moved the Second Reading of this Bill. In doing so, it was necessary for him to explain to the House the principles of the measure, and the reasons upon which it was founded. He might venture to remind the House, that at a very early period of the Session he had given notice of this Bill. Circumstances which he could not control had prevented his being able to bring the subject before the House, and he had been obliged to introduce the Bill without any statement of its objects. This imposed upon him now the necessity of asking the attention of the House while he briefly stated its provisions, although he felt the disadvantage under which he would be placed. Usually, the person having the carriage of a Bill, had, on the second reading, the opportunity of waiting to hear objections, and to reply to them. It was not easy to exaggerate the importance of the question he had undertaken to bring before the House in relation to the administration of the criminal law. He felt the responsibility which attached to any proposal to alter established practices, and no one could be more sensible of the caution and diffidence with which such alterations should be proposed. He would, in the first place, ask the attention of the House to the present state of the law—one involving anomalies which it was impossible to deny, and he thought impossible to defend. In civil cases there was the right of appeal. If any Member of that House were sued for a sum of 20l., he would have the right—the uncontrolled right—of questioning the law that was ruled by the judge; he might, in spite of the judge, appeal against his decision, and, if he thought fit, carry that appeal to the highest tribunal in the land. He might do this if he questioned the decision of the judge as to his liability, or if that judge admitted against him evidence which he thought ought not to be received. Again, he had a right of appealing against the finding of the jury on the matter of fact. If dissatisfied with the verdict, he might apply the Court for a new trial, and if he could show that the verdict was not warranted by the evidence, or that it was obtained by evidence which came upon him by surprise, or even that since the trial he had discovered testimony which he could not reasonably have known before—in any of these cases he could have a reinvestigation, when nothing more was at issue than a pecuniary demand. But let him be tried for his life before the very same judge and the same jury, and he had no redress whatever against the error of the judge in point of law, or the mistake of the jury in fact. He could only question the ruling of the judge, if the judge thought proper to permit it; against the finding of the jury he had no redress. If it were right that a man should have this power of appealing before a court of justice could adjudge him to pay a sum of money, what pretence was there for saying he ought not to have it before he was condemned to death? But this was not the only anomaly in the administration of the law. The right of new trial at present existed in some criminal cases. He earnestly asked the attention of the House to this—if criminal proceedings were instituted in the Court of Queen's Bench, the right of obtaining a new trial existed. It had long been the ordinary practice of that Court to grant new trials in cases of misdemeanour depending before itself. The general opinion had been, that this practice had been limited to accusations of misdemeanour, and that the right of applying for a new trial did not belong to a person charged with felony. This was the settled opinion of the legal profession. Of course, it made the anomaly more glaring if the right depended on the name of the offence. But, as if still more to illustrate the unsatisfactory state of the law upon the subject, about two years ago the Court of Queen's Bench in England granted a new trial in a case of felony. No observation was made, which showed that the attention of the Judges had been directed to the point. The precedent was established sub silentio, certainly contrary to all previous impressions. It was not easy to say whether they were to regard this as establishing the right. If it did, it established the strongest argument for his proposal, by proving that judges had seen the necessity of extending the exercise of their power to all cases. But be this as it may, let the House see the absurdity of the present state of things. In criminal proceedings depending in the Court of Queen's Bench, there was the right of appeal—in those depending in Quarter Sessions or a Recorder's Court there was none. So that if any man were tried for an offence before the Chief Justice of England, and a special jury of Middlesex or London, he had the right, upon an application for a new trial, to question the law of the Chief Justice, and the verdict of the jury—to appeal from the first tribunal in the world—from the chief judge of criminal judicature in England, and the best jury that could be empanelled; and it was every term a practice that verdicts of guilty found by such a tribunal were set aside. But if it happened that the very same trial had taken place—as it might have done—before the Chairman of the Quarter Sessions of the most remote county, with all his sense of the value of this local administration of justice, it was no disparagement to a Chairman of Sessions to say his decision might need correction as much as that of the Chief Justice. Let the offence be tried, not before the Chief Justice and a special jury, but before the Recorder of the pettiest borough—before the least intelligent and worst educated jury that could be empanelled in an English or in a Welsh court—and then the ruling of the judge and the finding of the jury were conclusive, and the appeal which the law gave him from the Chief Justice of England and a London special jury, is denied him from a tribunal such as this. Was it possible to maintain or defend anomalies like these? Even this was not all—the law and the constitution invested the Court of Queen's Bench with the superintendence and control of all inferior criminal jurisdictions; that is, of all Courts except the House of Lords, or the Court of the High Steward for trial of a Peer. This was the principle of the law. The Court of Queen's Bench had the power to correct the erroneous judgments of all other Courts. But how was this limited, and made a nullity in practice? Only by this—that the Court of Queen's Bench could only know what passed in the other Court by that which was called the record—that is, the formal entry of the proceedings on parchment. The record, however, conveyed about as much information of the proceedings as the Votes published each morning did of the debates in that House; it showed the charge, the finding of the jury, and the sentence, but it did not show one particle of the evidence, or the rulings of the judge. What, then, was the result? That the power of supervision in the Court of Queen's Bench was limited to errors which in technical language appeared on the record. No matter whether the error was important or minute, if it found its way into the formal entry of the proceedings, then it became matter of the correction of an appellate tribunal, even were it only the misprision of a clerk. The gravest errors that did not so find their way, the Court, which the law nominally invested with complete control, had no power either to remedy or correct. He might venture to illustrate this by a reference to what occurred at the Irish high treason trials of 1848. A writ of error was brought first to the Queen's Bench, and afterwards to the House of Lords. The impeachment of the proceedings was confined to matters on the record. Among these, it was alleged that it was a mistake that when the prisoner appeared, to have been asked the question, "what he had to say why sentence should not be passed upon him?" without the words "sentence of death." It so happened that this was a point of the proceedings which must be entered on the formal proceedings, and therefore the prisoner had an opportunity of appealing to the highest tribunal in the realm. Far more so was this objection: the House of Lords heard it argued and decided it; they decided it against the prisoners. This did not alter the illustration. If the judge had happened to pass sentence without the question being put at all, or even if the clerk had omitted to record it, the court of error must, for this omission, have reversed the judgment of the Court below. Upon a like question, the convicted person could now obtain the opinion of a court of appeal. But let him suppose that, instead of a mistake such as this, the judges in that trial had wholly misinterpreted the law of high treason—had told the jury that facts constituted high treason which did not in law amount to that crime—had received evidence which the law would not tolerate to affect a man upon his life: no matter how grave or how serious their errors, the Court, which could and would reverse the sentence if the judges had omitted to put a formal question, had no power to examine into these errors at all. The appeal which the accused party would have upon the most trivial point of form, was denied to him upon the subjects upon which the legality of his conviction must depend. This would not only illlustrate the anomalies of their present system, but it would show that he (Mr. Butt) proposed no novel principle in the law or constitution of the country. He proposed, in truth, to carry out their old principles; to give to the accused party the protection which he would have if the record were not a mere formal entry, but disclosed the actual proceedings of the court; to make the supervision which the constitution vested in the Court of Queen's Bench over other criminal tribunals a reality, and not a mere name; and to give to that court the power of correcting, not merely mistakes in point of form, but those errors that actually affected the substantial justice of the proceedings. He must now ask the attention of the House to the efforts that had been already made to alter the Jaw on the subject to which the Bill now before the House related. From the earliest times the judges had themselves attempted to supply the place, in some respects, of an appellate tribunal, by reserving questions of law for the consideration of the twelve—or, afterwards, the fifteen—judges. If, in any case of a conviction, the judge entertained a doubt upon any point which he had decided against the prisoner, he reserved it for the other judges: but this was nothing more than taking their opinion in private whether he had been right. The objections to this course were many. In the first place, the reservation of the question depended entirely on the discretion of the judge. In addition to this, the case was not necessarily argued by counsel. There was no public hearing of the appeal; no reasons were given for the decision; and the result of an opinion favourable to the prisoner, and which ought to have entitled him to an acquittal, was a recommendation to the Secretary of State to grant him a free pardon, that he might obtain from the mercy of the Crown that to which it appeared by law he had a right from the justice of the tribunal by which he was tried. Imperfect and unsatisfactory as was this mode of appeal in every respect, in three it was pre-eminently so:—it was at the discretion of the judge; it did not exist as to matter of fact; and, lastly, if a mistake had been committed in point of law, however little it might affect the merits of the case, instead of sending back the accused to a new trial, it obtained for him an absolute discharge. Attempts had been made by legislators to remedy these obvious defects. He (Mr. Butt) was strongly under the impression that Sir Samuel Romilly had brought into that House a Bill similar to that of which he now had charge. He (Mr. Butt) had made a note, he presumed upon some sufficient authority, that he had. Unfortunately, he had omitted to note, at the same time, the authority on which he relied; and, with all his efforts, he was not now able either to remember or to trace it. He would not venture positively to state it as a fact, but he had certainly a very strong impression that, for a Bill giving the right of new trials in criminal cases, he had the authority of that great man. In 1844 a Bill with the same object was introduced by his hon. and learned Friend the Member for the county of Suffolk (Sir Fitzroy Kelly). He would ask of any one doubtful upon this question to read the masterly speech in which his hon. and learned Friend had introduced that Motion, and he ventured to say it would bring conviction to his mind. The Bill then introduced was never rejected by the House. The late period of the Session at which it was brought in precluded the possibility of its passing; and the second reading was withdrawn, on a promise that Government would take up the subject in the next Session—a promise which led to the usual result of such promises. In 1848 a Bill was brought in for the same purpose by his hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Ewart), whose name he was proud to have associated with him on this Bill. This Bill, again, was not defeated, but postponed, and postponed on the ground that a Bill had been then introduced by Lord Campbell in the other House, which might probably in its progress embrace the object in view. This brought him to the change effected by that Act of Lord Campbell's, which was passed in 1848, and which instituted a court of criminal appeal. This Act only substituted for the old and irregular mode of taking the opinion of the judges, the decision of a regularly-constituted court. The cases were now in every instance argued by counsel; the judges pronounced their decision in open court, and assigned their reasons for it; and, instead of the recommendation to the Secretary of State for a free pardon, the Court judicially reversed the sentence if it were wrong. But in other respects the new tribunal had the defect of the old reservation for the judges. The right of appeal in point of law was only granted at the discretion of the judge from whose decision you appealed: there was no opportunity of reviewing the finding of the jury as to matter of fact, and there was no power of directing a new trial. The effect of this was, that if a judge improperly received evidence, without which, very likely, a prisoner might have been convicted, yet the Court of Appeal could not send back the case to a reinvestigation without the objectionable evidence, but must absolutely discharge the accused. The Bill which he (Mr. Butt) had introduced, while it permitted new trials, went beyond Lord Campbell's Bill in giving the absolute right of appeal without asking the consent of the judge, while it established, also, the power of setting aside verdicts upon the same grounds upon which 'the courts set them aside in civil cases. The House would perceive that two questions were thus raised—one as to the expediency of giving an absolute appeal in point of law, where now it was only permitted at the discretion of the judge: the other, and a very different question, as to the prudence or the practicability of establishing a tribunal which would review the finding of juries as to facts. He (Mr. Butt) did not overlook or forget the fact, that during the progress of Lord Campbell's Bill through the Lords, evidence had been taken as to the prudence of establishing an appeal as to matter of fact. It had been supported by some distinguished testimony; but it had been, he admitted, opposed by the opinion of most of the Judges. The proposal to give an absolute right of appeal on questions of law did not meet with the same opposition. But let him say, no person respected the authority of judges more than he did; but he would not accept that authority as conclusive in legislation. If Parliaments had been controlled by the opinion of judges, they would have had very little reform of the criminal law. When his hon. Friend (Mr. Ewart) at last succeeded in carrying his great measure for permitting prisoners full defence by counsel, just