a nuisance to the country. Look at the warrants which were taken out for attendance in their offices—look at the short time allowed for the discussion of the most intricate points before them. An hour elapses, and then, no matter how far the inquiry may have gone, or how important the matter may be with which it is connected, another case is called on. It was not, however, by the warrants issued, but by the office copies of proceedings in their offices that they made their emoluments; and it was to that part of the system that he most objected. He wished the office of Master in Chancery to be made as respectable as possible in the eyes of the public. He therefore was anxious to see the Masters sitting in an open Court, instead of a private room, and making their decisions known to the public at large, instead of delivering them only in the presence of the interested parties. Why, he would ask, were public functionaries, of their great judicial importance, to decide upon all cases in a pri- vate room? If that question could be discussed when this measure was regularly brought before the House, he would propose an Amendment, which should bring it fairly under consideration. He had not expected that he should that night have had occasion to enter into a discussion of the mode in which business was conducted in the Master's Office. The real question, in his opinion, regarding the Masters in Chancery, was simply this, ought they to be paid by salary, or by fees? He thought that they ought to be paid by salary; for if men of respectability could not be induced to perform their duty by a regard to their characters and situation, he was sure that they would not be induced to perform it by any dirty fees which might be thrown into their pockets. The present debate had occupied much of the time of the House, and had taken a very wide and desultory range. His hon. and learned friend, the Solicitor General, had gone into an historical detail of what had occurred two centuries ago, for the purpose of showing that even then two assistant Judges were deemed necessary for the proper transaction of business in the Court of Chancery. His hon. and learned friend seemed to think that such a measure of relief was necessary now, because it had been formerly proposed. But his hon. and learned friend seemed to have forgotten that though the proposition was made formerly, it was met by a negative, and that it had been reprobated as regularly as it had been brought forward during the two centuries through which he had travelled. The House had now, he said, once more a Bill before it for the appointment of an additional Judge in the Court of Chancery, without having before it a single reason for making any such appointment. His hon. and learned friend, the Solicitor General, in the course of his acute and able speech—and he gladly gave to that speech the credit which it merited—seemed to imply that it was quite a hardship to introduce into this Debate all the objections which had been made for thelast200years against theCourt of Chancery, and had more than insinuated that by pursuing such a course, hon. Members were derogating from the dignity of the High Court of Chancery. He (Mr. M. A. Taylor) denied that this was the case. Quite the reverse; it was the High Court of Chancery, which, by its system of expense and delay, was derogating from its own dignity. He knew that the subject which he was discussing was a dry subject—perhaps a painful one: certainly it was both a dry and a painful subject to him, for he had now been discussing it for more than one-and-twenty years; and he was not surprised that some Members betrayed symptoms of impatience. He contended, however, that during that time he had done nothing to detract from the respect due to the Court of Chancery; all that he had attempted was this—when he had seen a nuisance, he had thought it necessary that it should be abated. On what principle, he would ask, had the Court of Chancery, or those who presided over it, a right to complain of the objections which had been urged against it? He called upon the House to mark the whole tenor of the proceedings respecting it. For one-and-twenty years that Court had been complained of. What redress had been devised for such a grievance in that time? The House of Lords had brought in a bill, which had afterwards passed the House of Commons, appointing the Vice-chancellor as an additional Judge in the Court of Chancery. That bill was opposed by Mr. Canning and other Gentlemen of great talent and influence in Parliament, not on the ground that the Court of Chancery did not want assistance, but on account of the nature of the appointment of the new Judge. There was a division upon the bill in that House, and the division turned upon a motion which he made; not upon the question whether a Vice-chancellor should be appointed, but whether an additional Judge was not wanted in cases of bankruptcy. Sir Samuel Romilly agreed with him in the opinion, that such a Judge was wanted in bankruptcy; and so did Mr. Canning. Indeed, in no other mode had he ever recognized the necessity of giving an additional Judge to the Court of Chancery. In the various motions which he had made upon this subject, he had argued that there should be additional means given to that Court, by separating from it the business in bankruptcy, by appointing another Speaker for the House of Lords, and by appointing a commission to sit regularly, with the Lord Chancellor at the head of it, to hear all appeals to the House of Lords. The motion which he had submitted to the House in the year 1828, which the government of that day opposed, and which he lost only by some forty odd votes, was to this effect—"That it appears to this House, from the papers laid on the Table, as well as from the report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the practice of the High Court of Chancery, that notwithstanding the establishment of the office of Vice-chancellor in 1813, further steps are necessary to advance the general interest of suitors in Equity, to provide for the more prompt decision of cases, and to enable the Court of Chancery effectually to discharge the important duties connected with its jurisdiction." He had on that occasion proposed to make the Lord Chancellor a Judge of appeal in Equity and the occupant of the Woolsack in the House of Lords. He wished to make a real Court of Appeal from the High Court of Chancery. He had maintained that it was quite absurd and ridiculous to say that there was such a Court of Appeal now; he had said, "that it was an appeal from a Judge in a tie-wig in Lincoln's-inn-hall to the same Judge in a full-bottom wig in the House of Lords, with a snoring Bishop perhaps on one side, and a Scotch peer on the other, wishing him and the cause together at the devil." He should like to know on what principle this Bill stood now. In the year 1828, the pressure on the Court of Chancery was great. It was worth their while to consider whether it had increased since. Figures could not be disputed; and he would therefore refer to them rather than to any hypothetical argument of his own. It appeared from papers on the Table of the House, that on the first day of Hilary Term, 1830, there stood on the paper of the Lord Chancellor, of re-hearings and appeals, ninety-seven; before the Vice-chancellor, there stood of causes, 397; of pleas and demurrers, nine; of exceptions and further directions, 103. Before the Master of the Rolls there stood, of re-hearings, three; of exceptions and further directions, 111; and of causes, 351—making a total in the three Courts at the commencement of last Hilary Term of 1,071. On the first day of Easter, 1830, there stood on the paper of the Lord Chancellor, of re-hearings and appeals, not ninety-seven, but eighty-nine; before the Vice-chancellor, of causes, exceptions, and further directions, 336, and of pleas and demurrers, eleven; and before the Master of the Rolls, causes, exceptions, and further directions, 316; the whole amounting in the three Courts to 722; whereas on the first day of the preceding Hilary Term they amounted to 1,071: so that in the course of that one Term there was a decrease of no less than 349. On the first day of Trinity Term, 1830, there stood on the paper of the Lord Chancellor, of re-hearings and appeals, ninety-six; before the Vice-chancellor of causes, exceptions, and further directions, 362; and before the Master of the Rolls, 307; amounting in the whole to 765. So that there had been an increase of only forty in the last term. Since that time the Master of the Rolls had disposed of eighty cases. In 1828, there was an arrear of 258 cases in bankruptcy—at this time there was not an arrear of one. He should think that this was demonstration sufficient that the arrear of business was fast decreasing. What, then, would this fourth Judge, if he should be appointed, have to do? The Master of the Rolls was now an efficient Judge in the Court of Chancery—efficient, not only from his high character, great ability, vast erudition, and unvaried promptitude, but also from the great exertions which he had recently made. Though he was not called upon to sit in a morning, he had voluntarily imposed that duty upon himself; he had formed a third Court of Equity, and had left nothing undone which human ingenuity could execute. The Lord Chancellor had likewise got down the arrear of business in his Court. The Vice-chancellor had executed his duty to perfection. And he (Mr. M. A. Taylor) believed that if the Sitting of the Court lasted one month longer, there would be no arrears except in appealsbefore the Lordchancellor. If this fourth Judge were to be appointed for the purpose of relieving the Lord Chancellor from his duties in his own Courts, he must say that, even upon that ground, he should object to his appointment. He thought that it would be better to let the Lord Chancellor sit in his own court, and relieve him from his duties in the House of Lords, than to recur to this additional Judge. The hon. Member next proceeded to declare, that it was not so much of the delay as of the expense of the system of the Court of Chancery that he complained. His hon. and learned friend, the member for Rippon, had explained the expense of that Court from the filing of the bill to the taking out of the answer in the most lucid and striking manner, in the very admirable speech which he had recently delivered. Without dwelling further on the observations of his hon. and learned friend, he would only ask the House whether it was aware of the situation in which suitors of that Court were placed. If any man from invidious motives filed a bill against another, his first object would be to lengthen his bill to the utmost, for it could not be too generally known, that before the defendant's answer could be put in, the plantiff's bill must be taken off the file, which sometimes could not be done without incurring an expense of 60l. or 70l. Was that an evil or was it not? If it were an evil, was there any remedy for it in the bill on the Table? ["Hear" from the Solicitor General.] He hailed that cheer as an admission that this evil was remedied. If it were, he would take it as an omen that further amendments were in store for the country. Then again there was the system of interrogatories. Was that no evil? He would not however proceed further in pointing out evils which were as clear as the sun at noon-day. He would content himself for the present with calling upon the Government to inform him who were the supporters, and who were the opponents, of this measure. The House had been told that this Bill was necessary. If it were necessary, how came it to pass that all the principal men in the profession were opposed to it? Was Lord Eldon an inconsiderable personage? That individual who had himself presided for so many years in the Court of Chancery, who had expressed great anxiety for the appointment of a Vice-chancellor, had expressly stated in the House of Lords that this was a bill which ought not to pass, and which would be injurious to the country if it did pass. Was the Master of the Rolls an inconsiderable personage? That learned individual, whose erudition was unrivalled, and whose judgment was most sound and discriminating,—that learned individual had told them that there was, in his opinion, no occasion for this measure. The Vice-chancellor, a man of honour and veracity, and a lawyer too of the first eminence, had said—and he knew this, because the Vice-chancellor had said it to himself—that there was no occasion for the Bill at all; and that it would do much mischief by creating appeals. Mr. Bell, who had been one of the most eminent practitioners in that Court, from which he had now retired, entertained similar sentiments respecting it. He would venture to say, that not only the learned personages whose names he had mentioned, but also twenty-eight out of every thirty barristers practising in the Court of Chancery, were opposed to the measure before the House. He wished to know why viva voce testimony was not admitted in the Court of Chancery. Until that was done, it would be impossible to avoid a great part of the expense attending suits in that Court. This point had been very ably discussed in the pamphlets written by Messrs. Cooper and Parkes, which he would recommend to the attentive perusal of hon. Members. He was confident, that that which he had so long and repeatedly complained of would not be remedied by the Bill which had been brought down from the other House. It was impossible that the Bill could carry with it the opinion of the public, and without that it would be worthless. In his Judgment the hon. and learned member for Plympton had laid good grounds for his Amendment, and he meant to give that his most cordial support.

was perfectly aware of the difficulty which Members found in securing the attention of that House to any subject upon which they might have occasion to address it, unless they had previously lent themselves to the views either of the one side of the House or of the other; but he hoped that one who, for upwards of twenty years, had been practically engaged in affairs connected with the proceedings in that Court, might have some claim to the indulgent hearing which was necessary for the purpose of showing, as he expected to be able to do, that the Bill then presented for the decision of the House, was one wholly inadequate to the purposes which were sought to be accomplished through its means. The defects in the Court of Chancery, numerous and appalling as they were, were defects in no wise appertaining to the individuals who filled judicial situations in that Court, but arose from, and were inherent in the very system itself. If the Bills now presented to the House brought before it a subject that, for the first time, was to be discussed, it might be said, with some degree of truth, that the measure was bold and original, and the arrangements proposed abundantly sufficient to meet the existing emergency; but when it was recollected that, for more than twenty years past, the question had been under discussion, it could not but be felt that the present propositions were wholly insufficient for the purposes to which they were directed—namely, to remedy the existing evils in the Court of Chancery, the evils of destructive delay, and consuming costs. The amount of these tremendous evils, and their long continuance, would not, he believed, at that time of day, be disputed. He believed that it would not be denied by any person acquainted practically with the business of the Court of Chancery, that delay and expense were, in every suit, the objects aimed at by one side or the other, and that facilities for the attainment of that object existed in the Court of Chancery in England, to a degree never before paralleled. In illustration of the truth of which, he here repeated the assertion. Mr. Cooper had declared, with perfect correctness, that a legatee being entitled to a legacy, suppose 10,000l., recoverable of real estate, could not obtain payment of that legacy in less than eight years. It was therefore not to be endured, that with respect to delay and costs, things should remain as they were for any time longer. He begged the House not to suppose that he put himself in opposition to the present Bill from any other motive than a sincere conviction, that so far from effecting the ends for which it was introduced, its failure, if passed into a law, would be signal and decisive. He would briefly call the attention of the House to a few facts, but he begged the Members not to be apprehensive that he should, to any unreasonable extent, encroach upon their indulgence; before doing so, however, he begged to assure them that he would most readily co-operate with the measures of Government, if he could bring himself to think that they were at all suited to the present condition of the Courts of Equity. He would now call their attention to a few facts, prefacing them with a reference to the opinion of a lawyer of the highest eminence—a lawyer whose station placed him at the summit of the profession—he alluded to no less a person than the Lord Chancellor himself, as given upon the introduction of a bill into that House in a former Session; and accepting the declarations of the noble and learned Lord, made at that period, as founded in truth, he must upon those opinions pronounce the present measure to be unwise, inexpe- dient, and insufficient. On the occasion in question, the noble and learned Lord had said, that the recommendations of the Commissioners, when adopted, would be enough to remove the evils of the Court of Chancery, and that less would be insufficient. Now, he begged the House to observe, that the first of their recommendations was, that the subpoena should be intelligible; that that proceeding which was preliminary to all the others, should at least be capable of being understood by the parties to whom it was addressed; and to this he particularly begged the attention of the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (the Solicitor General); for not only was that proposition not carried into effect, but not one of the eight propositions then made was attempted to be acted on. So far from the subpoena affording the defendant any notice of the. bill which he was called on to answer, the very identical form was preserved in that proceeding which had been in use for two centuries. The second recommendation was, that means should be taken for the purpose of accelerating the answer of the defendant, and for the purpose of ennabling the plaintiff to bring him into the contempt of the Court if he did not answer; yet not one step was made towards the accomplishment of that object. He would ask the hon. and learned member for Plympton, whether means had been taken for the adoption of another of those recommendations—namely, that which stated that the time consumed by the length and number of the speeches ought to be diminished—a