said, he thought that the object of the Bill ought to be accomplished, if at all, by means not of private, but of public legislation, applicable all over the country. If the principle were conceded, and schools like these were to receive public grants, the result would be a considerable annual addition to the Estimates.

said, he desired to point out that inconveniences frequently arose in connection with the way in which his right hon. Friend proposed that this Committee should be appointed. The Members whom the Committee of Selection should nominate would not be obliged to attend, and if the Committee of Selection should happen to select Members to whom it would be inconvenient to attend, the services of the selection would be entirely inoperative. He wished, therefore, to suggest that it would be very desirable if the Members appointed by the Committee of Selection in cases like the present were subjected to the same rules as were applied to Private Bill Committees, on which the attendance of Members was obligatory.

Ordered, That Standing Order 193 be suspended in the case of the said Bill, and that the Bill be committed to a Select Committee of ten Members, five to be nominated by the House, and five by the Committee of Selection:—Five to be the quorum.—(Sir George Grey.)

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been directed to the report of an inquest held at the Strand Union on the body of Mr. George Drake, from which report it appears that this gentleman, in an apoplectic condition, was taken there by the police, supposed by them to be of unsound mind from drink, and left without any information by what means he came into their hands, and whether he will cause a Communication to be forwarded to the police authorities requiring that, in future, when any sick person, incapable of giving any explanation of his or her condition, be taken to a Union Infirmary, all the facts bearing on the case which the police can furnish should be forwarded in writing with the patient for the guidance and information of the medical officer?

in reply, said, he did not know anything of the case until after he saw the notice of the hon. Gentleman on the paper. It appeared that this person was in a hotel, where he was found in an excited and frantic state. He was taken before a magistrate by the police, whose duly it was to do so. By order of the magistrate he was removed to the workhouse. The policeman who took him, in obedience to the orders of the magistrate, could not state in writing all the circumstances connected with the case, but he stated that he brought him there by order of the magistrate who had all the facts before him when he made the order. He (Sir George Grey) would communicate with the magistrate on the subject, with a view to the object of his hon. Friend.

said, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, Whether it is true that the Chaplains' Quarterly Report has been abolished, and, if so, what has been substituted in lieu?

said, in reply, that he had already stated a few evenings since that the Chaplains' Quarterly Report had been abolished. In its place, full information would be given by means of additional questions in the Inspection sheets, with respect to the performance of Divine Service on board ships, the administration of the Holy Communion, the attendances at school, visits to the sick; or to other ships not having chaplains. These Inspections averaged about twice a year. An annual Return, besides, was now called for with respect to the educational state of the whole of the crews in the navy, and their religious denominations.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether, having regard to sonic observations made by the right hon. Baronet in reply to a deputation which had waited on him yesterday with reference to the Bill for the amendment of the Public House Closing Act, he was prepared to state what course the Government intend to take with regard to the measure?

in reply, said, he had received two or three deputations with regard to the Bill from persons whose representations were entitled to consideration; and if it were possible, without infringing on the principle of the Bill, the Government would endeavour to exempt certain houses from the operation of the Bill during certain hours. At all events, he would consider what could be done in the matter.

said, that being the case, he would postpone tire second reading of the Bill to that day week.

said, seeing the difficulty of arranging the matter in dispute between the ironmasters and their men in respect to the Lock-out, he wished to know, Whether the hon. Member for Rye (Mr. Mackinnon) intends to introduce his Bill for the establishment of Courts of Conciliation?

was understood to say that it was not his intention to introduce such a measure, for the present, at all events.

presented a Petition from the Treasurer of Lincoln's Inn, signed by him on behalf of himself and the other Masters of the Bench of the Society. The Petition stated that in former Sessions of Parliament similar Bills had been introduced; that on those occasions the Benchers of Lincoln's Inn had petitioned against them, under the belief that the concentration might be attained by the Courts of Equity being allowed to remain in Lincoln's Inn, the Courts of Law being provided in the neighbourhood; but that during the present Session, the Petitioners, being unwilling to oppose the further progress of the measure, had determined to withdraw all further opposition, and in so withholding their opposition were influenced mainly by the consideration that the northern side of the proposed building was to be in close proximity to Lincoln's Inn, and that the portion which was to be appropriated to the Courts of Equity being nearest to Lincoln's Inn was calculated to obviate the inconvenience of the removal of the courts from Lincoln's Inn. The Petitioners went on to state that they had recently learnt that the question was being agitated for the abandonment of that site; and they expressed their opinion that if a site were to be selected at a distance from Lincoln's Inn, the members of that Society who were practitioners in the Equity Courts would be greatly inconvenienced. They prayed, therefore, that if the Courts of Law and Equity were to be concentrated, no change would be made in the Carey Street site.