the same judicial opposition was offered to it—just the same predictions were made of the utter confusion which it would introduce into the conduct of public business. Who now would wish to see it repealed, even deprived as it had been of one half its value by striking out the clause which he (Mr. Butt) trusted would yet become law—the clause which gave in every instance the last word to the accused? Upon principle he thought that the right of appeal against the decision of the judge ought to be absolute—that it never ought to rest on the discretion of the man against whose judgment you appealed. This was imposing upon the judge a duty which never ought to be east upon him—that of determining when his own decision should be the subject of review. By what was he to be regulated? If he did not believe his own decision right, he would not make it. Was he then to grant an appeal or not, as he was confident, or the reverse? Men, even judges, were generally most positive when they were most wrong. The appeal was made to depend upon the temper of the judge. A strong-minded judge would refuse it whenever he was confident he was in the right; a weak-minded judge would only refuse it whenever he half suspected he was in the wrong. It was in human nature that feebleness of decision was generally atoned for by obstinacy in resolve. Why, he asked again, in civil cases should the appeal be independent of the will of the judge, and only dependent upon it when far higher consequences than those which could attend the result of any civil actions were involved? The subject was a delicate one; but he would venture to say, that there was no Gentleman in the House in the habit of practising in criminal cases before judges, who would lay his band on his heart and say that his experience would lead him to the conclusion that the appeal ought to depend upon the discretion of the judge. Instances might easily be multiplied: he would refer to but two. When his hon. and learned Friend (Sir Fitzroy Kelly) introduced his Bill in 1844, he stated the case of a conviction before a very eminent Judge. Sir Fitzroy Kelly was counsel for the accused. The prisoner was convicted, and sentenced to death. A point of law had arisen, which the Judge ruled against the prisoner, and which he obstinately refused to reserve. His hon. Friend was not to be baffled; he pressed the Judge until he was angrily repulsed. The man was left for execution, and on the very morning fixed for it, a reprieve was sent down. His hon. Friend had been able to engage the attention of Lord Eldon to the case. Lord Eldon had induced the Judge to reserve the case. What was the result? The fifteen Judges, including the very Judge who so pertinaciously refused the appeal, decided that the conviction was wrong, and the culprit was recommended to a free pardon. This was the case of a man illegally convicted. What would have been his fate if his advocate had been one less determined, or even less influential than his hon. and learned Friend? He saw now below him his right hon. Friend the late Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Napier). He regretted to know that, very contrary to his expectations, he was now to encounter the opposition of that right hon. Gentleman. But he would not the less confidently appeal to him on a matter of fact. Some years since the right hon. Gentleman had been associated with him (Mr. Butt) in the defence of a gentleman accused of embezzlement. He was tried before a Judge, justly regarded as one of the most eminent of the Irish Judges. He (Mr. Butt) submitted to the Judge that the accused party had been, on the true construction of the statute, guilty of no legal offence. His right hon. Friend most ably sustained that view. He could not forget the determined manner in which they were told that to attempt to argue that point was only wasting the time of the court. Their client was convicted. Fortunately it was a trial in the Queen's Bench. They had the right of appeal, and did not rest in the discretion of the Judge. There was a motion before the full court, and on that motion the very Judge who had said that to argue the point was a waste of time, pronounced the unanimous decision of the Queen's Bench, that no offence against the law had been committed. And this occurred in a trial before one of the ablest of the occupants of the Irish Bench, one upon whose love of justice, upon whose judicial integrity and impartiality, the shadow of a suspicion had never been, and could not be, cast. He (Mr. Butt) did not hesitate to say that a measure which would give an absolute right of appeal against the ruling of a judge in point of law, would effect a reform in the administration of their criminal justice, as great and as valuable as any that had ever been introduced. The question as to appeal in matters of fact, was a different one. But why was the verdict of a jury in a criminal case, held to be infallible in a civil case, liable to correction? Did juries in criminal cases never find perverse verdicts, which it might need the calm discretion of the judges to control? Was innocence never discovered after a criminal was tried, which might materially alter the entire bearing of the case? Why, he asked, were verdicts set aside in civil cases upon grounds that were not admitted to invalidate them in criminal courts? The object of all trials was the same—the ascertainment of the truth. Surely it was not possible to contend that one mode of investigation was calculated to elicit truth in one class of cases, and not equally useful to attain the same end in another. No one, he apprehended, would deny that there were cases—cases, he feared, of not very rare occurrence—in which persons were erroneously found guilty by the verdicts of juries. In the eighth report of the Commissioners of Criminal Law, it was stated that during nine months of one shrievalty of London, that of Mr. Wilde, "no less than six persons had been capitally convicted at the Old Bailey, and left for execution, who were saved from death in consequence of investigations showing that they had been improperly convicted." In that admirable speech to which he had already referred, the speech of his hon. and learned Friend (Sir F. Kelly) in 1844, more than one instance was adduced in which verdicts in capital cases had been proved to be erroneous—one in which, after the execution of the supposed murderer, the real culprit had returned home from India, and confessed his crime. But these cases, which most clearly established the necessity of an appellate tribunal, were those in which, under the present system, verdicts of juries had been reinvestigated and proved erroneous when the fact of the reinvestigation had been obtained by the accidental interference of some one impressed with the belief that the verdict was unjust—cases like those six cases which occurred in the shrievalty of Mr. Wilde. These were the cases which, to his mind, conclusively established the ne- cessity of an appellate tribunal—the access to which was not to depend upon the chance of any interference—where the proceedings would be judicially conducted, and of the existence of which, and his right to appeal to it, every convicted prisoner would be aware. One such instance the House would permit him to mention, as it was deeply impressed on his memory: he had heard it many years ago from the lips of one whose name would be held in honour as long as the discoveries of science were appreciated—one of the best and the greatest men that ever shed lustre on the episcopal bench—Dr. Brinkly, the late and the last Bishop of Cloyne. Many years ago a man was tried at Monaghan, in Ireland, for murder: he was convicted and sentenced to death. In vain he most solemnly protested his innocence. The Judge who tried him entertained not the slightest doubt of his guilt; and, in reply to his appeal, he told him that so sure as the sun rose on the next Monday morning he should suffer the penalty of his supposed crime. This was at a period when, in cases of murder, but a short interval was permitted between the sentence and the execution. The trial had closed late on Friday evening. Fortunately he had lived in the parish of which Dr. Brinkly was then the rector. That day circumstances came to the knowledge of Dr. Brinkly, which induced him to believe that the verdict might possibly be wrong. He started instantly off for Dublin, travelling all night. He (Mr. Butt) believed the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Goulburn) was then Chief Secretary for Ireland. With some difficulty, and by earnest persuasion, Dr. Brinkly obtained on the Sunday a reprieve from the Lord Lieutenant. He travelled back with it on Sunday night, and it reached the Sheriff just in time to stay the execution. The circumstances were then investigated—the innocence of the accused man was conclusively established, and he (Mr. Butt) himself knew that man afterwards following his ordinary avocations, without the slightest imputation resting on him of a participation in the crime for which he had been condemned to death. Was it to accidents like these that they should leave the review of verdicts upon which human life was taken away? It was not in every case, or in every parish, that a Dr. Brinkly was to be found. If he had not been there, this man would have been executed for a murder of which he was innocent, and one would have never heard of it except, perhaps, as a case in which a criminal, whose guilt was clearly proved, persisted in asserting his innocence to the last. He would not pass from this subject without an allusion to a trial which had recently taken place in the city of Dublin, and which had excited public attention in no ordinary degree. In that case a gentleman had been convicted of the murder of his wife. Upon the subject of that conviction he would not say one word; but let the House observe what had occurred. If ever there was a case in which a crime ought to have been followed by the extreme penalty of the law, it was in this. The murder, if committed, was one of the blackest dye. The sentence had been commuted to transportation for life. Representations had been made to the Lord Lieutenant, which he presumed must have created some doubt of his guilt, or the capital sentence would have been carried out. Was this compromise a satisfactory mode of administering justice? Would it not have been infinitely better to have submitted all the facts which created the doubt to the ordeal of a second investigation in public, when either these facts might have resulted in an acquittal, or terminated in establishing the guilt of the accused? Had the right of applying for a new trial existed, that prisoner, instead of suffering a punishment, which, if he be innocent, is a grievous wrong to him; if he be guilty, a wrong to society; would now be either discharged from guilt, or have before this paid the penalty which, if guilty, he richly deserved. This very case supplied a striking illustration of the anomaly of the distinctions between civil and criminal cases. The question was, whether the prisoner had murdered his wife: that question was to be ascertained on the trial of an indictment affecting his life; and, therefore, it was not possible for him to apply for a new trial. No matter how much the evidence adduced against him may have been a surprise—no matter how effectually he could meet that evidence now—no matter what grounds he might now adduce for impeaching it—no matter what new evidence he might now be able to offer—there was no power to lay these facts before a court of justice and ask for a new trial. But the very same fact might have been tried in a civil action. A paper might have libelled that man by accusing him of the murder of his wife. If he had brought an action for that libel, a plea might have been put in that the libel was true. The issue in the civil and criminal proceeding would have been precisely the same. The matter of fact to be ascertained would be identical—the rules that regulated the investigation precisely the same. But if the finding of the jury had been in a civil case—when its only effect would be to deprive him of a right to pecuniary damages—then, indeed, he might appeal against that verdict; and if be satisfied a court that there were grounds for reinvestigation, succeed in obtaining a new trial. But because the very same jury, under the same circumstances, found that verdict, when the forfeiture of his life was the consequence, then he was not permitted the opportunity of showing that it was wrong. He felt how imperfectly he had submitted to the House the arguments upon which, with confidence, he asked the House to give this Bill a second reading. He had trespassed so long upon the attention of the House, and knowing that there was an anxiety to dispose of another question at that sitting, that he would not occupy their time by any detail of the provisions of the measure. The course which he meant to propose would perhaps make this unnecessary. If the House consented to the second reading of the Bill, he would move that it be referred to a Select Committee, where all its provisions and the whole subject would be deliberately canvassed. He believed that no one was disposed to deny that it was desirable to permit these appeals in criminal cases—if it were possible to frame a machinery by which the object could be attained without introducing into the administration of justice insuperable difficulties. It was not for him to say whether he had been able to effect this or not. He asked of the House to refer that to a Select Committee. In reading the Bill a second time, the House would only affirm that upon which he believed there was a general agreement of opinion that it was desirable to permit new trials in criminal cases if means could be devised by which they could be so grounded as not to interfere with the execution of justice. This was all that would be affirmed by the second reading of the Bill. He ought to mention, that the Bill, as be had framed it, applied only to Ireland. He felt, however, that they must now decide on it as an Imperial question. He felt that the measure could not be passed for Ireland alone; but he had limited the Bill as he had drawn it, solely because he did not feel himself sufficiently conversant with the state of the English courts to be confident that the machinery he proposed would be practicable in this country. He was able to say that it would be easy of application in Ireland. If, however, the House affirmed the second reading, then in Committee clauses might be prepared by those practically acquainted with the English courts, for the extension of the Bill to England, with such variations as might be necessary, if it appeared that the same provisions could be enacted for both countries: a single line could make it a general measure. He would only say, as to the details of the Bill, that in framing it, he had endeavoured to adhere to two leading principles. He had followed the principle of the law which gave the Court of Queen's Bench the control over all criminal judicatures. In the next place, he proposed that in no case should the mere fact of an appeal prevent the carrying out the sentence. The sentence of every court was to be treated as in full force, unless and until it was reversed. In cases where the punishment was imprisonment, this, no doubt, still left the person convicted to suffer a portion of his sentence before he had the opportunity of appealing; but he believed, upon the whole, that greater inconvenience would attend the effort to remedy this. In capital cases, he provided that, if necessary, a special tribunal should immediately hear the appeal. He had endeavoured to frame these provisions so as to prevent the possibility of appeals being prosecuted for the purpose of delaying the punishment, whatever it might be. He was confident he would best consult the feelings of the House by not going more at large into the details of the measure he proposed; and with these observations, and with the intention of referring it to a Select Committee, he now begged leave to move the second reading of the Bill.