recommendation that would be not altogether inapplicable to the proceedings of that House. With a view to that object, it was proposed that only two Counsel should be heard on either side—had any, the slightest attempt been made to effect that—had any arrangement of such a nature, from that hour to the present, found its way into the Court of Chancery. Had they not seen lately twelve Counsel arguing in that Court that the verdict of eleven men was not as good as the verdict of twelve? The third proposition was, that Counsel should be heard in rotation. He would ask, had that regulation been introduced? The junior members of the profession, to their cost, knew well that it never had. Another of the regulations which, like the last, had never been acted on, was, that the Masters should no longer be passive agents, but should rise into the rank and importance of active and responsible Judges, discharging functions suited to their acknowledged learning and great emoluments. The plan of Lord Lyndhurst was, that there should be ten Masters, and not only that they should be Masters in Chancery, but masters of their business. He also proposed, that with respect to bankruptcy cases, there should be seven Commissioners to determine, in the first instance, whether or not there were grounds of appeal to the Court, by which it was expected that four-fifths of the business of the Court would be disposed of; and with respect to appeals generally, it was proposed, for the purpose of putting an end to so many vexatious appeals, that none should be admitted which had not the sanction of two Counsel—that regulation would certainly be wholesome were it practicable. The noble and learned Lord, on the occasion of which he spoke, went on to say that the Vice-chancellor's Court needed no alteration at all—that any thing he proposed was for the improvement of the Lord Chancellor's Court, and that the changes he recommended there would, he had no doubt, prove sufficient to save much of the time of the Court, and to reduce the arrear of causes. He hoped, that by diminishing the number of Counsel, by limiting the business, and simplifying it, that the arrear of 109 causes would speedily disappear. He said to the House, let but the present plan be carried into execution, and if in its workings it be not found advantageous, then any further requisite alterations might be made. Those were the sentiments of the present Lord Chancellor, and it would be for the House to judge how far the sentiments were in accordance with a support of the Bill under consideration. The country was already in possession of four Equity Judges, including the Chief Baron of the Exchequer, while only two of them were in full activity. Let the exertions of the whole four be called forth, and when they were found insufficient, but not until then, a new Equity Judge might be appointed. He would maintain, against any opposition, that the appointment of new Judges could be of no avail so long as the system remained in its present state. The hon. member for Durham had said that twenty-eight out of thirty of the Chancery Barristers were opposed to the Bill. He believed that their opposition was founded upon an apprehension that their emoluments would be diminished by the establishment of a new Court. Now that there were only three Courts, the Counsel took briefs in every cause in every Court; but if there were a fourth Court, they would find it necessary to confine their practice to one or two Courts: so far the arrangement would be advantageous to suitors. Another hon. and learned Member said, that, with this improvement, at the end of the Term there would not be a single cause untried. That would be a case of which legal history supplied no precedent. But why would it be? The causes would not be decided—no more decided than a question was decided in that House when it was sent before a Committee. The causes were sent to the Master, and there they remained in that living tomb awaiting no resurrection: they were buried in the ten mausoleums in Chancery-buildings. But one learned Gentleman said, that the causes would be decided so rapidly, that there would be no occasion for a fifth Judge; but if that hon. Member took a chariot at Whitechapel Church to come to the Parliament House, and was seven hours in performing the journey, it would be of no consequence to him where he was stopped, whether it were Aldgate, or St. Paul's Church-yard, or in Fleet-street; if he were seven hours coming, he would feel it to be a great evil. This was like a Chancery suit—you got in by a subpœna, and you got out by a judgment; and many a day elasped before the close of the journey. The plan now to give relief was by partial acceleration. There were three distinct stages in a Chancery suit—the first was from its birth till it came into Court, then from the Court there was its itinerancy to the Master's Office, there was then its vagrancy there, its being set down for further directions, to be spoken to—a motion to be heard concerning it—a re-hearing—and at the end of eight or ten years it reached its final stage—the judgment. It did not seem to him to form any part of the Bill then before the House, to save time in those different stages, which was a saving of expense. There was a plan, and he approved of it, to abolish the four Clerks in the Exchequer, and why not abolish the Masters in Chancery? He was aware that he was addressing the House on a dry technical subject, but the House must remember that it was equally important. The amount of property in Chancery was equal to two-thirds of the whole currency of the kingdom. It was impossible to bring Equity within the bounds of law; property was so complicated, its relations were so numerous, that it must be subject to an equitable jurisdiction; it was the more necessary, therefore, that this Court should be reformed—that its march should be accelerated, and that it should be both certain and speedy in its operation. There was nothing but poverty which could congratulate itself on being free from this Court; all property was sucked into its vortex. It was, therefore, one of the greatest practical questions which could be brought before the House, and was well deserving its attention. He was ready to go any length with those who proposed to reform that Court, but he did not think the present measure well calculated to effect that object. If they agreed to these measures, and hereafter endeavoured to introduce others of a more decided character, what appeals would not the Ministers make to them? Would they not say "We have not yet brought into operation the wholesome measures of 1830? You must give them fair play; you must see what effect they will have on the Registrar's and Masters' Offices, and it will be some years before their utility or futility can be known." Thus the House would be prevented from making any real and effectual effort to alter the system beneficially. He could not conceive how it required an Act of Parliament to regulate the Registrar's Office. What was the Registrar? He was an officer who sat, like the officers in that House, and took down the decrees given by the Chancellor. Now, he held in his hand a decretal order—not a final decree, for he believed it would be a very difficult matter for him to produce a document of that kind. This decretal order was for referring certain accounts relative to an estate from the Chancellor to the Master. It was borne to the grave of the Master in 1825, and he did not know whether any epitaph had been yet written on it. It was, as the House saw, of enormous size. If the Registrar were paid as much for brevity as he was paid for cramming in words, it would be a great saving both of time and expense. The Bill, it was said, did effect a saving of time, but it retained the fees. Now, he would give these persons a motive for hastening their labours, by paying each Master a certain sum on making his Report.

said, across the Table, to do that was proposed by one of the measures then before the House.

That then was one of the benefits of discussion; the knowledge of that took away many of his objections to the Bills, and made him ready to give them his support. The question then was confined to the Judgeship, and that was all to be decided on one point. Were the four Judges, if they were in efficient operation, capable of discharging all the duties necessary? In one sense they were, and in another they were not. They were not, if the Courts of Equity were allowed to remain as they now are; but if those Courts were reformed, the four Judges would be abundantly adequate to the purpose. If the House wished to save the suitors' time, it must begin with the causes in their first stage. At present, if a man had defrauded the children intrusted to his guardianship, and wished to delay giving in an account, he might postpone doing so if he had money, though the cause were carried into Chancery, for three years. Was not that a disgrace? Ought the claims of justice to be so long unattended to, and the usurpations of injustice so long protected? Was there to be no remedy for this? It was not possible that that House, if it did its duty, could suffer this state of things to continue. He had stated his view of this important subject, and he apologised for detaining the House so long. That Court, if it were reformed, might be a blessing to the country;—if it were allowed to remain uniformed, it would continue, as at present, a curse and a terror to the whole people.