said, he did not know whether the Government were prepared to give effect to what appeared to be the general feeling of the House when this matter was last before them; but, in order to raise the question, he meant to conclude by moving, as an Amendment to the Motion for the Speaker leaving the Chair, that the Bill be re-committed to the former Committee, and that it be an Instruction to such Committee to inquire into the capabilities of the Thames Embankment as a site for the proposed building. Notwithstanding the attention devoted to this measure in former inquiries, no opportunity had yet been afforded for considering whether the Thames Embankment would or would not present the proper site for the concentration of the new courts of justice. Only two sites had hitherto been considered. First, the Carey Street site, now adopted by Her Majesty's Government, and secondly, the only alternative site—a portion of Lincoln's Inn Fields—coupled with the offer on the part of those who possessed the freehold of Lincoln's Inn to make a very considerable metropolitan improvement. The latter proposition was rejected, and the Carey Street site approved of. But he maintained that the fact of the Carey Street site being approved of furnished no reason whatever why that House should be debarred from considering the large and important question of the site which was opened by the Embankment of the Thames. The extent of the site proposed to be taken in Carey Street the House was already familiar with. He would not, therefore, describe it beyond pointing out some material facts that would assist the House in the consideration of the question. The cost of the Carey Street site was estimated in 1861 to cost £678,000, and he apprehended that its value had not in any degree diminished since then. He did not find that the Select Committee to which that Bill had been referred had given any precise Estimate of the expenditure, but he would assume that the Estimate of 1861—namely, £678,000—was accurate, but it should be remembered that that was the cost of the site alone. The next point to be considered was whether that site would be sufficient. Now, the evidence of Mr. Pennethorne, the architect of the Board of Works, who was called as a witness by the promoters of the Bill, showed that several very important courts remained unprovided for by the measure. Mr. Pennethorne was asked whether he proposed to bring to that concentrated site the Central Criminal Court, and his reply was "No." He was subsequently asked whether the Bankruptcy Court was included in the list of courts for which provision was made, and he answered that it was not. The same witness also admitted that there was no provision in the plan for a court in which all the twelve Judges should assemble, similar to the present Exchequer Chamber. It might, however, be thought that the Carey Street site was so ample that accommodation might be found for those courts; but Mr. Pennethorne admitted that his plan was so made as to occupy the whole available space, and that if another Judge were appointed equivalent in rank to a Vice Chancellor, and as Chief Judge in Bankruptcy, accommodation could only be found for him by removing some of the offices upstairs. Thus, then, upon the showing of the witnesses called in support of the Bill, after a very large expenditure of money, several large and important courts would still be left wholly unprovided for. Now, since the Commission had sat, and since the Committee of 1861 examined this subject, another site had been opened which at all events deserved consideration before they incurred an enormous outlay upon the purchase of ground and the erection of buildings which would be inadequate for their purpose. At any rate, the suggestion deserved careful consideration. But, further, the Carey Street site would be difficult of access. The Strand was at present choked up with traffic, and although it might be said that the Thames Embankment would relieve the Strand, yet they knew that the more facilities were offered for the traffic of the metropolis the more that traffic was found to develop itself. He was a bold man, therefore, who believed that the Strand would be materially relieved by the Thames Embankment. The traffic along the New Road had in no degree been diminished in consequence of the opening of the Metropolitan Railway. It was possible, no doubt, to provide large open spaces in front of the new concentrated courts, and to widen the Strand in that part; but by doing so they would diminish pro tanto the space at their command for the new buildings. What had they at the Thames Embankment? They had the most perfect means of access on all sides. Some persons thought an excellent site would be available in the immediate neighbourhood of Westminster Bridge; others preferred the neighbourhood of Fife House, where a very large tract of land would remain at the disposal of the public. Of course, it was too late at the present moment to take any active measures to carry out either of these proposals; but when they were going to make a building that was to last for all time, and when they were about to lay out a very large sum of money, they ought to take care that in the choice of a site they did not perpetrate a blunder which would be a disgrace to the country for ages. Happily, they were living in times of peace, when there was no excitement connected with the administration of the law; but times might come when they could easily conceive it would be of great importance that there should be ready and easy access to the Courts of Justice. Such access, he thought, could not be had if the Carey Street site were selected. He begged to move, as an Amendment, that the Bill be re-committed to the former Committee, and that they be instructed to inquire into the capabilities of the Thames Embankment as a site for the proposed buildings.

in seconding the Amendment, said, he was well aware that in the course proposed by the hon. Member for Worcestershire they were opposing the opinion of the lawyers; but the question really was whether when they were going to spend a large sum of money in the erection of a Palace of Justice they should not select the best available site for the purpose. The site afforded by the Thames Embankment was not in existence and could not be taken into consideration when the Bill was originally before the Committee. If there was room enough on the Thames Embankment nothing could be finer than the facade of such a building. The access to the Carey Street site was one of its great difficulties—nothing could be better than the access to the Thames Embankment. The question was, after all, one of finance; and looking at the question in a financial point of view the expense of the Thames Embankment site might be fatal to its selection; but that was a mere assertion, and he had been told on the other hand that it would be the least expensive of all. A portion of the property of the Duke of Norfolk might be taken, which consisted not of first-class houses, and a most magnificent site might thus he obtained. It had been said elsewhere that the Suitors' Fund would not be available if the site selected were the Thames Embankment; but he could not understand that objection. Either they had power over the Suitors' Fund, or they had not. The question could not depend on the choice of any particular locality. This was one of those questions on which he thought they could not have too much inquiry, He believed they would only be doing justice to the future as well as to the present, by having this matter further inquired into.