said, he seconded the Motion, because he approved the principles of the Bill. He also approved its being referred to a Select Committee, and would suggest that the Committee should be instructed to hear evidence on the application of the powers of the Bill to England. The whole subject was full of difficulty; but it was of the utmost importance that the principle of the measure should be recognised by that House.

said, he thought that the adoption of this Bill would render the administration of criminal justice a matter of impossibility, because in every case of felony, where a convicted criminal had the power, an appeal would be sure to be lodged, and the time of the public would be wasted in trying over and over again cases about which no rational doubt existed, and the greatest encouragement would be given to the lowest class of practitioners. If we once appointed persons to the high and awful situation of criminal Judges, we must be content to rely upon it that they would not be disposed to treat lightly the grave responsibility which weighed upon them. The hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Butt) said that they allowed an appeal in civil cases with regard to property of a trifling amount, and asked why then they should refuse an appeal in cases where a man's life or his honour was at stake? Now, that was very much of an ad captandum argument, because it was well known that many nice and delicate questions of law often arose upon matters of property, which were entirely absent from criminal trials. He thought the law as it stood was sufficient for these cases, because under it the Judge, whenever he was dissatisfied with the evidence, always explained his doubts to the jury, and almost invariably the jury were guided by his recommendations. It would, therefore, in his opinion, be inexpedient to adopt the plan of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Youghal (Mr. Butt). To say that juries sometimes might make a mistake, was only saying that they were human beings; and so long as the feeling of the country was in favour of the maintenance of capital punishments, he hoped the Legislature would adhere to the present system of criminal administration, under which substantial justice was secured. The proposition of the hon. and learned Gentleman would go far also to diminish the responsibility of Judges and juries, by accustoming them to think that their decisions would not be final, and would thereby relieve them from that anxious attention which disposed them to take every circumstance of the case into full consideration. For these reasons he could not concur in the Motion.

Sir, if I felt that the principle of the Bill which the hon. and learned Gentleman proposes was one deserving of the consent of Parliament, and that the only question that could arise touched the details of the measure, I should willingly consent to the arrangement he proposes, namely, that this Bill should be read a second time, and referred to a Select Committee. But as the objection which I feel to his measure applies to its very principle and foundation, it is not in my power to assent to the second reading. Sir, my objections to the Bill are many. In the first place, even supposing that the measure was in principle right, I say that it ought certainly to apply to the whole of the United Kingdom. I object entirely to this piecemeal legislation, applying one law to England and another to Ireland, and one law to Ireland and another to England. In matter of such grave and universal application as this, it is a proof that the hon. and learned Member is doubtful as to the soundness of his own. principle, that he should have proposed to make this experiment in Ireland, instead of applying it broadly to the whole United Kingdom. However, I have a strong objection to the principle he wishes to establish. Sir, punishments are not intended as a vengeance inflicted upon persons who have committed crimes, but for the protection of society, as a means of deterring others from the commission of acts which have unfortunately rendered particular individuals amenable to the law; and there can be no greater advantage in the administration of the criminal law than that it should be as certain and as rapid in its operation as is consistent with the aims of justice. Lingering prosecutions may be harmless upon questions of property and civil rights; but in criminal cases they are detrimental to the interests of society. The hon. and learned Gentleman, it appears to me, has founded his proposal mainly upon the ground of the insufficiency of the present state of things for procuring just decisions; and he instances cases in which the verdicts of juries and the sentences of Judges have ultimately been found not to be consistent with right. But if he had been able to. show that there had been cases in which condemnation had been followed by the infliction of the penalty, and the discovery had been made too late to save an innocent man from the punishment he did not deserve, then I think the instances he adduced would have had more bearing in support of his proposal than those which he has cited to the House. Because the only instances which I happened to hear him state as examples in favour of his proposition were cases in which the existing arrangements had been found sufficient to rescue innocent men from punishment—

I did state one instance that was mentioned to me by the hon. and learned Member for East Suffolk (Sir F. Kelly), where an actual execution took place, and the real murderer afterwards returned from India.

The hon. and learned Gentleman adduces an instance which is one of no unfrequent occurrence, namely, that of a man who was a soldier in India, and who, being tired of the climate, and home-sick, and desiring to get out of the service, probably accused himself of a crime which he had never committed, in order to be sent home from a distant and foreign station. The hon. and learned Gentleman may not be conversant with matters of military detail; but if he will appeal to his friends in the Army, he will find that it is by no means an uncommon thing for a soldier to accuse himself of a crime of which he was never guilty, for the purpose of being removed from the station where he happened to be. My opinion is that the present state of the law does afford to an innocent man every possible security which human institutions can afford for freedom from unjust punishment. In the first place, the error may arise as to the facts of the case, or as to the law. If it arises as to the law of the case, the Judge, if he has any doubt on the subject, has it in his power to reserve the point of law for the decision of the Judges at large. Therefore, as regards the law of the case, there exists already that very power of appeal which this Bill proposes to give. Then, as to the facts of the case, it is the greatest mistake to suppose that when persons have been convicted of criminal offences there is not ample opportunity for them to resort to that quarter with which pardon or commutation by the constitution of the country, rests, namely, the Crown, through its constitutional advisers. Anybody who fills the office which I have the honour to hold, very well knows that there is no case in which there is—I do not say any probable ground for supposing the verdict or sentence to be erroneous, but no case in which there is the slightest pretence for so representing it, in which application is not made for a revision or commutation of the sentence. In the case of such an application, what then is the course pursued? The Secretary of State consults the Judge who presided at the trial—he examines with great deliberation all statements made in favour of the offender—he is assisted and guided by the opinion of the Judge, and he then exercises his own discretion in the matter. And, looking back at the course of official experience, I must say that the cases are more frequent in which punishment has been remitted where the strong probability was that it would have been well deserved, than the cases in which the sentence has been maintained where there has been any possible ground to suppose that the sentence was not deserved. I think that the point which was placed before us by the hon. and learned Gentleman who spoke last, is one of very great importance. Judges and jurymen now feel in criminal cases that a very grave responsibility is imposed upon them. They give the utmost and most conscientious attention to the case; they weigh everything, and they feel that upon the conclusion at which they arrive depends the life or the liberty of the person who stands before them. But if the Judge and the jury knew that their verdict was only a preliminary ceremony, and that whether they were right or wrong their sentence would be subjected to a subsequent examination, why, it would make, if not the Judge, at least the jury far more indifferent than they at present are to the case before them, and would lead to great laxity of practice in the administration in the first instance of criminal justice in this country; and I think it would be a very great evil if any change of the law were to bring that about. But, in the next place, only just see how the thing would work out. When cases arise with regard to right or to property, men have a great scruple of conscience as to making any deposition or statement not consistent with truth; and yet, even in these cases, we frequently see evidence brought before a Court which is found not to be based upon fact. But in matters which concern life or liberty, I am sorry to say that benevolent persons have very little conscience indeed; and I have seen in the ordinary routine of my office, too many examples of the truth of what I now state, because I have received applications, signed by a great number of respectable individuals, in favour of criminals with regard to whose guilt there could be no possible doubt, and who had committed the most atrocious primes. That is a matter of every-day occurrence; and not long ago a member of a most respectable community—the Society of Friends—actually endeavoured to induce a witness to absent himself from a trial in order to screen a man from punishment who had committed a serious crime, and whose guilt no human being could doubt. And I say that if you were to allow these second trials, you would have these "pious frauds" multiplied to an extent little contemplated by the advocates of this measure. Only suppose the case of a man who has been sentenced to capital punishment or transportation; he immediately appeals, his friends set to work, and go round the country asking people to sign papers, for the truth of which they declare they will be answerable, and then they send up to the Home Office representations totally unfounded in fact. Well, but if second trials were permitted, I venture to say that you would have perjury much beyond what the supporters of the Bill can possibly conceive. And what would be the position of the person condemned? Delay in the execution of a serious punishment is a great cruelty—delay beyond what is absolutely necessary for the ends of truth and justice is, in fact, a barbarity to the unfortunate prisoner. But you would keep the man waiting the result of a second trial, and he might have to be executed after all, and he would be kept in all the agony of such suspense for a very long period of time. Then I say that the law provides in truth and in practice that very appeal which the hon. and learned Gentleman would wish to establish—it provides it free from the objections to which the measure he proposes would be liable. But, further, I beg to ask if this House would agree to one-sided legislation on this subject? Why, what are criminal cases? The hon. and learned Gentleman spoke of them as if they were simply cases where the Crown prosecutes a criminal for murder, or some offence against the State. But criminal cases, I apprehend, will embrace cases of offences against individuals, such as assaults, or maiming, or wounding, or other cases in which injury is done to individuals as well as to society. Would the hon. and learned Gentleman, then, preclude the prosecutor from having a new trial as well as the defendant? Would that be just? A man was grievously wounded by an assailant, and almost killed by a bloody attack; the assailant was prosecuted, and convicted, and the hon. and learned Gentleman would give him a new trial. But suppose he was acquitted, why should not the prosecutor have a right to a new trial? Why, if you come to a question between man and man, what would be the justice of denying to a prosecutor the redress which he thinks, by a new trial, he would obtain? But would not this lead to inextricable confusion and endless delay? I object, therefore, to this proceeding altogether. I humbly submit to the House that the principle of the hon. and learned Gentleman's Bill is one that is objectionable in itself; that the present law provides a security where the Judge entertains doubts as to the law of the case; that the practice by which the prerogative of the Crown is administered provides a security where any doubt arises as to the facts of the case; that the examples which have been quoted are examples to show that the present system does protect accused persons from the unjust infliction of a sentence, because most of the cases so quoted were instances in which the sentences have been remitted: therefore I think that, while on the one hand the proposal is objectionable in principle; on the other hand, the hon. and learned Gentleman has failed to show that any injustice has been committed under the present state of the law, that calls for the alteration which he recommends. But, more than that, if these objections did not apply, the hon. and learned Gentleman is aware that there is a Commission now employed in revising the whole of our criminal code; and of course if this matter appears to them in the same light as it does to the hon. and learned Gentleman, this point is not likely to escape the researches or the consideration of that Commission. For all these reasons, therefore, I propose that this Bill be read a second time this day six months.