said, that he was sorry to interpose between the long array of legal combatants who had addressed the House, but there were, he thought, some considerations, not legal, which might with propriety be addressed to the House by a layman. It was a question in which they were all deeply interested; their comforts and their property were deeply involved in it, and therefore, though they were not legal men, they might form an opinion concerning it. The question for the House to decide was, not whether the Bill would prevent delay, but whether a preliminary obstacle should be suffered to prevent the consideration even of a measure which had been sent down from the other House of Parliament, and the object of which was to diminish the expense and shorten the proceedings in a suit in Chancery. He considered that the discussion at present was, whether or not they would proceed, and take into consideration, according to the ordinary forms, a Bill to improve the Court of Chancery? All the measures, however, for the improvement of "that Court were met, by what? By a demand for further inquiry. He thought that at present a practical measure was called for; and when it was produced, it was found that inquiry was wanted. After all the debates on this subject, to ask for further inquiry when a practical measure was proposed, was to imitate the course of those alarming proceedings in the Court of Chancery which they were all ready to condemn. It was fifteen years since that cause had been first set down for a hearing; there was lying before him the first volume of the Commissioners' Report; it had been set down again and again for further exceptions, for rehearings to be spoken to; again there was no decision; and the House wanted to follow the example of the Court of Chancery; and though one half of the Report, made three years before, contained no less than 569 pages, the House wanted further inquiry. There were three measures proposed—the first was, to diminish the interval between the setting down of a cause and the hearing of it; the second was, to lessen the delay which intervened before passing the decree; and the third had for its object, to diminish the motives now attributed (though he believed unjustly) to the Masters for delay, on account of delay turning to their own profit. These measures were calculated to prevent delay; and now, after so much inquiry, to stop them, on the ground of further inquiry being necessary, seemed to him a solemn mockery. To show the necessity of the measures, what, he would ask, was the state of business in the Court of Chancery? Had the business of the Court of Chancery increased? He would not go back 200 years, he would take the business before the Court during the last three years—1827, 1828, and 1829, and compare it with the business before the Court in 1814, 1815, and 1816, the three years immediately subsequent to the creation of the Vice-chancellor. The number of causes set down for hearing of all descriptions, in these three years, was 4,801, while the number set down in 1827, 1828, and 1829, was 6,772, showing an actual increase in the business of the Court, aris- ing from the increase of the people, and the increase of wealth, and the increase of litigation, of 1,971 causes in the three last years, as compared to the three years ending with 1816. He stated this as a strong presumption that additional aid was necessary to get through the business. What was the arrear of business? He would take the first Seal before Easter during the last four years, and see what was the total number of causes standing on the paper ready for hearing, but which could not be heard. In 1827, on the first Seal before Easter, including all causes set down, the arrear was 742; in 1828 it was 588; in 1829 it was 853; and in 1830, on the first Seal before Easter, it was 655. The parties were anxious to have a hearing—they were ready—but, on an average, there were 600 causes remaining unheard, from the impossibility of hearing them. That the time was come when some remedy ought to be applied could not, he thought be doubted, though there might be some difference of opinion as to the remedy to be applied. It was the duty of the House to provide against further delay. What was the state of the business at present? The number of causes of all descriptions entered on the Vice-chancellor's paper, in January and February, 1829, was 265. The average of the time before these causes could be heard was one year and a quarter, although they were all ready for hearing. It would be fifteen months before a proper opportunity arrived for hearing any one of these causes after it had been set down. Were those facts not sufficient to call for a remedy? That was a question which he thought satisfactorily answered. The next question was, is the remedy proposed the fitting one? The object of the measure was to appoint an additional Judge. He wished to meet the objections to this proposition with candour. It was said that in 1828 he had opposed a similar motion. He had not done so. There had been no such proposition. He had moved the previous question on a motion of the hon. Gentleman's, but that was not for the appointment of an additional Judge. But even if he were not clear of all such objections, he claimed for himself the liberty of deciding all questions by the circumstances under which they were brought before the House for discussion; and he contended that it was not proper to bind down Members to the words of their former speeches. He begged therefore to decide the question of this additional Judge without any reference to his own previous votes, or the previous speeches of other hon. Members. The hon. member for Kircudbright (Mr. Ferguson) had declared, if it could be proved to his satisfaction that the present triumph over the arrear of business in the Court of Chancery was only temporary, he would vote for the appointment of anew Judge. Now, he would show that the impression on that arrear was temporary; he would prove that the business of the Court of Chancery was increasing, and he would claim that hon. Member's vote. Since the Returns connected with the business of that Court had been presented to the House, the number of causes on the paper had materially increased. On the first of June, in Trinity Term, there were down for hearing before the Vice-chancellor, an arrear of 353 causes. Since that time there had been thirteen disposed of, but thirty-two new causes had been set down; so that the number of causes, according to that return; was increased nearly three-fold. In the same manner, in the Court of the Master of the Rolls, there were on the same day 305 causes, or whatever else they were called; of these there had been disposed of since that time fifty, and there were entered on the paper seventy. This was the boasted diminution of the arrear of causes of which they had heard so much. this was the prospect they had of getting rid of the delays of the Court of Chancery. Independent of all this, however, he doubted the policy or the expediency of trusting to the continuance of the good health of the Judge, or the unceasable exertion of his faculties in the constant discharge of the arduous duties of his office. He doubted much whether it were politic or prudent, either in official or in legal situations, to keep those who held them fourteen or fifteen hours a day employed in the mere drudgery of their department. He confessed it appeared to him that such a course was calculated to disqualify them for the performance of some of the more important and higher duties of their station—an opinion in which he was confirmed by Mr. Burke, who, in a letter to a member of the French Convention, declared that the judgment of those who were so laboriously employed must be deficient in that wisdom and forethought which should distinguish such a situation. It had been objected, also, that the num- ber of appeals which must be made to the decisions of inferior Judges was an argument against the appointment of another Judge; but he believed that the benefit derived from such appeals, when under proper restrictions, counter-balanced, in a great degree, any evils which might arise from their number. Another objection to this measure was, that the additional Judge would be the mere deputy of the Lord Chancellor, a mere Jack Rugby. He confessed he did not well know what the allusion of the hon. and learned member for Plympton aimed at by this Jack Rugby; but he thought he could find enough in the speech of Mr. Wetherell, in 1813, to neutralize the objections of Sir Charles Wetherell, in 1830. The hon. and learned Member, on the debate on the appointment of the Vice-chancellor in 1813, had spoken a speech in favour of the appointment of a new Judge so good, that he wished he had as good a one on his side now. The hon. and learned Member at that time contended, as he found it reported in Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, "that the Bill offered the most efficacious and constitutional means for redressing the grievances under which the subjects of these realms now laboured from the necessary delay and arrear of business in the Court of Chancery, and House of Lords. He denied that the new Officer would be either inefficient or degraded, and on the contrary, argued that men of competent legal knowledge, high character, and excellent abilities, would be found eligible to and ready to undertake the discharge of its important functions. He justified the application of the Dead-fund to the payment of part of the salary of the new officer, and closed his observations, by warmly approving of every part of the bill." His hon. and learned friend might oppose the Bill, but he was not justified, after having expressed such an opinion, to declare that it would degrade the Lord Chancellor. After observing that the increase of the business of the Court year after year as fully justified the appointment of an additional Judge now as it did then, the right hon. Baronet entreated the House not to lose the good which this Bill held out the hope of attaining, because it might not go the full length which some sanguine persons anticipated, and that, too, when no other proposition of any feasible nature was before them, to prevent the delays which had been so often a subject of complaint. Above all, he implored them not to yield to the demand for a new and indefinite inquiry, at a time when they had before them a bill, founded on the report of those able Commissioners who had inquired into the whole of the practice of the Courts, and whose recommendations formed the substance of the Bill. He thought he had done enough to prove that he was the friend of gradual reform in the administration of the law. This was one of the measures by which he hoped to lay the foundation of that reform, and if there were any who objected to the permanent expense, they would learn with satisfaction, that when the temporary relief had been afforded to the Judges of the Court, the Bill left it in the power of his Majesty, on the resignation or death of the new Judge, to dispense with the necessity of appointing a successor. He trusted, therefore, that no amendment would be allowed to interfere with an object so really beneficial; and being himself deeply impressed with a sense of its importance, he should at once move, as an Amendment on the Amendment of the hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir C. Wetherell), "That the Bill be now read a second time."