I believe I express the opinion of the great mass of hon. Members present, as well as my own, when I say that I trust the Government will not accede to this Amendment. I have not the least doubt that it has been brought forward in an earnest desire on the part of my hon. Friend that every consideration should be given before so important a step is taken as the selection of a site for this great building. But the House must observe that to carry this Amendment will be equivalent to the defeat of this measure for the present Session: and in a future Session no one can venture to foretell what may happen. But even suppose at this period next year we may get to this stage, who is to say whether hon. Members may not get up and propose inquiring into a third site, different from Carey Street and the Thames Embankment, which no one thought of in 1865? We shall then be in the same position as we are now. I confess I was anxious to hear from the two hon. Gentlemen who supported this Motion what are the reasons of greater convenience to the public on which the proposal of the Thames Embankment site rests. I did not hear them. No doubt the hon. Baronet (Sir John Shelley) says it would he a fine thing to have the ornamental facade of the Palace of Justice fronting the river. That may be; but the great consideration which puts Parliament in motion is the great inconvenience of the present arrangements; and the question is, which site will be most suitable for the purpose. Can there be a doubt as to what will be most convenient to the public? The hon. Baronet talks of lawyers; but who are the lawyers on this question? They are the great body of solicitors of London, who transact not only the legal business of London, but the legal business of the whole kingdom; and on what ground do they prefer the Carey Street site? Because on all sides in the immediate neighbourhood north of that locality they have their offices, and they could not get the same accommodation elsewhere—therefore, they say, give us some central Courts of Justice, which we can get at without going very far from our own offices, for our time is that of our clients. Then, on the south side of the Carey Street site is the Temple, where the barristers say the very same thing. Carey Street, then, stands exactly in the centre of these two localities, and would obviously be most suitable as a site for the proposed Courts. I will not enter into the question of finance; hut I know of no obstacle on that score to the Carey Street site. As regards the extent of ground, indeed, it is said that Mr. Pennethorne in his examination says the arrangement does not include the Central Criminal Court in this Palace of Justice. Now I, for one, am very glad to hear it. I hope there will be no Criminal Courts there. We all know, if there was no other objection, there is the fatal one that when you get Criminal Courts you must have the gaols in immediate connection with them. To bring prisoners to the centre, where the civil business of the country is transacted, would, I think, be extremely inconvenient, it would be unsuitable to them, and it would disturb the conduct of the other business. Then, as to the Exchequer Chamber, Mr. Pennethorne says no arrangement has been made for the twelve Judges meeting in the Exchequer Chamber. Now, any one at nil conversant with the detailed arrangements of the Exchequer Chamber knows that it is composed of the Justices of any two of the three superior Courts of Common Law, and when the time for their sitting comes—on very few days in the year—there must of necessity be a cessation of the business of the two Justices' own Courts, either of which would be available, pro hac vice, for the Exchequer Chamber. So, also, it is said, there is no arrangement for the Bankruptcy Court. Now the registrars and accountants being connected with the mere administrative and financial details of bankruptcy, I think their presence would be unsuitable in the Palace of Justice; but if any judicial business is to be transacted by a Judge in bankruptcy or by a Judge of appeal, accommodation would easily be found for business of that kind. It only remains that I observe upon what has been said with reference to access. I confess I am not moved by the objections arising from the crowding of the Strand; because anyone who knows the sort of people who go to Courts of Justice know perfectly well that there is very little crowding of carriages about them. I do not think the erection of the new Courts will cause any great addition to the traffic of the Strand; but if it should prove otherwise it must be remembered that one of the great advantages of the Carey Street site is that you have two parallel lines of access, one at the north and the other at the south; and if it should appear that there is not width enough for the Strand and Carey Street, it would be very easy, in pulling down the houses in Carey Street, to add a few feet to the width of the road way, and thus give as much access as could be required. I believe the site chosen is the best that could be selected, and in saying this I am satisfied I speak the opinion of all those engaged in legal pursuits. I do not think a single valid objection has been urged against it. As to the Thames Embankment, you might, perhaps, erect a very imposing building there; but you would sacrifice what is the first object which we should have in view—namely, the i convenience of the public and all those engaged in legal pursuits.