said, that after listening to what had fallen from the noble Lord, one would suppose that the public were entirely satisfied with the administration of the criminal law as it at present existed, and that an appeal to the Home Office was sufficient for all purposes. But there were men in high judicial office who took a very different view of the subject. Chief Baron Pollock, in his evidence before the Commission, referred to the fact that in 1827, in the course of five months, no less than seven cases of improper convictions were discovered by the father and brother of the present Lord Truro, and were, by their exertions, saved from the penalties of the law. It would be more satisfactory to individuals in a case of life and death to have the power of appeal, than to depend on a reference to the Home Department. As to the argument that the prosecutor ought to have a power of appeal in the case of what he might consider an unjust acquittal, that was quite a new view of the case. The prosecutor was no more than a witness; he was incidentally the person who brought the case before the Court, but he had no more interest in the prosecution than any other person in the country. All that was proposed by this Bill was to give the same remedy to the poor as was now enjoyed by the rich in cases of misdemeanour. Such a measure was absolutely necessary when they considered what manner of men constituted the common juries on the circuits. They were chiefly farmers and men of a class wholly unaccustomed to balance evidence; and yet these men were often called upon to decide on the most difficult questions, involving matters of the highest consideration to the parties concerned. This would not be the case if the law were fairly enforced, and if the country gentlemen and men of rank were made to take their place on the common juries of this country, as they ought to do. If the noble Lord would bring about that reform, the difficulty which this Bill was intended to meet, would be very much obviated. As the matter now stood, the verdict, in nine cases out of ten, was that of the Judge, and not of the jury. With regard to appeals on questions of law, the noble Lord appeared satisfied with the power now reserved to the Judges upon that point; but he (Mr. Phinn) differed from the noble Lord in that respect. A case occurred at Exeter where eight or nine men were tried for piracy. The general opinion of the bar was, that the Court had not jurisdiction to try them. The men were convicted; the Judge refused to reserve the question for the consideration of the superior tribunal; and if it had not been for the hon. and learned Member, who defended the prisoners, they might have been all executed without the slightest power of appeal. The case, however, was argued before the Judges, and thirteen out of the fifteen held that the Judge who presided at the trial was wrong, and that the objection to the jurisdiction made by counsel was right. Persons were constantly convicted for committing rapes, and, when the cases were afterwards inquired into, the whole stories were discovered to be so many fabrications. It was true, after months of imprisonment, the Home Office pardoned the parties; but, instead of returning to their homes liberated as an act of justice done them by the law of the country, they received their liberation as an act of clemency, and had that as a favour which they ought to have had as a right. He would remind the noble Lord of the trial and conviction, some time ago, of an attorney named Barber, for forgery. It was the conviction of many who heard the trial that he was innocent; but he was transported, and subjected to the most degrading labour and restraint for years. His friends appealed to the Home Office without effect, until at last the noble Lord's predecessor in that office (Mr. Walpole) went carefully through the whole details of the transaction, and granted Mr. Barber a pardon, first upon condition that he would not return to this country, and afterwards extended it to a free and unconditional pardon. If Mr. Barber could have appealed to a Judge, he would have been acquitted as a matter of right; his character would have been retrieved, and he would have been restored to the exercise of his profession. But what had been the consequence? Mr. Barber had been thrown out of his business as an attorney; he appealed to the Court of Queen's Bench; that Court differed from the Secretary of State, and thought the facts were inconsistent with the man's innocence; and thus they had the anomaly of a man enjoying the Queen's free pardon, as though he were innocent, and yet labouring under all the civil disadvantages of a man who was guilty. Such a state of things surely called for a remedy. This Bill would furnish such a remedy, and would relieve the Home Secretary from the numerous applications that were now made to him, because his answer to the parties would then be, "Apply to the Court of Appeal." He (Mr. Phinn) regretted that the Bill was not general in its application; but some of its provisions could be revised. It was, therefore, desirable that it should be sent before a Select Committee, which should be directed to examine into the whole subject, especially as the Report of the Commissioners on the Criminal Law was favourable to the proposal. At present every other nation of Europe, as well as the United States, had adopted an analogous measure to this; and he did feel that, until some such mode of affording redress to injured and innocent persons was provided, the administration of our system of criminal justice could never be satisfactory.

said, that after the most careful consideration he was perfectly convinced that it would be prejudicial to give an appeal for a second trial in criminal cases. The question turned upon the balance of convenience and inconvenience. Of course the whole proceedings, one way or the other, must be attended with some imperfections and some disadvantages. It was, therefore, not enough to show that certain advantages might follow any particular alteration of the law; but it must appear on which side the balance of justice and convenience preponderated. The power on the part of the Judge to reserve points of law for the consideration of the Superior Courts was to be retained by this Bill; and the question was, whether it should not be obligatory on the Judge to reserve whatever points were insisted upon by the counsel of the prisoner. He had for a great many years had a considerable practical acquaintance with the administration of criminal justice, and he never knew an instance in which, ultimately, any point that counsel thought to be favourable to his client was not reserved by the Judge. It had always been considered that a second trial would be attended with many circumstances unfavourable to the prisoner, owing to the chances there would be of a defectiveness of evidence, and also owing to the prejudice likely to arise from the certificate that was to be given by the Judge who had presided at the former trial as to his being satisfied or not with the evidence adduced on that trial. The admission of written testimony in case of a second trial would be a most dangerous innovation, as the value of evidence depended, in a great measure, on cross-examination, for which there would be no opportunity. But then it was suggested that a second trial might follow an acquittal; but his humble opinion was, that, when the public prosecutor had once brought a man to trial, and there was any miscarriage in the criminal proceedings, that man should never be put upon his trial again. Mansfield, Hale, Denman, the present Lord Chief Justice of England, the Chief Baron of the Exchequer, the late Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and all the Judges in Ireland to whom he had spoken on the subject, were unfavour- able to a second trial in criminal cases; and both in and out of the House judicial opinions were always entitled to the greatest weight from the character of mind of those eminent persons. Finality was the great element of the petty jury, and for the purpose of obtaining it the procedure in criminal cases was surrounded with the greatest formalities before trial. There were the sworn information, the proceedings before the magistrates, the investigations before the grand jury, and all the other incidents of a criminal prosecution, in order to give every opportunity to the accused to know the evidence against him, and then to refer the question of his guilt finally to the petty jury. None of these proceedings took place in a civil suit, because they were not necessary, The Bill of the hon. and learned Member, if objectionable in England, would be singularly inapplicable to Ireland, because there the Attorney General acted as public prosecutor, and sifted the evidence in every criminal case, and the only object he had was to obtain truth and justice, and not make the Crown, as it were, a litigant party acting against the accused. Where the Judge felt that the verdict was—if there had been a conviction—wrong, he would feel bound to notify this to the Secretary of State, who would, of course, issue a free pardon; whereas the proposal in this measure was, that in such cases the prisoner should be put to the peril of a second trial. Instances might be found in olden times illustrating the danger of such a measure. In the reign of Elizabeth a man was tried for murder, and the foreman delivered a verdict of manslaughter, which the rest of the jury disclaimed. The Court asked the prisoner if he would elect to discharge the jury from giving a verdict on that trial, which he agreed to do; no verdict but a unanimous one being a verdict according to the English law, and a trial not being completed until the verdict, the prisoner was accordingly arraigned again and convicted of murder and executed. The jury were thus constituted judges of questions of fact, and it would be most injurious to encourage the Judge to set up his opinion against them. He (Mr. Napier) had, in all his experience, never heard of more than one verdict which he believed wrong, and that was on the question of identity—a case in which the jury made a mistake, and it was remedied the very next day. Those clauses of the Bill which related to the Court of Queen's Bench conferred no pow- ers not already in existence; and it would be most inconvenient to give to the Lord Chancellor a discretionary power, in cases of life and death, to issue Commissions of review—

said, he must explain that the provision referred to only regulated the form of procedure by which a Commission would issue under the Great Seal.

said, the Bill certainly gave the Lord Chancellor power to issue Commissions of review in criminal cases; Commissions which might, perhaps, be directed to young and inexperienced barristers, who might order an acquittal to be entered on the record without any verdict at all. They were to have five gentlemen nominated as Commissioners, and three of these could set aside the finding of twelve men on their oaths, without knowing the facts and the evidence of the case. He never would consent to such a step, which would, in fact, revolutionise the law. The hon. and learned Member had referred to the case of Kirwan, which was certainly a very remarkable one, and he had adverted to the change in the sentence, and to certain new evidence after trial which could not be made available. He might be permitted to say he never could forget the anxiety in which he passed day after day while that case was pending. If this Bill had been law, he admitted he might have been saved much of it—Kirwan might have had another trial, and what the result of it might have been he would not pretend to say; but this he would say, that every care had been taken in examining the evidence, and the utmost vigilance exercised by those who were intrusted with it. He had been very sorry to see the reports in the public press here, which were very inaccurate, and he could assure the House that the greatest care was taken in examining the evidence of every witness. With respect to the new evidence which had been referred too, that too had been examined with the greatest particularity. Why were not those persons sent before the grand jury? Because when they appeared before the Crown solicitors, and were examined in the office, they had no evidence to offer. After the trial these persons said they bad evidence to offer; but, if so, why had it not been given at first? When sentence had been passed, and doubts were suggested as to the evidence by which the prisoner was found guilty, the Judges communicated with the Lord Lieutenant, and, on their recommendation, Kirwan was sentenced to transportation for life. That charge was open to a good deal of comment; but he knew that one of the English Judges, after having examined the whole case, agreed in the propriety of the recommendation. To show the care which had been taken with the evidence, he might mention that he had obtained tables of the tide from some of the fellows of Trinity College, and that the height of the tide at the time could have been ascertained to one half of an inch. So anxious had he felt on the question of Kirwan's sentence that he kept away, having his doubts of the propriety of the recommendation, lest the Government should ask his opinion respecting it. He did not interfere, however, and if a mistake was made it was on the side of mercy. He considered there was no case for the Bill, though he admitted he should like to see amendments in the preliminary procedure, and that the jury system was capable of great amendment, He hoped he should Jive to sec the appointment of a Minister of Justice; but he trusted he should never see a change in the criminal law of this country by which the verdict of a jury could be set aside by men who had never heard the evidence, and he would exercise every privilege and every opportunity which he possessed to resist it.