said, he could not allow that opportunity to pass without offering a few observations on a question which, with the Amendment of the hon. member for Plympton, put to the test the professions of the Government with respect to the reform of the Court of Chancery. The right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) had with great plausibility put forth the argument of the increase of the business of the Court as a reason for the appointment of an additional Judge; but a reply to that might be found, prompt and decisive, which was, that there was no increase, and that they were now called on to consider the Bill under circumstances such as they had never known before. Was there, he would ask, no change since the year 1811, when the Committee was appointed? Was there no change since the year 1824, when that Commission sat, the bulky volumes of whose reports had been shaken at them by the right hon. Gentleman, to deter them from entering on any new inquiry, and to throw ridicule on the proposition of the member for Plympton? A great change had taken place—new circumstances had called for new measures, and the Court of Chancery was to be considered, with respect to its Judges, in a very different light now from that in which it was looked at by the Commissioners in 1825. In the year 1827 the Lord Chancellor obtained his confidence by a pledge, of which he now retained the most vivid recollection. "Give me," said that learned Lord immediately after he was called on to fill the place of his eminently learned and venerable predecessor.—"Give me" said he, in these remarkable and emphatic words, "give me but a little time—spare me but this one season, and in the face of Parliament, and of the country, and of the suitors, and of the profession, I promise to mature and bring to perfection a measure which shall secure the despatch of all business in the Court of Chancery regularly, faithfully, and accurately!" These were the words of the noble Lord. He had treasured them up from that time. They had given the noble Lord, not one year, which was all he asked, but three years, and now his pledge was in the act of being redeemed. And in what was the done by the Bill before them? In that Bill he found no evidence of the changes to be produced by the deliberation and judgment which was to be applied to the subject. In it he found no evidence of the application of those beautiful talents which his hon. friend, the member for Durham (Mr. M. A. Taylor) had so highly eulogised. In it he found no proof of the exertion of the talents of a man young in years and in office, and fired with a desire to distinguish himself. No changes were attempted except in the situation of some few persons who sat in a dark corner by themselves, and they too were changed, not for good, they were merely allowed to take their pay, not by fees, but by a fixed salary, which was to be paid them regularly whether they did their duty or not. All the worst part of that sink of delay, and storehouse of vexation, the Master's Office, was to continue as it was. The Court was to continue as it had been. Nothing was to be found of the ardour of the young Judge, young in years and in office, and who might at least have felt the ambition to distinguish himself. Nothing was to be found of the Judge holding the highest office, the office deservedly considered the first object and the greatest reward of the profession, except the desire to receive the fees, patronage; and emoluments thereof, without exercising any of the duties, or fulfilling any of the obligations thereunto belonging. He gave the noble and learned Lord credit on his appointment, for a desire to attempt something. He knew his extent of experience, his sagacity, and his learning. He thought he might trust his industry and sense of duty. At all events, he thought he could trust his ambition for an active and zealous discharge of the functions of that office—the highest in professional desire—the highest, as it ought to be, in professional emolument—and that he would not slumber in that post which had been so efficiently filled by his illustrious and venerable predecessor. He thought all this. He expected all the performance it implied. He believed the pledge the noble and learned Lord had given; but it would be his fault if he was betrayed into further confidence; or if he could, after such experience of the learned Lord's professions, be brought to lend himself to the act of adding to the public burthens, by enabling the learned Lord to lead a life of indolence, and of the enjoyment of all the pleasures of power and patronage, by paying for his use another deputy. He would show by figures, that the business of the Court did not require such an accessory. He accepted the challenge on that point which had been given by his hon. friend, who seemed to have indulged himself in a kind of Midsummer Night's Dream on the occasion, quite as baseless, but not half so entertaining, as the dream of the poet. The right hon. Baronet had attempted to show that the causes of the Court must be increased in number since the commencement of Trinity Term, because a greater number had been set down for hearing than the number disposed of. The right hon. Gentleman said that thirteen had been disposed of in the Vice-chancellor's Court, and thirty-two entered for hearing; but it did not follow that because thirty-two were entered, thirty-two must come to a hearing. On the contrary, it was probable that not even a third of them would reach that stage; and when the right hon. Gentleman stated that thirteen were heard, it must, by all who knew the Court, be taken as extremely probable that the Judge was making head against the business, and that the arrear was in progress of diminution. It might as well be said there were arrears in that Court the very name of which at so late an hour of the night created a yawn, in that blessed place of slumber, the Judges of which had no duty to perform except that of receiving their salary—whose drowsy meditations were never broken in upon by speech of Counsel—whom it was as difficult to catch sitting as it was to catch partridges sitting in November—who were no sooner on their bench than they were off it again—whose vacation months differed only in name from the other months of the year—whose only change was from a scarlet cloak to a purple one: it might as well be said that there was a pressure in that same Court of Exchequer which called for relief; it might as well be said, that because fifteen revenue causes had been entered in that Court during the last fortnight, and only ten had been tried, the arrears of that Court could not be kept down. Yet his right hon. and learned friend the Attorney-general, and his hon. and learned friend, the Solicitor-general, well knew that in that blessed abode of sloth the business of the revenue was going down in a descending series until it would reach Zero, or that negative quantity which was less than nothing. His hon. and learned friend the member for Winchelsea, tired of detailing the delays of the Court of Chancery, as he had done in that admirable speech of his in 1824, for which he felt the greatest obligation to him, and not less so for the triumphant answer which it afforded to his speech of that night—his hon. and learned friend, who had changed about from attacking useless offices to become their patron—his hon. and learned friend, with great force and dexterity—for who could know so well the strength and weakness of an argument as he who had tried all sides of it?—his hon. and learned friend had said, and the sentiment had been echoed by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, that they ought not to tax public servants beyond their powers; and had spoken of the temporary but extraordinary exertions of two of the excellent Judges of the Courts of Equity, especially of the Master of the Rolls, as something, the repetition of which must not be hoped for, and on which therefore, if the House relied, more arrears than ever would accumulate in the Courts of Equity. What then had been the extraordinary exertions of the Master of the Rolls? That he had sat in his Court after breakfast, instead of sitting in it after dinner; that he had sat for six hours in a day instead of four; and that he had devoted two or three Saints days and other holidays to hearing business. He was not one of those who were for having any of the Judges worked out, and made to die of hard labour. He cordially united with the right hon. Gentleman, that it was important that judicial offices should be filled by men of enlarged minds; and that men of enlarged minds should not be treated like galley slaves. In all that he heartily concurred; and he deprecated as much as the right hon. Gentleman the making it incumbent on any of the Judges, on the noble and learned person who held the Great Seal, or on any of his deputies, to let himself be drawn away too much by business from necessary relaxation, or, what