said, he was I afraid the House was going to commit another great blunder in erecting a building, at an immense expense, upon a site I where a sufficient access could not be provided, and where the building could not be seen; whereas 100 yards further towards the south the finest situation in London could be obtained, and where now a great public work was being carried on. He had not been convinced, by all the high legal authorities, as to the propriety of the Carey Street site. So many errors had been committed with reference to our public buildings—and every year added to their number—that he believed any Englishman who had travelled through Europe was justified in giving an opinion upon this subject. In other countries we found utility and beauty combined, and the public buildings placed in a fine situation; but here it was the direct contrary—they were going to erect a Palace of Justice which would be inaccessible to the public, and where it could not be seen—while on the Thames Embankment they had a most accessible site, and whore any beautiful building could be seen and admired. All our public buildings were a reproach to us in Europe, and he hoped the House would not allow the Government to add to our defects in that respect. He could not put the slightest confidence in the recommendations of the Committee, the constitution of which was very unsatisfactory. It was composed of a Minister of Works, an ex-Minister of Works and one other Member, with three Members added by the Committee of Selection, but; the Report was arrived at without any one of the three independent Members being present. On these grounds he should deem it his duty to support the Amendment.

said, he considered the Carey Street site to be the best that could be selected, and he earnestly hoped that the Government would not accede to the Motion. It was impossible to disguise from themselves that the result of that Motion, if adopted, would be to defeat the scheme altogether. A plan which had met the universal approbation of the profession of the law had at last been arrived at, and he therefore hoped it would meet with no serious opposition. Carey Street was the site universally approved of by the profession, from its being the centre of the legal world. It was surrounded on the north, south, east, and west by the chambers of the lawyers, and that which would be convenient to the lawyers would be so to their clients, who were the public at large. Should they sacrifice to architectural beauty the convenience of the public and all the other objects which they desired to attain? Mr. Pennethorne's evidence had not been justly dealt with by some Members of the House. No plans had been prepared, it being the intention of the Government to appoint a Commission for that purpose; and the great question, therefore, before the Committee was as to whether the Carey Street site was of sufficient area. It had been abundantly proved that 7½ acres, which the Carey Street site contained, would be abundant for all the accommodation required. The members of the legal profession would rather that the whole scheme were abandoned than that the new law courts should be erected on the Thames Embankment. The approaches obtainable for the Carey Street site would be amply sufficient, because all those who were in the habit of attending at Lincoln's Inn knew that there were very few carriages driving along the approaches during the day, and a comparatively small number of people attended the courts. He contended that the cost of the site on the Thames Embankment would be as great as that at Carey Street, as it would be necessary to purchase property in Essex Street. He did not consider that the hon. Members who had moved and seconded the Amendment were so competent to judge of this matter as the 10,000 legal practitioners who were unanimous in favour of the Carey Street site.

said, that he had never heard weaker arguments urged in opposition to a Bill than those of the Mover and Seconder of this Amendment. He maintained that an unfair construction had been put upon Mr. Pennethorne's evidence. From the year 1860, every one appeared to agree that 7½ acres would be amply sufficient for the new Law Courts, and in that opinion Mr. Pennethorne himself concurred. He distinctly stated when called before the Committee that the site was sufficient. But supposing for a moment that the Courts of Law could not be properly accommodated on the ground floor, nothing could be easier than to increase the accommodation by placing some of the courts on the first floor. He believed that even without this increase, which could be easily made, 5½ acres would be found sufficient for building, not only for the present but also for future requirements. The site itself was also not limited, because additional property in the immediate neighbourhood could easily be purchased. His hon. Friend behind (Mr. Henry Seymour) had stated that the Bill ought to be re-com- mitted, because it had been considered by a Committee consisting of only three Gentlemen; but that was the number of the Committees on unopposed Bills, among which this measure might practically be included. It was practically an unopposed Bill. A large number of petitions were presented in its favour, and only three against, and those referred not to its principle but merely required alterations in the clauses. It could not be urged that the Members of the Committee were all selected from one side, for one of the Members was the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Selwyn). Therefore, there was not the slightest ground for re-committing the Bill, because of the constitution of the Committee. If, however, the object were to render this great building subservient to the embellishment of London, it was an object with which he sympathized. From its natural features, the fine buildings about it, and the proximity of the river, the Embankment would be the finest feature of the metropolis. Having introduced the Embankment Bill, he naturally felt desirous that it should be adorned. After full reflection, however, he had come reluctantly to the conviction that it would be totally impossible to place the Courts of Justice upon the Embankment. If erected between Somerset House and the Temple the new courts could not be built in advance of their line of frontage, because if such a course were adopted the appearance of Somerset House and the Temple would be injured. They would, therefore, have to be erected upon that portion of the Strand between Somerset House and the Temple, on which there stood at this moment the best houses to be found in that part of the town. By choosing this site a great sacrifice both of convenience and money would be incurred simply for the purpose of procuring additional beauty and ornament. Although, therefore, having had a great share in forming the Embankment, and being naturally desirous of seeing it lined by fine buildings, he had been obliged to come to the conclusion that the Palace of Justice ought not to be erected there. It was obvious that by adopting this site the chief purpose for which it was proposed to incur this expenditure would be frustrated. The concentration, which they so much desired, could only be obtained by the selection of a site in the immediate neighbourhood of the Inns of Court, the chambers of counsel, and the offices of solicitors. As all the Inns of Court, with the exception of the Temple, were situate on the north of the Strand, the access to the new courts, if erected between Somerset House and the Temple, would be extremely inconvenient for Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn. Barristers from the latter Inn especially would have to make their way through the tangled maze of courts and alleys which by the present Bill were to be swept away to make room for these new courts. The inconvenience consequent upon the distance from the chambers of counsel would fall upon the suitors, whose convenience would be best consulted by a concentration, which would enable them at any moment to procure, if they desired it, the services of those learned gentlemen. The chief difference, however, between the two sites, was one of cost. The Carey Street site was at present occupied by wretched and unhealthy buildings, while that on the south side of the Strand would, from the very nature of the buildings which covered it, be extremely expensive. A competent authority had estimated the compensation in the latter case at about double what would be required in the case of Carey Street. This was too great a price to pay merely for embellishment, and he thought it was not a proposition which could be entertained. The only result, too, of the Embankment site being selected in preference to that in Carey Street, would be the postponement of the erection of these courts. If the Bill were defeated, in the hope of procuring a better site, a vexatious delay would be occasioned, which would continue the present waste of time, and the separation of the Courts, which nearly the whole profession concurred in regretting.