said, he had not yet heard a single argument against the principle of the Bill. Judges, like all other men, were fond of irresponsible authority, and if their authority had been always regarded as decisive, men could now be hanged for stealing to the value of 13d., pleadings would still be in Latin, and not one of the great reforms in the law would ever have taken place. Lord Denman had well declared that it was against all principle to leave it in the breast of the Judge who had committed a mistake, to say whether it should be revised or not. In the case of the pirates tried at Exeter, twelve of the thirteen Judges, who heard the case argued in the Exchequer Chamber, were against the Judge who tried the men at the assizes. He thought the man who was accused of a capital crime or a felony, should have the same rights and privileges as the man who was sued for the worth of 6d. The noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston) said, that punishments ought to be certain and immediate. For this latter object we had been, in modern times, in the habit of hanging men forty-eight hours after sentence; and Lord Coke had observed, that this baste was contrary to the principles and practice of antiquity, whose maxim was, De mortehominis nulla cunclatio longa est. In the olden times the law was more humane. Between arrest and trial the prisoner had fifteen days; and after conviction he had thirty or forty days to arrest judgment; but now a man might be arrested, bills; might be sent up to the grand jury, and trial and sentence take place in five or six hours, without any delay or remedy whatever. He objected to the mode of discharging prisoners after sentence by statements laid before the Secretary of State, who could not examine a witness on oath, who held his inquiry ex parte in secret, and who frequently ordered the release of the convict before the prosecutor knew even of the inquiry. Why should the Secretary of State be substituted for a jury? What did he know of the facts adduced before the jury? Let the noble Lord consider there were two parties in all these cases. In cases of rape, for instance, a young woman might suffer the greatest possible injustice by the interference of a Secretary of State, if, when she went back to her native place, the man who had wronged her was set free, for it would be at once said, that, though a jury had believed her story, the Secretary of State was satisfied there was no ground for the charge she had made, and that she was, in fact, both unchaste and perjured. The noble Lord had referred to a case of endeavouring to induce a witness to absent himself, for the purpose of frustrating justice by withholding evidence. Why had he failed in his duty, and not directed the person who attempted this to be prosecuted? Not having heard a single valid argument urged against the principle of this Bill, and believing that a man, when tried for his life, ought to have the same protection as when sued for money, he should give his decided support to this measure.

said, that after the strong and conclusive arguments which had been urged against the principle of the Bill, he should not have thought it necessary to occupy the time of the House with any further observations with respect to it, had not reference been made to two cases which occurred when he was Secretary of State for the Home Department. He believed that this Bill would lead to delays in the administration of criminal justice, tending to impair its efficiency; while at the same time it would not provide a remedy in such cases as had been adduced as a ground for its proposition. And so far from tending to facilitate the acquittal of accused persons, its tendency would, he thought, be to increase convictions. The hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Butt) proposed to give the prisoner an absolute right of appeal on points of law, to be followed by a new trial if the decision of the Judges was in his favour. Now he (Sir G. Grey) could not see why there should be a new trial when the only doubt with respect to the validity of the conviction arose on a point of law. But the hon. and learned Gentleman also proposed to give the prisoner a right to go to the Superior Courts and ask for a new trial, in case the Judge who tried the case should certify that the conviction was based on defective evidence. On this point he referred to the case in which a prisoner, having been capitally convicted, to the satisfaction of the Judge, and left for execution, the exercise of the Royal prerogative was interposed in consequence of the exertions of some persons who had brought facts together tending to shake the verdict. But how would that case be provided for by the Bill before the House, since the Judge would not have certified for a new trial? Precisely the same might be said with respect to the instance which had been adduced of certain prisoners who were undergoing sentence of transportation; when, several years after their conviction, facts were discovered which so satisfied the Secretary of State of their innocence that he advised the grant of a free pardon. It was quite clear that this case would not have been met by this Bill, because the Judge would not have granted a certificate here; and while the right to apply for a new trial must necessarily be limited to a few days after the beginning of the next term after the trial, the new circumstances which induced the Secretary of State to grant a pardon were not discovered until some years afterwards. In like manner, in the case of Barber the attorney, the facts which ultimately induced the Secretary of State to grant a pardon did not come to light until some years after his conviction, which commanded the entire assent of the presiding Judge. It was said, indeed, that the Home Office was a secret tribunal, and was a most unsatisfactory medium for the administration of the criminal law. It was, however, clearly impossible that it could be relieved from the responsibility which at present attached to it on this head, in cases where new circumstances came to light after the expiration of the time for applications for a new trial. He believed that with the legal advice which the Secretary of State had at his command, the present system answered the ends of justice, and that when any reasonable doubt existed as to the propriety of a verdict of conviction, the prisoner obtained the benefit of that doubt. As Secretary of State for the Home Department, he should frequently have been glad to be relieved from the responsibility which attached to the exercise of this power. He believed—without speaking particularly of the cases in which he had been personally interested—that the present system did answer the ends of justice, and secure a favourable administration of the law as respected prisoners. He did not think this Bill would favour the acquittal of innocent persons, because juries would, if it were passed, be much less likely than they were at present to give a prisoner the benefit of any doubt. The hon. and learned Member for Bath (Mr. Phinn) supported the Bill because he said that the verdicts of juries were generally wrong. But if that were so, what remedy would be given by the present Bill, which proposed to give an appeal from the verdict of one jury merely to that of another? There was, he thought, a clear distinction between civil and criminal cases, because in the former case the verdict of a jury vested property in one of two parties, who could not be divested of it by any exercise of the Royal prerogative, and therefore here a new trial was absolutely necessary, unless injustice was to be perpetuated. On these grounds he must most decidedly oppose the second reading of the Bill.

said, he opposed the Bill on the ground that it would put every party concerned in a criminal trial in a false position, and must inevitably lead to an accumulation of false testimony. The law had now made twelve men on their oaths the arbiters of the life or death of a prisoner. Now could it be supposed that if this Bill passed, any Judge to whom an appeal was made on the part of a prisoner to interpose between him and the final sentence of the law, would take upon himself the responsibility of refusing to do so? A new trial would, therefore, be granted in every case where it was asked for, and a door would thus be opened to the greatest possible evil—that of subsequently making good testimony which had been defective on the first trial.

in reply, said, that after what had fallen from the right hon. Baronet (Sir G. Grey), he thought he should best consult the object he had in view by not pressing the second reading to a division. He would reserve to himself, however, the right of moving for such an inquiry as had been hinted at by the hon. Baronet. There was one point on which he desired to correct the right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Napier). By his Bill he had had no intention to give a discretion to the Lord Chancellor in the way supposed by the right hon. and learned Gentleman. He regarded the admission as to the right of appeal in a prisoner in case of difference as to law an important one, and one, which if carried out, would create a great improvement in the present code.

said, he begged to move that the Bill be read a third time this day six months. This Bill was a Reform Bill, and a Reform Bill brought forward from the Opposition side of the House, with every evil that every Reform Bill had hitherto had in it. Framed upon narrow exceptions, and from ephemeral purposes, without taking any grasp of the past in order to become a guide for the future—he would not say brought in with any personal interest or with a personal application, for he was desirous of placing the matter upon a foundation which should effectually exclude from consideration all its personal effects—it did not look to history as a guide for the future—it did not consider that the things which had occurred in any past times might, and assuredly would, occur in future times—and it wanted to deprive this House of many of those advantages which it had had in past times, upon a speculation of what might occur in the future. It was as true in politics as it was in grammar, that—

"Multa renascentur quæ nunc cecidere, cadentque Quæ jam sunt in honore."

There was nothing which had occurred in former times which they might not see again. He would not refer to historical antiquity to prove the importance which that House had ever entertained of the advantage of having men of great judicial capacity sitting amongst them. He might refer to the time when that House considered the presence of Serjeant Maynard so important to its discussions that one of Mr. Speaker's predecessors was requested to send his warrant to command his attendance during the discussions in that House. He would, however, allude no further back than to things which bad occurred within his own memory, to most of which he was himself a witness, and of which he might say, Quorum pars parva fui. He would not refer to the period when Sir William Grant, Sir William Scott, and various others of minor note were sitting in that House; he would allude only to those few instances in which he thought no one would dispute that the presence of such, men was highly desirable. The first instance to which he would refer, and which he very well remembered, was that of the seizure of the Danish fleet in consequence of an alleged secret treaty of which the Government was in possession, but of which they could not bring forward positive proof. He remembered the debates upon that subject perfectly well. The Opposition, very naturally and very properly, joined issue upon two grounds: first, as to the fact whether this treaty was in existence; and, secondly, whether, supposing they had possession of that treaty, they were justified in the seizure. There could be no doubt it was a question of immense importance, and the presence of those men to whom he had alluded in that House, added greatly to the weight of its decision. The next case was that of the King's illness, at the time when Pitt and Fox were at the head of parties. He remembered very well being of opinion, although, he believed, he voted on the other side, that the arguments of Mr. Fox were the weightier on that subject. At all events, it must be admitted, that questions of disputable succession to the Crown were those which, of all questions, required the most calm and deliberate consideration by men competent to entertain and decide upon them. The next case he remembered was that respecting the Orders in Council. Then there was the case, a most important one, regarding the rights of neutrals, which were almost established during the last war by the decision of Sir William Scott; and those decisions were continually brought before that House and made the subject of debate there. It would be said that these things were not likely to occur again; but he differed from those who thought so. Did they not see anything in the new claims which the Americans were putting forward to make it very probable that the next war would involve cases far more complicated and difficult to deal with than those he had alluded to? The Americans said they had a right to expel from their continent every European nation. Was it nothing, too, for them to say that they would nurture buccaniers in their ports, and to declare that they had no power to prevent men from going forth upon whatever predatory excursions they pleased? Then came the right of search, a very delicate question, admirably managed by the Earl of Aberdeen when he was at the Foreign Office. Did not the House think the question of the right of search would become more complicated in the next war than it was now? For all these questions, and many more that might be enumerated, it was of great importance to have men of eminent ability in that House. But he was told, in answer to this, that it was not seemly for grave Judges to be canvassing such people as 5l. voters. Well, this might be a very good reason for disfranchising 5l. householders, but it was no reason whatever why learned and fit men should not canvass them. He could not understand how it was derogatory to the dignity of any man whatever to do so, nor would he believe that any Gentleman was degraded by this canvass, or that it was not possible to canvass men, let their difference of station be what it might, without losing their personal respect. He (Mr. Drummond) differed so entirely from the noble Lord's measure, that no Reform Bill for the future should receive his assent which did not provide for increasing the number of men of ability in that House. He earnestly wished to see the old principle which gave Members to the English Universities carried out to a much greater degree; and, as the number of Universities had been extended, the number of University representatives should be extended also; and Members should be given, not only to the Scotch and Irish Universities, but also to the inns of court and other learned bodies. In the operations on both sides of the House, hon. Members appeared to have combined to exclude men of ability. On the Ministerial side they brought in a Bill to exclude all property, and on the Opposition side to exclude all brains; and so their notion of forming that House was to make it a mass of pauperism and ignorance. That was Socialism; and whenever they had made that House a place for persons without property and without intelligence, the sooner they fell into the hands of a military despot the better.

seconded the Amendment.