was still more necessary, from liberal studies. But he could not see the application of this to the existing fact. With respect to the Vice-chancellor, any person having less the resemblance of a man that was overworked or deprived of necessary relaxation he never saw; and he was sure that hon. and learned individual would laugh to scorn any one who asserted that he was in such a condition, or that he had made any exertions in the present year which he was not ready to repeat next year, and again, and again, if required. And as to the Master of the Rolls, was he a slave? In no other way, undoubtedly, than as they had been told was the case with some of the negro slaves, who worked hard all day, in order that they might amuse themselves at night. And as for the Lord Chancellor, he (Mr. Brougham) knew the arch and good-humoured laugh that would mantle in his face if he heard himself termed an object of compassion, an unfortunate being, who was never seen except surrounded by musty Bills of Chancery, or plunged in the recesses of his law library. These three learned persons, the House might depend upon it, indulged in all the innocent gaieties of society; and were by no means subjected to that perennial toil which the right hon. Gentleman opposite seemed to have taken it on trust formed the character of their lives and conversation. The House might laugh; but this was no jest. It was the very gist of the argument. The supporters of the Bill said, "there is a want of Judges;" the answer was "there are enough;" to this it was replied "the present Judges are over-worked, they have no wholesome recreation, and they are objects of compassion;" and then came the rejoinder, "they are not over worked, they have abundant recreation, and they are objects of envy." This seemed ludicrous; but it was not his fault; it was the fault of those who asserted what no one could prove. They said there was a temporary arrear, and therefore that there ought to be an additional and permanent Judge. If there were a hill, an ascent of a quarter of a mile, up which it was thought that three horses could not draw a carriage, what would be thought of the owner of the carriage, who, instead of hiring an additional horse to assist in the ascent of that hill, were to buy one and keep him all the days of his life, merely for the service of a quarter of a mile? Could anything be more absurd than that, for that slight effort, an animal should be purchased, to be immediately afterwards, perhaps, shot lest he should eat his ears off? Yes, there was one thing more absurd. The carriage had got up the hill before the additional horse was thought of! The arrears were all gone! Those two strong and excellent horses, the Vice-chancellor and the Master of the Rolls, had drawn the carriage to the summit, and were neighing with delight, & now it was proposed to put another horse into the team to trot down with them and it on the other side! The measure before them had other ramifications which deserved the most serious consideration. The constitution of the High Court of Chancery was a matter of the utmost importance. Whatever arrears might be cleared away in it—however numerous the abuses that might be removed, even if they were all remedied—if every access to the Court were freed from all obstacle—if it were rendered the most perfect tribunal that the wit of man could devise—if it were encumbered with no delay, no inordinate expense, no obscurity, no doubt, no vexation—if (and in the advantage of that proposition he entirely concurred) the business which it had drawn from the Courts of Common Law were restored to those Courts—still it would be a vain and idle imagination to suppose that as long as there were any trusts in law—as long as there were any infants to be protected—as long as there were any guardians to be watched (he would say nothing of executors), as long as there were any other matters of administration, as well as matters of trial—it would be a vain and idle imagination to suppose that the Court of Chancery could cease to exist. That being the case, it was of the utmost importance to all, it was of the utmost importance to the suitors, it was of the utmost importance to the profession of the law, that the highest station in that Court should be filled by a Judge fully competent to discharge the duties of his office. The jurisdiction of the Lord Chancellor was superior to all ordinary jurisdiction; he had to dispense the highest and most delicate patronage of the Crown; he had to preside in the House of Lords; he had other official duties of the gravest character. Could he, therefore, regard with any feeling but jealousy and repugnance a measure, the natural and inevitable tendency of which was to convert the office of the Lord High Chancellor of England into a judicial sinecure? If the Lord Chancellor's duties were confined to sitting in the House of Lords, he would soon become a mere Judge of Appeal—he would soon cease to be what the Constitution prescribed he ought to be—the first lawyer in the country—filling the first situation in that Court of which he ought to be the ornament. Even as a Judge of Appeal, they might set him up, and plant him on the Woolsack; they might give him power; but would he have any authority? Would he satisfy the Courts below? Would he satisfy the suitors? Would he satisfy the profession? See the course which would then be taken in the appointment of a Lord Chancellor. He would be chosen because he was a cunning intriguer behind the curtain; because he was a skilful debater in the House of Lords. Would such a man be qualified to decide appeals from the Vice-chancellor—from the Master of the Rolls—or from any other Judge whatever? Would he be qualified to grapple with the difficulties of a complicated case? Would he have any confidence in himself? Certainly not; because he would well know that the profession had no confidence in him. Such a Lord Chancellor, he would engage to say, would confirm at least nineteen out of twenty appeals that came before him. That which ought to be the resort of suitors, the comptroller of Judges, and the security of right, the power of the appellate jurisdiction would exist only in name. He had been told, that in 1811, on the proposal for appointing a Vice-chancellor, Romilly, Canning, Leach, had held the same language; and he had also been told, in triumph, to look at the result. A sort of pity had been expressed for the error of the illustrious dead. It had been said, "see how, when even the wisest men overstep the bounds of prudence, and pretend to prophesy respecting the future, facts contradict their predictions!" But had facts contradicted those predictions? Had the appointment of a Vice-chancellor produced no effect such as had been anticipated from it? If he were to select from the life of his illustrious and lamented friend (Sir Samuel Romilly) one passage in which he had evinced more wisdom than any other, it would be that in which he who had been the first to hazard the prediction alluded to, had uttered it. Sir Samuel Romilly had declared, that if they created a Vice-chancellor they would soon have a less able man to fill the office of Lord Chancellor than when the Lord Chancellor had only the Master of the Rolls to assist him. Now what was the fact? He (Mr. Brougham) had a great respect for the present Lord Chancellor. In some respects that noble and learned Lord had disappointed him, but not in others. He was unwilling to speak of him with harshness. He should be unwilling to do so, were it only for the personal esteem which he entertained towards him. But this he would say—that flattery never was carried further than it would be by those, who, knowing the difference between him and his predecessor, should still declare that the prediction of Sir Samuel Romilly, that the appointment of a Vice-chancellor would facilitate the placing of the Great Seal in the hands of a man, in whose hands, but for that appointment, it would not have been placed, had not been accomplished. Somebody had asked if appeals had increased? Had they not? What did the present Lord Chancellor do but hear appeals? On that fact he rested the claim of Sir Samuel Romilly to a wise foresight. Had any Lord Chancellor ever heard so few causes? Had any Lord Chancellor ever done so little Equity business, or confined himself so closely to appeals, as the present? Even Lord Eldon, after the year 1813, when he received the assistance of the Vice-chancellor, heard only a fourth of the number of causes, but he had heard eight or ten times the number of appeals. It was true, that he had heard all the bankrupt petitions. But then it must be recollected that to the hearing of those petitions large fees were attached. It somehow or other happened, that whatever arrears there might be in other busi- ness, there was never any arrear in the disposal of bankrupt petitions. He did not wish to speak harshly of Lord Eldon. Sensible as he was of that noble and learned