said, this question had been viewed in two lights, the architectural and philanthropic. It was said the Carey Street site, as proposed in this Bill, would dispossess a number of poor people. That point had been got rid of, as it was shown that the removal of these houses would be a benefit to the poor people themselves. As to the architectural view, he thought the House ought not to allow itself to be influenced by that, since in very many cases where it had been considered the result had been far from satisfactory. The simple question for the House was whether this site was the most convenient. He thought it was, and that the object of the Amendment was simply to defeat the Bill altogether.

wished to point out one feature connected with the Thames Embankment which had not been noticed. One of the arguments in favour of selecting that site for the Courts of Justice was its presumed cheapness; but it should be remembered that the Courts of Justice were for the benefit of the whole nation, while the cost of constructing the Thames Embankment was defrayed by the ratepayers of the metropolis. It would not be fair to deprive the ratepayers of the improved value of the property which their outlay had created. He might also observe that the site on the Thames Embankment would be as inconvenient to the great body of solicitors whose offices were in the City, as the present arrangement of the courts sitting at Westminster.

expressed a hope that care would be taken to acquire sufficient land to insure proper access to the new courts, and that there would not be the same necessity as had arisen in the case of the new Foreign Office of purchasing additional land to provide proper approaches. It was bad policy, first, by the outlay of public money to increase fourfold the value of surrounding property, and then to purchase at that enhanced value.

assured the right hon. Gentleman that every care would be taken to make proper approaches, and he thought he might venture to state that there would be good access to the new courts, on all sides of the building.