Sir, I cannot suffer the House to proceed to a division on this question without expressing the very strong feeling which I entertain upon the subject. I shall vote with all my heart and soul for the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey. I never gave a vote in my life with a more entire confidence that I was right; and I must say that I think it hardly creditable to the House that a Bill against which so much can be said, and for which there is so little to be said, should have come to this stage without a division. On what ground is this Bill brought in? Is it brought forward on the ground, which is the only one on which, as I should conceive, a great statesman—a Conservative statesman—could ever propose any important reform—is it brought forward on the ground that the present state of the law has produced any practical evil whatever? That ground is utterly disclaimed by all those who support the Bill. No one of them has asserted that in any single case any inconvenience, during the experience of ages, has arisen from our permitting the Master of the Rolls to have a seat in this House. The office of the Master of the Rolls and the House of Commons commenced their existence, I think, in the same generation—certainly in the same century. During 600 years the Master of the Rolls has been eligible to a seat in this House. To go back no further than the time of the Hanoverian succession, we have had amongst the most distinguished Members of this House a succession of Masters of the Rolls—Sir Joseph Jekyll, Strange, Kenyon, Pepper Arden, Sir William Grant, Sir John Leach, Sir John Copley, Sir Charles Pepys, and Sir John Romilly. Is it pretended that in any one case any one of these eminent Judges ever, in any respect, discharged his judicial duties less efficiently because he was admitted to a seat in this House? And if not, I ask if it is the part of a wise man—if it is, above all, the part of a Conservative politician, to propose to alter a system which has existed for six centuries, and against which it is not alleged that it has ever, in any single case, produced any single inconvenience, solely because it does not appear to the House to square with an abstract principle? Well, and what is this abstract principle? It is that it is desirable to separate politics from judicial functions. "Nothing is so hateful"—I think these were the words of the noble Lord who brought in this Bill—"nothing is so hateful as a political Judge. The union of the political and judicial character is contrary to a principle so sacred, that even when we cannot find that the union has produced any pernicious effect in the experience of centuries, yet, in order to be true to a general theory, we ought to provide against the possibility of its occurrence." Well now, I say that if I adopt the noble Lord's principle, I must pronounce this Bill the most wretched and pitiable reform that was ever proposed—the most homoeopathic dose that ever quack proposed for the widest spread malady. For if the noble Lord considers the nature of the political and judicial institutions of this country, he will find the political and judicial character so combined, so interwoven from the top to the bottom of our system, that the reform he proposes to make will be a mere infinitesimal change when compared with the system he proposes to amend. It has been asked, with great justice, if the Master of the Rolls is to be excluded, why not the Recorder of London also? I should be extremely sorry to see the Recorder of London excluded from this House; but I must say that the reasons for excluding him are ten times as strong as those for excluding the Master of the Rolls. But, to go still further—why exclude the Recorder of London alone?—why not all Recorders, and all Chairmen of Quarter Sessions? I will venture to say that there are much stronger reasons for excluding Chairmen of Quarter Sessions than for excluding the Master of the Rolls. I have attended Quarter Sessions formerly. I have seen presiding over the Quarter Sessions of a great county a man of the most eminent abilities—one of the most able and expeditious Judges I ever saw—but a Member of Parliament, a Very keen politician, a very decided party man. He was a man who had made a Motion that had upset a Ministry—he was a man who before the end of his life occupied a seat in the Cabinet; and this distinguished Member of Parliament, himself the head of the Blue interest, as it was called in the county, would have had to try for an election riot any Orange rioters. He took a very conspicuous part in the case of the Queen—so much so indeed that he was hooted by the mob of London—nay, I am not sure that he was not pelted. He then went home to his county, there to try people for breaking the windows of those who would not light up in honour of the Queen's acquittal. You leave persons of this kind to be Members of this House, and you exclude the Master of the Rolls; although nothing can be more notorious than this, that whenever the nation has been in a discontented state, whenever there has been any disposition to outrage and turbulence, you have had universally the whole democratic press crying out that the Chairmen of Quarter Sessions, the unpaid magistracy, were not to be trusted in the administration of justice with regard to the friends of liberty. So loud were these cries at one time, that I remember Mr. Canning, in one of his most eloquent speeches, saying that one of the worst signs of the times was, that here, in this House, there was a growing distrust of the conduct of gentlemen of this kind in political cases. Yet you allow forty or fifty of these judges to be Members of this political assembly, and to exercise political and judicial functions, but would exclude a Judge whose functions are such, that since the time of Edward I., neither he nor any of his predecessors have been accused even by calumny, or have ever been suspected, of using their judicial power for political ends. You turn him out, because, forsooth, you say you hate political Judges. Well, but even if I were to admit there is something in the functions of the Master of the Rolls which makes it peculiarly important that he should take no part in politics, I should still vote against the Bill before the House as being utterly inconsistent and inefficient. Because, as you say, it is unfit that he should sit in a political assembly, you shut him out from the House of Commons. If it be unfit that the Master of the Rolls should be a member of political assemblies, why not exclude him from all political assemblies? But you do no such thing. You shut him out of this House, but leave the House of Lords still open to him. Is that not a political assembly? And is it not notoriously the fact that for several centuries Judges have always had considerable sway in that House, nay, that they have very often had a decided ascendancy in that House? Is it not perfectly notorious that Lord Hardwicke—a great Judge—long ruled that House?—that he bequeathed that power to another Judge, equally famous—Lord Mansfield; and that when his energy decayed he bequeathed the power he had received from Lord Hardwicke to a third Judge—Lord Thurlow—who was succeeded in his turn by Lord Eldon? We many of us can remember how powerful a political influence Lord Eldon exercised in that House—how he made and unmade Ministries—with what veneration, approaching to idolatry, he was regarded by one great party in this country—with what peculiar aversion by the other. When Lord Eldon's long domination over the Lords ceased, there arose both Whig and Tory Lord Chancellors who divided or contended for power in that House. Some who are here can remember, and no one who had then a seat in this House can have forgotten—those first ten days of October, 1831. It was the most alarming and exciting crisis during my life. It was the time at which that great debate of many nights took place in the House of Lords which ended in the rejection of the Reform Bill on the second rending. God forbid we should ever see such another crisis! I certainly can never hope to hear such a debate again. It was, indeed, a great and most splendid display of every kind and variety of ability. I dare say some of those are here, who, like myself, waited all that last night—waited until the late daybreak of an autumn morning—for the result of the division—walking up and down the Court of Requests, crowding and squeezing to reach the doors of the House of Lords—pleased if we could catch a word of that wonderful conflict of oratory. And there, in the front rank of either side, appeared two Judges leading the opposite parties—Lord Brougham, the Lord Chancellor of England, on the one side—and Lord Lyndhurst, the Chief Baron, on the other. How we hung on their words! How eagerly they were read before noon that day by hundreds of thousands through the country! What fearful excitement they caused!—excitement proved a few hours later by the disasters of Nottingham and the sack of Bristol. And yet this so exciting and important arena the noble Lord, who hates political Judges, is perfectly willing to leave open to the Master of the Rolls. His objection is not to the union of the political and judicial functions, but simply to the union of the judicial character of the Master of the Rolls with that of a Member of the House of Commons. The Master of the Rolls may be—the noble Lord has not the least objection to it—the soul of a great party—the head of a great party—the leader of a democracy, the leader of an aristocracy—he may use all his powers of oratory or sophistry to enlist the passions or mislead the understandings of the Senate; but it must not be in this room; he must go a few hundred feet from where we are assembled; he must sit on a red bench and not on a green one; he must say "My Lords," and not "Mr. Speaker," and then the noble Lord is perfectly willing to allow him to form part of a political assembly. But I am understating the case; indeed, I am greatly understating it. For this union of the judicial and political character in the other House is not a mere accidental union. The fact is, not only that a Judge may be made a Peer, but that all the Peers, as Peers, are necessarily Judges. Why, no foreigner who had been admitted to the gallery of this House, and had heard the noble Lord laying down the principle that we should make a change in the law in order to prevent the union of the political and judicial character, could ever have imagined that in this country the supreme Court of the realm is a great political assembly; that to this assembly go up appeals from all the Courts of equity and law in this country, from the Courts in Scotland and in Ireland, and from this very Master of the Rolls himself. Is it not perfectly clear that if the principle of the noble Lord was sound, he should begin, not with the Master of the Rolls, but with the House of Lords? For, can any position be clearer than this, that it is more important that the Court above should be constituted on right principle than the Court below? If the Master of the Rolls goes wrong, the House of Lords may correct him; but who is to correct the errors of the House of Lords? The noble Lord is perfectly content that their Lordships shall, in the morning, sit as Judges upon questions which affect the liberties and the property and the character of every man amongst us; that they shall decide these in the last resort—shall pronounce determinations which, until they are altered by Act of Parliament, are absolutely binding on all the ordinary tribunals of the realm—the Master of the Rolls amongst them; and then that in the afternoon the same Lords shall meet as politicians, and debate—sometimes pretty sharply, and sometimes in such a way that, if you, Sir, were among them, you would call them to order—and debate such questions as the Canadian Clergy Reserves, Irish Education, or the Government of India. And to all this the noble Lord says he has no objection whatever. Here, then, you have a judicial system in which the exercise of political functions is combined with the judicature both above and below. If we pass this Bill it will probably be taken up to the House of Lords by men who have judicial functions, and will there be taken out of their hands by the Lord Chancellor, who is a Cabinet Minister, and at the same time the highest Judge in the realm—and this mummery we call "purifying the administration of justice from all political function." Ob, no, it is nothing of the kind. This is a Bill for the purpose of purifying the administration of justice! If justice does need such purification it is utterly ineffectual; it is effectual for one purpose and for one purpose only—the purpose which has been so ably noticed by my hon. Friend—it is effectual only for the purpose of weakening and degrading the House of Commons. This is not the first time that a similar attempt has been made. More than 150 years ago there was a very great and general outcry—and a just one—there was great reason for it—against the number of placemen in Parliament, and the immense influence of the Crown—an evil which did admit of remedy; and a remedy was tried by well intentioned men (and I doubt not that the noble Lord is well-intentioned), but rash and shortsighted men—a remedy that would have produced evils far worse than the disease they desired to cure. They brought in an Act of Parliament which provided that no person who held any office under the Crown should be permitted to sit in this House. The clause was not to take effect until after the accession of the House of Hanover; but, happily for this House and for the country, it was repealed before that accession took place. If it had not been repealed, it is easy to see what its effect would have been. It was said by those who defended it that it would purify the Parliamentary atmosphere; that the influence of the Crown, which was so fatal to the interests of the people, would be done away, and it was but just that the servant of the nation should be the servant of the nation alone. The supporters of that Bill asked, how could a person who was deeply interested in supporting the prerogative of the Crown, be a faithful guardian of the liberties of the people? That was specious—but no more; for no person can doubt what the effect would have been of that clause in an Act of Parliament, if it had remained the law. The effect would have been to degrade that branch of the Legislature that springs from the people, and to elevate the hereditary aristocracy. All the Ministers of the Crown must necessarily have been Peers, and all the eminent Members of the House of Commons would have made it their object to obtain a peerage. As soon as any man by his eloquence, or by his knowledge of business, had raised himself to such distinction that he was selected to be Chancellor of the Exchequer—First Lord of the Admiralty—Secretary of State—First Lord of the Treasury—Secretary at War, or no matter what, he would instantly turn his back on what would have been then emphatically the "Lower" House, and would have gone to that House in which alone it would have been possible for him to display his great ability for the administration of public affairs. Sir Robert Walpole, the first Pitt, the second Pitt, Fox, Canning, Peel—all the men whose fame is inseparably associated with the House of Commons—whose names are mentioned with pride—whose memories must he in the recollection of every one who passes through St. Stephen's Chapel, the old scene of their conflicts and of their triumphs—all these men, in the prime and vigour of life, would have become Peers; while the conflict of opinions having been transferred from the House of Commons to the House of Lords, it would be utterly impossible for the House of Commons, left without a single statesman conversant with high and grave questions, of alliances, of peace, of war, to give as this House has given, and as I hope it always will give, a general direction to the whole external and internal polity of the realm. Then all Europe would have been looking to the great conflicts of Pitt and Fox in the House of Lords, and the House of Commons would have been left to look after turnpike roads and canals. That is the exact spirit of the legislation in which you are now invited to proceed. It is true that the evils to be apprehended from this Bill are not so extensive; but still they are very serious, because the tendency of this Bill, and of similar Bills, is to make this House decidedly less efficient than it once was, and decidedly less efficient than the House of Lords is now, for all the most important purposes of a legislative assembly. I have heard this question argued as if the only business of the House of Commons was party struggling—as if the only thing which a learned and eminent Judge would have to do in this House would be to vote on questions where the effect would be to turn out one set of men, and to bring another set in. It is not so. Party struggles, no doubt, there always will be; but there is an abundant and extensive province of Parliamentary labour that lies quite remote from the contentions of parties, and in which a great jurist can render immeasurable and inestimable service, and obtain for himself an imperishable name. And if ever there was a time when such a jurist was needed in this House, and was likely to be justly appreciated, it is the present. No observant man can fail to perceive that there is in the public mind a general, a growing and earnest, and at the same time, I must say, reasonable and sober desire for extensive law reform. I hope and believe that some of the Sessions that are approaching will, to a great extent, be occupied by discussions on the state of the law, and the law reforms that are required; and in such discussions no person is so well fitted to bear a useful and distinguished part as an upright and enlightened Judge; and yet at such a time it is that we are asked to shut the door of this House against the last great judicial functionary whom the bungling legislation of former Parliaments has left to us. In the meantime the other House is open to him, and is open, also, to other great judicial authorities who are excluded from this House. The Judge of the Admiralty Court is already driven from amongst us; and I believe that is an obligation which this House owes to the noble Lord who now proposes to confer upon us this other favour. In that other House they may have, besides the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, the Chief Baron, the Lords Justices, the Master of the Rolls, and the Vice-Chancellors; but here you are driving out the last man who, from his judicial position, could give to this House weight and consequence in any attempt—I am very far indeed from anticipating or expecting any conflict of a hostile kind with the House of Lords—but the presence of such a man would give us weight and consequence with them in any honourable rivalry that may take place to reform our institutions. I was much struck the other day—I do not know whether the hon. Member for Montrose (Mr. Hume) is in his place—but when I came down here, when the Bill was last on the paper, with the intention of voting against it, I learned it could not come on in consequence of the debate on a Bill brought in by the hon. Member for West Surrey, on the subject of the Combination of Workmen. I believe the hon. Member for Montrose is decidedly favourable to the Bill of the noble Lord; but I was amused to hear that hon. Gentleman press the House to pass a Bill on the subject of combination, for this reason—"We really," said he, "know nothing about it—it may be right or wrong—send it to the Lords, there are Judges there—they will decide whether it is right or wrong." Did any person ever hear of a great legislative assembly being called upon to abdicate its function in such a manner as that? And is it not extraordinary that a Gentleman who is so zealous for the popular part of the constitution should be the person to propose that in a matter so grave and so deeply concerning the interests of the great body of our constituents, we should content ourselves with simply registering whatever the judgment of the House of Lords might be? And is it not more extraordinary still, that, feeling as we do the deficiency of this House in one most important respect, we should propose to shut out of it the learning and ability that might yet come in? But it is said that the Master of the Rolls has duties to perform and fills a position hardly compatible with the duties of a Member of Parliament. It is said he is paid by the public, and the public require that he shall devote the whole of his time to the performance of his duties; it is said, let us enforce the division of labour, and let us not permit his time to be wasted on Parliamentary duties, but oblige him to devote it to that to which it more particularly belongs. If this be an argument, it is an argument for keeping Judges out of the House of Lords, as well as out of the House of Commons; but I deny that it is an argument of any weight whatever. I say the principle of the division of labour is one of great value and importance, but one that may be most easily abused. You can hardly carry it too far in matters that are purely mechani- cal, but you may easily carry it too far when you come to the higher operations of labour, and in matters of intellect. I do not doubt that in pin-making, as Adam Smith has said, the pins will be best made where one man makes the head, and another cuts the wire, and another rolls it up, and another sharpens the point. But I do not believe that Michael Angelo would have been a greater painter if he had not been a sculptor. I do not believe that Newton would have been a greater experimental philosopher if he had never been a mathematician and a logician. And I do not believe that a man would be a worse lawgiver because he is a great Judge. On the contrary, I believe that there is as close a connexion between the functions of the legislator and those of the Judge as there is between anatomy and surgery; and it would be as absurd to exclude the Judge from taking a part in legislation as it would be absurd to exclude a surgeon from the practice of anatomy, and for people to say, if they were looking out for the best surgeon, thst they would have one who knew nothing of anatomy. I am happy to state that I have authority for what I say of high value—authority, indeed, to which the hon. Member for Montrose will probably pay more respect than I do—I mean the authority of Bentham. For Mr. Bentham, as a jurist and a metaphysician, I have no very high opinion, but as a juridical writer there can be none greater. In his Judicial Organisation I find a chapter in which he speaks of the exceeding evil of pluralities in the case of Judges. He strongly objects to suffering a Judge to be anything but a Judge, with one single exception. A Judge, he says, ought to sit in the representative assembly that legislates for the commonwealth; "for" says he, "the very best school for a great legislator is the judicial bench, and legislative ability is so rarely found in any society that it is madness to throw it away when it is accessible." The hon. Member for West Surrey has well replied to the argument of indecorum, and that there need be, in the endeavour to get a seat in this House, something unworthy of the judicial ermine. The noble Lord, I think, spoke of unseemly jollifications at elections. I wish from the bottom of my heart that indecent jollifications were the worst means by which men, reputed to be men of honour and respectability, stoop to obtain seats in this House. I should be sorry if the Master of the Rolls, in order to obtain a seat in this House, played the mountebank, or stooped to tricks upon the hustings. But I should be still more sorry if any Master of the Rolls should stoop to avail himself of the low arts, the false addresses, and the machinery of corruption by which, we are told, some hon. Members have entered this House. It is said on high authority that there are temptations which saints even should not be exposed to, and that a Master of the Rolls should be as scrupulous as a saint in avoiding temptation. On that point, if a long friendship authorises me to speak with confidence of any one, I can say that if ever the present Master of the Rolls should sit in this House, he would be brought into it by means far different from those by which he was excluded from it. But let me ask, are we prepared to say that no person can come into the House of Commons except by means that are inconsistent with the conscientious self-respect which ought to distinguish the judicial character? If so, it well becomes us to set our House in order; for how can a country long prosper if that assembly on which all its dearest interest depends—if that assembly which can by a single vote change its Government, and give a new direction to the whole policy of the country, colonial, commercial, and financial, can be entered only by means which must lower its character? But it is not so. In what measure did Sir William Scott lower his character by coming into this House as Member for the University of Oxford? In what way did Sir John Copley lower his character by coming into this House as Member for the University of Cambridge? But it is not necessary to speak of Universities; it would be most unjust and unfair in many Members of this House not to say that a delicacy and liberality of sentiment that would do honour to any University may be found among the 10l. shareholders of some great cities. But need we go further than to look to your own Chair? It was, Sir, of as much importance that you, at the last general election, should maintain the dignity, gravity, and impartiality of your exalted character, as that the Master of the Rolls should do so. It would be impossible for you, Sir, to permit the smallest indecorum, without grievous injury to your public character and utility. Did the great county which has done itself the honour to return you to this House as its representative, require any conduct on your part upon which the Speaker of this House must look back with shame? And what reason have we to doubt that some of our constituent bodies would not be as just to an eminent Judge as to you? There is no reason, I think, to doubt but that a Judge might take his seat in this House without being required to do anything inconsistent with the nicest punctilio of decorum due to his station. It may be said the law is inconsistent—and I admit it is; but my advice is, that as we have entered upon a bad path, let us stop in it and retrace it. The time is not far distant when we must come to reconsider the constitution of this House; I think on that occasion it will be the duty of the Government most carefully to recommend the rules according to which it shall be determined who shall be excluded from this House. The law is in a very singular and unsatisfactory state; as the law now stands no person can sit in this House who holds an office created since a particular day—I believe the 27th of October, 1705; and the effect of that rule on political offices is very inconvenient. For instance, there can be only two Secretaries of State in this House, and only two Under Secretaries of State. If there should be two Secretaries of State in this House, and if a vacancy should occur in the office of Foreign Secretary, though a Member of this House might be the person best qualified for the office, he cannot have it—you must give him the Admiralty, and give the Foreign Secretaryship to some person in the House of Lords, who would probably be better fitted for the Admiralty. There are other consequences the effect of the system. The Postmaster General cannot sit in this House; but he is generally a member of the Cabinet, and, so far as my experience goes, with the single exception of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, there is no public functionary whom it would be so convenient to have in this House as the Postmaster General; and I hope, when the constitution of this House is to be reconsidered, this will be taken into consideration. But, to speak of the Judges, my principle is very simple. Any Judge who is properly elected should be admitted into this House, except where there is some plain reason why that Judge should not come in here. There is a reason, I admit, against the admission into this House of the fifteen Judges of the Common Law bench; because they are occasionally summoned by the House of Lords to assist them—they have a place in the House of Lords—and if you mean that the House of Lords should continue to be the supreme Court of error, their sitting in it is absolutely necessary. It would be impossible to continue the House of Lords as a great Court of error, unless they are assisted by the fifteen Judges; those Judges have consequently, seats in it, and there you must leave them, for it would be inconsistent with the privileges and dignity of this House to have any Member here who is at the beck and call of the other House. The same rule applies to the Scotch Judges, and to the Irish Judges, who are excluded for the obvious reason that they could not discharge their duty in their countries if they were elected to this House. But certainly I would leave the door of this House open to the Master of the Rolls; I would throw the door open again to the Judge of the Admiralty Court, who is most absurdly excluded. I would suffer those eminent Judges who are kept out of the House, not by any particular Act applicable to them, but merely by the operation of the old Act of Queen Anne—the Lords Justices and the Vice-Chancellors—to sit in this House, if they find constituent bodies disposed to place them here. I am perfectly certain that in that way we should add to the credit of this great representative assembly—with the credit of which the credit of representative governments all over the world is intimately bound up—and render our own body far more efficient for the discharge of our duties. But whether those more extensive changes which I recommend shall or shall not be adopted, I see no reason whatever for entertaining the Bill of the noble Lord. I will ask the Conservatives of this House, will they agree to make changes in the state of a law which has lasted for twenty generations, and from which they do not themselves pretend that the smallest inconvenience has flowed? I address myself to the Liberal Members of this House, and I ask thorn whether it appears to them to be right to lower the character and diminish the efficiency of that branch of the Legislature which springs from the people? As one wishing to unite in myself the character of Liberal and Conservative, in both I shall give my vote most cordially for the Motion of my hon. Friend.