Lord's defects when in office, he was also sensible of his many and exalted accomplishments; he was sensible of his profound legal knowledge. But he must nevertheless say, that the manner in which Lord Eldon used to dispose of the bankrupt petitions formed a striking contrast to the manner in which he disposed of the other business that came before him. Let the proposed measure be adopted, and the Court of Chancery would soon become little more than a Court of Appeal. Much better would it be to retrace their steps. Should he be asked if he was opposed in all cases to the creation of an additional Judge, his answer would be, "Show me the necessity, and I will immediately assent to the proposition." But here there was no necessity. They were beginning at the wrong end. They should begin by reforming the Court of Chancery, by smoothing the avenues to it, by rendering cheaper its proceedings, by diminishing the delays which beset the suitor, from the moment at which he arrived in the Court, to the distant period at which his grandson or some more remote descendant received the judgment on his case. That would be infinitely better than to grant the Lord Chancellor additional help, when he had already journeymen and deputies, at a great expense to the public, who had brought down the arrears to a less amount than they had ever been since the Court of Chancery was established. Instead of relieving the Lord Chancellor, their care ought to be to relieve the suitors in Chancery. If the Lord Chancellor must be relieved, at least let him only proceed pari passu with the unfortunate victims of his jurisdiction. He put it to the House—he put it to the country—he put it especially to those hon. Members who, in all probability, before many months had elapsed, would have to meet their constituents—if it would be decorous to grant the great relief prayed for by the Lord Chancellor, without granting even the slightest relief to the unhappy suitor in the Court of Chancery. Even the other measures proposed appeared to him to be of very doubtful improvement. The one referred to the paying the Registrar in a different manner; the other proposed the paying of the Master by salary, in- stead of fees. Now, fees were liable to great objection, when they were in the remotest degree dependent upon the prolixity of a cause; for they being in some sort a premium upon delay, and a bribe to encourage expensiveness and vexatious impediments, they might well be considered an abomination. This was, consequently, the worst way to pay a Judge, or any official person, as it opened the door to an infinite number of abuses; but if, on the contrary, fees did not depend upon the prolixity of a cause—if, once for all, one fee was paid upon each case, it became a very different matter. Now, observe the distinction between the Judge and the Master in Chancery. The Judge sat before all mankind, in the face of day—and for shame sake, he could not dare to receive the emoluments of his office unless he discharged its duties. But the Master sat in a corner, without any crowd to watch him—without any newspaper to report him—and if, then, he were to receive a salary, in lieu of the fees now given, the problem he would naturally set himself to solve would be—not how the business of the Court might be best expedited to the convenience and advantage of the suitors—but how he might continue to receive his salary at the least possible expense of labour—how he might discover the minimum of labour necessary to retain his place—how he might, in fact, convert it into a sinecure—a problem uniformly solved most effectually by the many holding official situations, and solved after a manner which would do honour to a Senior Wrangler. The Master's Office was complained of—it was defective. His remedy was this—let in the light—open the doors; let them sit in the face of the people as the Judges did. Let them sit under the consciousness that they were exposed tothe public eye, and the public scrutiny as the Judges did. They had, in fact, the authority of Judges, they were Judges, in all but the responsibility and publicity under which Judges acted. Open the doors of their office, then, he said, and no other alteration would be necessary. They might then, however, pay them as they pleased—by fees or salary—there would be no objection, and there could be no injury. His hon. friend (the Solicitor General) cheered him, and chided him in cheering. His hon. and learned friend's tone expressed nothing less than this—"You tell us that upon which we are all agreed. Why then thus lecture us, at one o'clock in the morning, upon matters on which there can be no difference of opinion?" But how was he to know that they were all agreed? He must look to the bills, and there he found that the only light shed was the pleasing light of a fixed regular salary, dawning upon the Master's Office, and promising to foster him with its beams, whether he had much business, or little business, or no business at all. He thought, as he before said, that these bills were of doubtful improvement; they should be examined simply upon their own merits. But when in saying this, if he either blamed what had been done, or if he withheld his cordial support from what was proposed, he begged to be understood as doing it reluctantly. It would have been far more pleasing to him to have pursued a different course, especially when the Government were minded to reform the law. His hon. friend, the member for Winchel-sea, had said, that Government was bent upon this reform. He entirely agreed with him. But then his hon. friend went further, and grounded his support of these two bills upon the feeling he entertained of the sincerity of the Government in prosecuting this reform. Feeling, however, was not a safe guide; if he were then to judge by his own feeling, he would say it was the middle of Winter, though it was really Midsummer-day—if he were to be guided, too, by his own feeling, he would say, that the right hon. Secretary opposite was sincere in his desire to promote legal reform. And why would he say so? because the right hon. Gentleman had given proofs of that disposition—because he had been a powerful ally—because he had put down the clamour which was raised against the reformers in that House—had removed impediments from their way, and been to them a rampart and a tower of strength. He never had been one of those who hesitated to make this acknowledgment, or who felt any jealousy towards the right hon. Gentleman, even on the part of those great men, the leaders in the great questions of reform, who were then no more. Accidental circumstances had placed the right hon. Gentleman in a situation in which, in the prosecution of his own personal views, he might have turned all his energies and powers to put down the cause of reform, but he had magnanimously, and disinterestedly, and wisely for his own fame, preferred making himself the patron of reform to appearing as its opponent. But as to the Solicitor General and the Lord Chancellor, how was he to judge of them except by their acts—or in other words, except by their bills;—by these which the Lord Chancellor sent down to them—one of which was of very doubtful improvement, and the other no improvement at all. But then the noble and learned Lord said, wait a little and I will send you down this, which shall complete my system, and which shall render universal satisfaction to you, the House of Commons, to the suitors of the Court of Chancery, and the country at large. Softly then with the present Bill, was his reply. Sufficient for the day is the good thereof. They had then two bills, be it admitted, for argument sake, conferring some benefit; but that was no reason why they should agree to the appointment of a new Judge in the Court of Chancery. It was imperative upon the House to pause and consider well before they took such a step; times had much changed since changes had been first recommended in the constitution of that Court. A revolution had taken place in the Court of Chancery. The Master of the Rolls now sat in the morning. He sat six hours instead of two; and, therefore, was enabled to dispose of fifty per cent more causes than in former times. There was this, and other novelties, which went to the very root and marrow of the question. They had arisen since the Commissioners had made their Report. They required investigation; and until the House had all these things fairly before it, they could not decide upon the plan which had been proposed. He would tell them, that if they wished to act in accordance with the dignity of that House—if they wished to act fairly towards themselves, their constituents (whom they must soon meet), and the country in general, the only honest answer they could give to my Lord Chancellor was—redeem your pledge—let us see the fact—then we will judge of your demand; and how, and when, and as new help may appear to be necessary to you, in such sort shall you have it, and not otherwise.