in moving that the House should go into Committee on the Bill, said, it had origi- nated in the Report of the Commission appointed in 1862 to consider the measures which should be taken for the purpose of removing, as far as might be, the differences in the administration of justice in the courts of equity and of common law in England and in Ireland. This Bill dealt only with jurisdiction in equity; the other branch of the subject remained to be dealt with hereafter. As to the principle of the measure, it was one which would, he thought, excite no difference of opinion, for it rested on the desirability of assimilating as far as possible equity procedure in Ireland to the procedure of England. Until 1850 there was substantially but one system in operation in the courts of equity on both sides of the Channel. In that year a measure was introduced for the improvement of Chancery procedure in Ireland. It was not founded upon any inquiry by Commissioners, and the principal change introduced was that the old mode of commencing and prosecuting suits by regular pleadings and issues joined was put an end to and procedure by petition substituted. It was provided that whoever desired to prefer any claim to relief in the Irish Court of Chancery might present a petition in which he stated his case, and verified that petition in a certain sense by a short affidavit, saying that everything he asserted was true to his knowledge or belief. Thus the suit was launched and if the petition so verified was not met by counter allegations on oath, it was held that the defendant admitted everything which was stated by the plaintiff. The burden of proof being thus shifted and thrown on the defendant, he told his own story, traversed the case of the petitioner, and his statement was held to be true until contradicted on oath. But then the plaintiff was again at liberty to traverse the statements of the defendants. The war of affidavits was thus prolonged indefinitely; there was no regular pleading; the parties might travel into all sorts of irrelevant matter; and great inconvenience resulted. The working of the whole system was very graphically described by Mr. Smith, a witness who gave answers to the questions circulated by the late Commission, as "a sort of competitive examination in swearing, little calculated to subserve the cause of truth or the interests of justice." In the very next year, 1851, a Commission was appointed, consisting of very eminent persons in the law, with others, to inquire into the system of Chancery jurisprudence and procedure in England. They reconsidered the whole subject and did not think fit to adopt the new Irish system, but recommended extensive reforms in the old mode of pleading, cutting off excesses and superfluities and the abuses to which that system was liable. Their recommendations were afterwards embodied in two Acts of Parliament. One abolished the Masters in Chancery and substituted a system under which it was intended that the Judges, with the assistance of Chief Clerks, should work out their own decrees, under their own superintendence, in their own chambers. The other carried into effect all the improvements recommended in the then existing procedure. Besides introducing the peculiar procedure he had described, the Irish Act of 850 had provided for the immediate reference to the Masters in substance of the entire conduct of a largo variety of very important suits. Thus there grew up an original jurisdiction exercised in their chambers in the absence of the public and even of the profession beyond those immediately engaged in the case, and important questions of law were there determined. Personally the Masters exercised this jurisdiction very creditably; but their decisions were not reported, were frequently inconsistent, and had little authority. In England the working of the Masters' offices was in many respects similar; but, as he had said, the Chancery Amendment Acts abolished them, transferring their business to the Judges, aided by the Chief Clerks, but maintaining, with the necessary reforms, the old system of procedure. Of course every human system had its imperfections, and even systems good in themselves would in their working not always be found equally satisfactory. On the whole, however, the working of the system introduced by these Acts of Parliament in England had been answerable to the expectations of those who framed them. Under these circumstances a Commission was appointed in 1862 to inquire what ought to be done with a view to get rid of the differences in the modes of administering the law in the two countries. That Commission consisted not, indeed, of all the most eminent men in the country, for his right hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Whiteside) was not a Member of it. He wished that his right hon. Friend had been a Member of the Commission, for then it was probable that there might have been greater unanimity than was likely on this occasion. Having regard, however, to the necessity of limiting the number, and of having some Members from each country, representing both common law and equity, it would have been difficult to appoint a Commission likely to make a more satisfactory Report on the subject referred to them. The Commission consisted of the Master of the Rolls (Sir John Romilly), the hon. and learned Member for Belfast (Sir Hugh Cairns), the ex-Lord Chancellors of Ireland, Napier and Blackburn, Chief Justice Monahan, Justice O'Hagan, then Attorney General for Ireland, and others. That Commission recommended the measure which the Government in substance had introduced. They took a good deal of evidence, particularly from Ireland, and they collected the opinions of many eminent persons who had considerable knowledge and experience of the subject. The result was, that there was a general agreement of opinion as to the propriety of assimilating the practice and procedure of the two countries, and of taking the English practice as the basis of that assimilation. One reason assigned for making that recommendation was, that both countries would be able to take advantage of the body of decisions which might be given in one country or the other. Again, appeals from the Irish Court of Chancery were heard in the House of Lords, and assimilation of the two systems would be a great advantage, because, as long as they were different, wherever there might be a competition between the English and Irish systems in points which ought to be substantially governed by the same principles, a Court of Appeal sitting in England would have a tendency to decide in conformity with the system with which it was most intimate. It was the general opinion among the witnesses that, on the whole, they would prefer adopting the English system; and there was also a great preponderance of opinion in favour of abolishing the Masters and allowing each Judge to work out his own decisions in his own chambers. With regard to procedure there was some difference of opinion; but the tendency was in favour of the English system—at least to the extent that was recommended by the Commission. The Incorporated Law Society had petitioned in favour of the Bill. The usual course when Government had taken charge of a subject of this kind and had introduced a