in reply, said, that if this Bill were liable to all the objections now urged against it, he knew not how to account for their having been withheld until this, the last, discussion that could take place upon it. Painfully conscious of his own inability in an adequate manner to en- counter so formidable an opposition, it was nevertheless his duty; and, moreover, he was extremely anxious to say something in answer to what had been advanced against the measure he had ventured to introduce, and which the House had hitherto been pleased to view with favour. He trusted, therefore, that the House would bear with him for a short time, while he endeavoured to do so. It was not without regret that he found himself so strongly opposed by the right hon. Member for Edinburgh, who had now been heard by many Members of the House for the first time. He (Lord Hotham) had had many former opportunities of hearing him, and whether agreeing with or differing from the right hon. Gentleman, he always listened with pleasure to his speeches. But a great deal of the eloquent speech which the right hon. Gentleman had just delivered, referred not to any consequences which the present Bill could produce, but to times past, and to a state of things no longer existing. The right hon. Gentleman had inquired why it was that he (Lord Hotham) wished to exclude Judges from the House of Commons, without taking equal exception to their sitting in the House of Lords? If the right hon. Gentleman had attended the former discussions on this Bill, he would have heard the distinction between the two cases sufficiently explained; and he (Lord Hotham) would repeat that explanation now, if the right hon. Gentleman had not answered his own inquiry in reminding the House that Peers were, ipso facto, Judges—an admission which, if it proved anything, might be considered as pointing to the peculiar propriety of learned Judges having seats in that assembly. The right hon. Gentleman bad made another statement, which coming from one so conversant with history as himself, had astonished him (Lord Hotham) more than he could express. The right hon. Gentleman had asked, with an air of triumph, how the judicial office could be degraded by the appearance of Judges as candidates for seats in a popular assembly, without the dignity of the high office now so ably filled by the right hon. Gentleman in the chair, being in like manner impaired? But the right hon. Member for Edinburgh had strangely forgotten the entire want of analogy between the two cases, and had supposed that which could never occur—it being obvious to every one that no one not already a Member of the House could be its Speaker—that therefore a Speaker never could be a candidate at an election—that the same act which sent Members to their constituents, terminated also the office of Speaker—and, as he need not remind those now on the Treasury bench, that it had been very recently shown, that a long and faithful discharge of his duties to the House was not always considered sufficient to ensure the re-election of a Speaker. The right hon. Gentleman had alluded to the exclusion of the Judge of the Admiralty Court, and had, in attributing it to him, satirically called it a benefit which he had procured for the House. He (Lord Hotham) had in a former debate explained the grounds on which he had proceeded on the occasion to which the right hon. Gentleman had alluded, and was therefore unwilling to trouble the House with a repetition of them; but the right hon. Gentleman now imposed upon him the necessity of stating more fully to the House the circumstances attending the exclusion of that learned Judge. The exclusion of that high functionary from the House of Commons was expressly recommended by a Committee which sat in 1833, which also recommended that Judges, instead of being paid by fees, should be paid by fixed salaries, and should have retiring pensions, but should be incapacitated from sitting in that House. According to the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, it might be supposed that the Members of that Committee were young and inexperienced politicians, having little, if any, regard for the stability of our institutions. The House would perhaps permit him to give the names of some of the hon. Members who served upon that Committee, and it would then be seen how far they were of that description. The Chairman of that Committee he saw opposite to him, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Taunton (Mr. Labouchere), and the Report of the Committee was in all probability drawn by him according to Parliamentary usage. He (Lord Hotham) had in his hand a copy of the Report of that Committee, and he would mention the names of some of those daring invaders who had proposed this measure. First, was the late Sir Robert Peel. Was he a man likely to have proposed any measure which would degrade the character of the House of Commons, and was he not well acquainted with what were the duties both of a Judge and of a Member of Parliament? The right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty (Sir J. Graham), whose opinion on this subject he (Lord Hotham) knew, and whom he was sorry not to see in his place, was also a Member of that Committee. Then came Mr. Charles Williams Wynne, Sir James Scarlett, afterwards Lord Abinger, Mr. Abercromby, now Lord Dunfermline; the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Goulburn); the present Chief Baron of the Exchequer; Lord Campbell, then Solicitor General; the present Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; Lord Sandon, now the Earl of Harrowby; Sir John Nicholl, Mr. Cutlar Ferguson, Serjeant Spankie, Mr. Estcourt, Mr. William Brougham, a Master in Chancery; Lord Ebrington, now Earl Fortescue; Sir Charles Lemon; and the hon. Baronet the Member for the University of Oxford—heretofore the uncompromising champion of consistency—