said, that in recalling the attention of the House to the facts which had been made out, he should be able to show that his hon. and learned friend, the member for Knaresborough—allowing his imagination to run away with him, and delighting in the amusement which he always afforded to the House, and never more than on the present occasion—had entirely forgotten those facts—that his arithmetic could not be correct; and that the conclusions which he founded upon it were consequently erroneous. His hon. and learned friend appealed to the report of the Commissioners in 1825, but he must tell his hon. and learned friend and the House that the arrears in 1825, or the arrears in 1828, were not so great as at present. His learned friend attempted to show that where seventy causes were entered, and the number disposed of was not one-half of that amount, no increase of arrears occurred; but he (the Attorney General) confessed that this was a mode of calculation which he did not understand. He contended, in opposition to the hon. and learned Member, that there was a decided increase in the arrear; and he stated that the average time required between the entering of a cause and its being heard was a year and a quarter. This was a terrible infliction upon the suitor, and could only be remedied by the removal of the arrear. The bills were not to be regarded simply by themselves, but in conjunction with others, and as forming part of a system; had they been altogether unsupported, he knew not that he should have voted in favour of them himself: but coming as they did, with a solemn pledge from the Lord Chancellor, of his intention to proceed with other improvements, he could not, certainly, withhold from them his concurrence. His Lordship, it was to be remembered, had commenced his plan of reform by enforcing, in conjunction with the other Judges, certain regulations in his Court, with the view of improving the practice there as far as he might without the aid of Parliament. And if at any time his hon and learned friend should happen to be raised to that situation to which his talents so well entitled him, he would find that there were so many vested interests engaged—so many prejudices to overcome—that the reform of the Court was not the work of a day, or of a year. Was it just, then, to accuse the Lord Chancellor, because he had not, during the three years that he had been in office, accomplished many reforms which would in themselves occupy many years, and in doing which it was evident he would be very much opposed, both in Court and out of Court—both in that House and out of that House. But those who called for reform were not satisfied with it in any shape but that which exactly suited their own views. They would not take any partial reform, but required that one complete plan should be at once laid upon the Table—an undertaking which, with the complicated interests involved in the Court of Chancery, he would defy any man to fulfil in one bill. The Lord Chancellor had devoted himself to effecting all those reforms which could be accomplished without the aid of Parliament by the introduction of proper regulations into his Court. The House would, he trusted, consider that the appointment of the new Judge was chiefly proposed with a view to his passing into the Court of Exchequer when an opportunity offered, and taking with him an efficient Bar, to improve the practice of that Court. This was allowed on all hands to be desirable, and what rational objection could there be to his assisting in the meantime to reduce the arrear in the Court of Chancery? If the arrears were cleared away by the effect of this Bill one of his hon. and learned friend's complaints would be removed, as there would be a better opportunity for the Chancellor to hear original causes. His hon. and learned friend said, that the Judges were not severely worked, and yet it was stated that the Vice-chancellor had devoted sixteen days of his vacation to the public business. To meet this his hon. and learned friend said, that the Vice-chancellor was a fresh-looking man, and had no appearance of over-fatigue. His hon. and learned friend might as well say that he, himself, who, though not quite so fresh-looking as the Vice-chancellor, was healthy and vigorous, would go for six; weeks to his country-house, but that he (the Attorney General), because he was fresh-looking, might remain in the Court of King's Bench for the whole year round. As to the argument that, because there were large fees in bankruptcy no arrears were suffered to accrue, it was well known that no man had ever been more indifferent to his own interest than the Lord Chancellor. If his hon. and learned friend (the Solicitor General) had been allowed to state fully all the measures which were in contemplation, the House would have been satisfied that the intention was to effect a complete reform in the business of Chancery. If Sir Samuel Romilly were now alive, and were a witness of the vast increase of business which had taken place since the time when he opposed the appointment of a Vice-chancellor, he was sure he would admit the necessity of an additional Judge. It would be found, on a fair calculation, that the present Chancellor had done as much business as his predecessor. If this measure stood alone—if it were without any reference to the use which might hereafter be made of the additional Judge—he might have some hesitation in approving of it; but, accompanied as it was by provisions which would guard against any abuses of the appointment, he thought it a measure of great public utility, and would give it his cordial support.

observed, that seeing that the right hon. Secretary of State was the only person not connected with the legal profession who had hitherto spoken upon the question, he felt some hesitation in following his example. He might, however, be perhaps permitted to say a few words, as the question must ultimately be decided by Gentlemen as unlearned as himself. He entirely concurred with his hon. and learned friend, the member for Knaresborough, in the views he had expressed. He did not think a new Judge should be appointed upon the faith of the very doubtful improvements which had been conceded. There should be an ample inquiry. The great complaint preferred was delay—and they were accordingly pressed to come at once to a decision to abate the evil. Now he would not, like some hon. Members travel 200 years back to seek for cases. He would simply refer to the course pursued by the House in a question which was brought before it about fifteen years back. Great complaints were then made respecting the imperfect communication between this country and Ireland. The Holyhead mails, for various reasons, did not travel with sufficient speed—there were tolls, and various impediments named amongst the causes. They did not however, without making any other alteration, place an additional coach upon the road by way of remedying the evil—yet this was pretty much the course recommended upon the present occasion. In a word, he did not think that any case had been made out in favour of this new appointment. The Judges in the Court were divided on it and the mass of legal authority appeared to be against it. There was this inference to be drawn from the arrears in the Court of Chancery, and the constant complaints of them, that there must be some defect in the constitution or in the administration of its jurisdiction. They had had wings to different measures, none of which were, on that account, the more palatable; but the circumstance of their being so attached to any bill was, in itself, a reason why the House usually looked on it with the greater doubt, jealousy, and suspicion. The arguments on the subject had drawn the matter in dispute to issue; viz. whether there had been an increase of the arrears of undecided causes in the Court of Chancery? This question, it his mind, they could not be so well calculated to decide on. He, therefore, should propose that the question of the arrears, and, therefore, of the necessity of the appointment of a fourth Judge in the Court of Chancery, should be referred to a committee to report thereon to the House. He begged the House to recollect that they had been furnished with the opinion of the present Lord Chancellor, that if the arrear were once diminished there would be little trouble in keeping the files of the Court subsequently clear without the aid or intervention of another Judge. For all these reasons he should give to the Bill the most decided opposition until they were more fully informed as to the nature of the two bills which were to form the wings, as they had been denominated, of this measure.

observed, that he knew well enough a reply at half-past two o'clock in the morning, especially after the exhaustion of such a sitting as that, Was not likely to be listened to with patience. It was not one of the Parliamentary deliciœ; and he anticipated no pleasure from the enjoyment of such a luxury. He should not venture to go into the details of the question at that hour, but he must say, that his Case had been fully-made out. By his calculations, which; plain man as he was, he believed would be found quite as clear as the sugar calculations of his right hon. friend, which 140 Gentlemen had had the good fortune to understand, though to all the rest of the world they were unintelli- gible; by his calculations, he said, it was clear, that a considerable diminution of arrear in the Court had already taken place without the assistance of any new Judge; and that fact, together with the circumstance that the Vice-chancellor, the Master of the Rolls, and the Bar, were opposed to creating a new Judge, was sufficient, he thought, to induce the House to vote against the Bill.

The House divided—For the Motion 96; Against it 133—Majority for Ministers 37.

The question was then put that the Bill be read a second time.

Mr. Brougham moved, that the second reading be postponed till Monday.

The House divided—For the Amendment 77; Against it 118—Majority 41.

Mr. Brougham moved the adjournment of the House;—Sir R. Peel consented to the postponement of the second reading till Monday.