I did not concur in the recommendation.

But the hon. Baronet never took any opportunity of expressing his dissent from the Report; and last came the learned Judge himself, Dr. Lushington, then one of the most distinguished Advocates in Doctors' Commons. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh had asked him if there was any degradation in canvassing those 5l. freeholders whom the hon. Member for West Surrey considered ought to be disfranchised? What he meant to say was, that there were things to be done at every election, which, although no degradation to private persons, were not compatible with the dignity of a person holding a high judicial office. As an illustration, he would take a case which had occurred at the last general election—a case where the nomination was attended by a large crowd of persons, and one of the candidates, not being allowed to speak when he wished to address his constituents, was at length obliged to retire to the back of the hustings, and surround himself with the representatives of the press, who alone had the benefit of hearing his discourse. Would such a scene as that have well become the gravity of the judicial character? In the chairing, too, he would ask was there nothing in which a Judge ought not to join? He had seen at the conclusion of an election for the city of Oxford the successful candidate carried up the High-street with the back of his head streaming with blood—a parting compliment from some disappointed adversary. A learned Judge, too, would not be exempt from the chance of a petition being presented against his return; and the House was aware how many hon. Gentlemen had been unseated in consequence of acts committed by persons in connexion with them. Now, it might be an unfortunate thing for a private individual to lose his seat upon such grounds as those; but he would ask the House, would not the judicial bench be degraded if the Master of the Rolls, or any other Judge, were declared, by his agents, guilty of bribery; and whether such degradation would be removed by the Committee reporting that it had not been proved to their satisfaction that such bribery was committed with the knowledge or sanction of the learned Judge? There was also one point which he (Lord Hotham) had before referred to, and that was, that the Master of the Rolls was liable to be called upon to decide cases in which his own constituents were concerned. He had since the last occasion on which this subject had been under discussion in that House, noticed in the Rolls Court cases connected with the disposal of charities proceeding from electoral boroughs; and there was nothing to prevent cases being brought for decision from the very borough which the Judge himself represented. He had on former occasions quoted, in support of the course which he felt it his duty to pursue, the opinions of individuals well conversant with the duties of a Judge, and also of the duties of a Member of that House—opinions which ought to bear some weight with the right hon. Gentleman himself. He had quoted the opinion of a learned Gentleman, which, upon a subject of this nature, was well worthy of the consideration of the House—the opinion of the late Sir Samuel Romilly, and it was decisive against the propriety of a Judge being also a Member of that House. The late Master of the Rolls, Lord Langdale, was asked to accept the office upon condition that he became a Member of one or other House of Parliament. The noble and learned Lord refused, stating that he thought it quite clear that the Master of the Rolls ought not to be a Member of the House of Commons, for if an active Member he would act in a manner inconsistent with his judicial character; if inactive, he might neglect the interests of his constituents, and of those who promoted him; and, active or inactive in the House, he might be placed in the predicament of having to adjudicate in his office between his constituents and others. And he, moreover, distinctly declared that the judicial office was sufficient to occupy the whole of any man's time. Lord Brougham was also of opinion that the duties of a Judge and of a Member of Parliament were incompatible with each other. That noble and learned Lord, in speaking on the subject of the admission of a Judge into the House of Commons said—"You should not allow him to be one day on the bench, and the next to make his appearance on the hustings; the sort of conduct which a popular constituency expects is not becoming in a Judge." He had been furnished, through the kindness of an hon. and learned Member of the House, with the authority of an individual distinguished for the great variety of his attainments, and that individual was Mr. Curran. When Mr. Curran received a requisition to stand for the borough of Newry, what did he reply? He replied, "I know that you will not impute to want of the most profound respect for you the determination I have formed of not soliciting the vote of an individual. I cannot run the risk of soliciting a suitor in the character of an elector; for to do so would not befit my judicial situation, and I think it would diminish that credit which suffrage above all suspicion of bias, ought to give to your representative." He had one other authority which he desired to quote as being the authority of a Member of that House, and one upon which many hon. Members would look with respect, and no one, perhaps, more so than the hon. Member for West Surrey, for it was the authority of the hon. Member himself! On the day preceding that on which the Bill now before the House would, but for the length of other business, have come on for discussion, the hon. Member, in the course of a speech which he made upon another subject, asked the question, "Why are there so many lawyers in this House?" and then, thinking, perhaps, that a categorical answer from all the lawyers to whom he alluded would occupy too much time, the hon. Member answered the question himself. "Because," he said, "they know that making flashy partisan speeches in the House of Commons is more likely to procure them judicial situations than fagging in their chambers." If this were true, he could employ no more powerful argument in favour of his Motion; and if the hon. Gentleman believed it to be true, as he (Lord Hotham) felt sure he did, or he would not have said so, then he would contend that if any hon. Member less than another ought to have proposed the Amendment, it was the hon. Member for West Surrey. He did not see the noble Lord the Member for the City of London in his place, or he would have reminded him how often he had complained of the unwilling, ness of hon. Gentlemen to move forward with the times, and would have made a similar complaint against the noble Lord, and would have shown how he was now justly liable to the same imputation. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Macaulay) had said that the result of this measure would be to degrade the House of Commons; whereas the object of it was to preserve from degradation the judicial bench. And it was upon this ground, and in reference both to the public interest, and to the real interest of learned Judges themselves, that he (Lord Hotham) called upon the House to pass the present Bill.

said, he was absent when the debate commenced, and he understood that allusion had been made by the right hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Macaulay) to some speech of his on the combination laws; but he only wished to state on this occasion why he supported this Bill: he supported it because he considered the duty of the Master of the Rolls was utterly incompatible with the duty of a Member of that House, and he had voted for the exclusion of the Judge of the Admiralty on the same grounds.

said, he had no objection to the principle of this Bill so far as it went to affirm the perfect freedom of all parties to combine for purposes authorised by the existing law; but it was quite clear that that law should not be construed to authorise illegal combinations. His objection to the Bill as it stood, was this. It appeared to him that it would legalise that system of quiet and peaceful intimidation by which poor men, who were in great distress, and were willing to work at the smallest wages by which they could maintain themselves and their families, were sometimes prevented from so working, in order to be driven into combinations with other persons which they did not wish to join. There might be a man standing by the door of a factory, watching every man who went in and out, taking down his name, and giving him to understand that he was a marked man. The poor man who might be the subject of such observation knew he was thereby incurring certain consequences which he preferred to avoid by relinquishing the work on which he and his family altogether depended for subsistence. It appeared to him that such a system would be sanctioned under the words "peaceable intimidation, or inducing other persons to abstain from working." What he should therefore propose was, that this Bill should be now read a third time, and the consideration of any amendments, that could only be proposed after the third reading, be postponed for a fortnight, in order to allow time to consult with the law officers of the Crown with reference to framing a clause to meet the objection.

said, he quite agreed in thinking that the objections to which the Bill was liable ought to be removed, and that a fortnight ought to be given with that view.

moved the following Amendment. At the end of Clause 2, to add the words:—

"Provided, however, that in case of the refusal or suspension of any such licence as aforesaid, it shall be lawful for the proprietor of any such Stage or Hackney Carriage, or other persons applying for such licence, or subjected to such suspension, to appeal from the decision of the Commissioners of Police to the Metropolitan Police Magistrate for the time being sitting at the Police Office at Bow Street."

seconded the Amendment. He thought, that considering the amount of capital engaged in this trade, it would be unjust to allow these matters to be decided by a single individual, without the power of appeal.

said, he thought that the Police Commissioners would form a most useful tribunal to be invested with any kind of judicial authority.

said, that the Amendment would render the Bill nugatory so far as it regarded the refusal or suspension of licences.

rose to propose an Amendment in Clause 6, line 32: after the word "elsewhere," to insert the words "within the Metropolitan Police District."