measure was, that any one who differed from their views in matters of detail should wait till the Bill got into Committee, and then propose Amendments. The right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Mr. Whiteside), however, had taken the unusual course of introducing a rival measure of his own, or rather two measures. He was happy, however, to say that, except upon points of detail, there was little difference between him and the right hon. and learned Gentleman—save that the right hon. and learned Gentleman proposed to do in two Bills what the Government proposed to do in one. The Government did not think it necessary, like the right hon. Gentleman, to propose the appointment of two Vice Chancellors. They believed that one, at a salary of £4,000 a year, would be sufficient. The salaries which the right hon. and learned Gentleman contemplated were not mentioned in his Bill, so that he was unable to give a comparative view of the expense of the two measures. The proposition of the Government was to create one office of Vice Chancellor, at a salary of £4,000 a year; a Chief Clerk to the Vice Chancellor, and also a Chief Clerk to the Master of the Rolls, commencing in each case at salaries of £800 a year, and rising by a graduated scale to £1,000. The total cost, therefore, would be, according to circumstances, £5,800 or £6,000 a year. Some further officers would be requisite; among them one of assistant registrar and four junior clerks, entailing an outlay of somewhat exceeding £2,000; but as these positions were to be filled by existing public servants the extra charge under this head to the public would only he about £200. In case circumstances should render it absolutely necessary, power was taken in the Bill still further to increase the machinery of the Irish Equity Courts to the extent of a further amount of £4,500 annually; that, however, would be the maximum of expenditure, and it was not at all likely that it would be reached. On the other hand, the total saving that would ultimately be effected under the Bill, and which would have to be set off against this new expenditure, exceeded £10,300 annually; but, of course, the whole of this would not be realized till the claims of the present holders of office were satisfied or extinguished. The House would probably be of opinion that two Vice Chan- cellors were not necessary; but in any event they would, he trusted, regard as objectionable the proposal to determine by the Bill the gentlemen who ought to be appointed. The right hon. Gentleman asked them to declare that one of the Vice Chancellorships should be offered in the first instance to the senior Judge of the Landed Estates Court; in case of his refusal, to the second Judge, and in like manner to the third Judge. The second Vice Chancellorship, according to his scheme, was to be tendered first for the acceptance of the senior Master in Chancery, and so on in rotation. This method of limiting the pleasure of the Crown, acting on the opinion of its responsible advisers, was highly objectionable, as well as novel in principle. The Judges of the Landed Estates Court, he was prepared to admit, were gentlemen of the highest respectability and worth, who had discharged the duties of their office in a manner deserving the highest praise. To the Masters in Chancery also he wished to allude with the fullest acknowledgment of the services they had rendered. But was it reasonable, was it wise, was it in accordance with the experience and judgment of his right hon. Friend, to ask the House blindfold to adopt a rule which might prevent them getting the men best qualified for the positions to be filled? The House must see at once that if particular persons were brought by name under the notice of the House, personal discussions of the most invidious character might be excited, and therefore he hoped this proposition of the right hon. and learned Gentleman would not find favour. The next point of difference was as to the Chief Clerks. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said, "Do what you will, at all events avoid the office of Chief Clerk," and he appeared to attach great importance to that suggestion. The first question that arose upon that point was—did the hon. Gentleman avoid that office in his Bill? He (the Attorney General) undoubtedly proposed to adopt the nomenclature of the English Court of Chancery in cases where the offices were practically similar. The light hon. and learned Gentleman said, in his Bill, that it should be lawful for the Lord Chancellor to attach to each Judge an officer, to be called an Examiner. But that officer would, in point of fact, be a Chief Clerk, for he would have not only to assist in examining titles, but he would have to assist the Judge in the general business of the Court. He defied the right hon. Gentleman to show any practical distinction between the office he proposed to create and that of a Chief Clerk in the English Court of Chancery. What, therefore, could be gained by a simple change of name when the office was the same to all intents and purposes? The duty of a Chief Clerk was to meet the parties in a cause, and to go through the figures and papers and all matters of detail with them; they having a right, whenever a matter of controversy arose upon questions of fact or law, to go before the Judge, and to have the advantage of his personal judgment on the subject in dispute. Some people in Ireland, including many gentlemen of eminence, apparently thought it would be preferable for the Judge to give his personal attention to every matter of detail and account in every cause which came before him; but in that case the Court would be completely blocked up, and its business would be practically put an end to. The right hon. and learned Gentleman further said that the Examiner might or might not be a barrister; but he (the Attorney General) thought there were many sound reasons for giving the appointment exclusively to members of the other branch of the profession. In the first place, the Judge would be strictly responsible for what was done under his directions; secondly, there would be greater security for that deference and feeling of subordination towards the Judge which, in the relation in which lie would stand towards such an officer, was indispensable, if the officer were not taken from the same ranks to which the Judge himself, while at the bar, had belonged; thirdly, because it was only fair, that there should be some offices of importance, to which solicitors should have a preferable claim; and lastly, to avoid the expense of unnecessary attendances of counsel, who would attend before a barrister, but would not before a solicitor. He believed it would be found in the end that the right hon. and learned Gentleman and himself differed more in name than in substance with regard to this office. Coming to the other points of the Bill, he was very much gratified at being able to state that the remaining differences between himself and the right hon. and learned Gentleman really came within a small compass, although he did not by by any means wish it to be inferred that the matters upon which they disagreed were without importance. The right hon. and learned Gentleman, with regard to the points affecting the procedure of the court, had, in the main, followed the opinion of a most eminent legal personage, whose judicial learning and acumen were universally respected—he meant the Master of the Rolls in Ireland. That learned Judge had published a pamphlet expressive of his views, and containing certain reasons for preferring, in several points, the practice of the Irish Court of Chancery to that of England. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had in a great measure reproduced those opinions in his Bill; but he (the Attorney General) could not agree with all the provisions therein sought to be introduced in accordance with the existing Irish system. By the measure of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, the plaintiff in Chancery would be permitted, by a verifying affidavit, to swear that everything contained in his Bill before the Court which related to his own knowledge was true, and that what was not within his knowledge he believed to be true. The onus prohandi was then to be thrown on the defendant. This verifying affidavit was perfectly worthless, and he was afraid that the mere requirement of it would operate as a premium on loose swearing. They would never keep a man out of Chancery by requiring him to file an affidavit of this kind. This was not his own view merely—he found that some of the most eminent men at the Irish Bar held the same opinion. Mr. Warren stated that the affidavit had come to be considered little more than a matter of form, and it was very embarrassing in the future prosecution of the suit. The House would see how it was embarrassing. Many a man, an honest suitor, did not know how to shape his case when he went into Court. It was not until the case had been sifted, until the suitor got a discovery from his adversary and the documents, that he knew exactly how the case stood. A man should not be called upon to swear in that kind of way. When the proper time came, let him give his evidence upon oath of that only which he knew. Mr. Smith took the same view of the matter. He said that the system led to competitive swearing little calculated to serve the cause of truth and justice. But the great advantage which was supposed to be derived from it was more objectionable still. It seemed to him the ne plus ultra of injustice that such an affidavit should invert the onusprohandi. A man put an affidavit upon the file in the common form. He might know nothing at all, or certainly not a great deal, of the facts; his statement of his belief as to things which he did not know would not be received as evidence, for a moment, in any court of justice; he could not even be asked a question about it, when examined in chief, in the witness-box; and yet, forsooth, he was in this way to throw the burden of proof upon his opponent. That was the system which his right hon. Friend wished to preserve. Why should that be allowed in Chancery which was permitted nowhere else? By another provision in the right hon. Gentleman's Bill, interrogatories could not be filed by the plaintiff without the special leave of the Court. Now, he had always thought that one of the principal objects of a Bill in equity was discovery, and that a party in a suit had a right to sift the conscience of his adversary, and get from him all the facts within his knowledge. His right hon. and learned Friend made it another great point in favour of his own Bill that it abolished demurrers altogether. The Bill of the Government abolished all demurrers except those for want of equity and for multifariousness. Thus they would get rid of merely formal demurrers, and retain demurrers of substance. There were cases in which great expense and vexation were avoided to litigants by means of demurrers. In many instances the question at issue turned upon a point of construction or a question of right under an instrument, or some other matter equally clear upon the pleadings, where the grossest injustice might be done by allowing a man to drag his adversary through a series of interrogatories and answers when it was plain, upon his own showing, that he had no right to come into court at all. Such cases were most properly met, and could only be met by demurrers for want of equity or for multifariousness. It seemed, also, that in Ireland those gentlemen whoso minds had been led by their experience to conceive a just and righteous horror of the working of cause petitions in that country, were alarmed lest they should be retaining or bringing back the evils of that system if the English practice of moving for a decree were introduced. Every one acquainted with the operation of the practice of moving for decrees in England would say that that was an idle alarm. That practice was found to be very salutary and beneficial in England, and to be unattended by any of the evils which had arisen from the Irish cause petitions; and there was no reason to apprehend any mischievous consequences from its introduction into Ireland. Another provision of the measure proposed by the Government was that it should not be competent for any defendant in any suit commenced by Bill to take any objection for want of parties in any case to which certain rules, specified in Clause 68, should extend. In Ireland there was no rule as to want of parties which could be called settled or inflexible; but if at any stage of the case, even at the final hearing, the court discovered that there were persons absent from the record whose interests were concerned, and whom it was important to find, the court might make an order nisi to bind those persons unless they showed cause to the contrary. That, bethought, was carrying matters to an inconvenient and dangerous extent, There remained one other subject on which, when they got into Committee, he should be disposed to listen without prejudice to any argument from his right hon. and learned Friend. He alluded to vivá voce examinations. That was one of the most difficult and the least satisfactory brandies of the English system; but if it were found to be consistent with the proper despatch of public business in Ireland that all vivá voce examinations should take place before the Judge in court he should not on his own part interpose any objection, although certainly he should wish to have the opportunity of communicating with those in Ireland who were most conversant with that matter. He had now stated the various points on which his Bill differed from that of his right hon. and learned Friend; the whole subject could he most conveniently discussed on the Government Bill, and he thought no useful purpose would be served by dealing with it in any other way.

said, he thought the Bill which his hon. and learned Friend had described with so much ability should be referred to a Select Committee—not for the purpose of defeating a good Bill, but for the purpose of making a good Bill, which it was quite clear the Govern- ment Bill was not. The statement of his hon. and learned Friend attested his conviction of the importance of the questions raised by this measure, which were among the most interesting that could be submitted to the attention of an enlightened jurist. His hon. and learned Friend first of all spoke of the frame of his Bill. Now, he (Mr. Whiteside) objected to the frame of the Bill. It was clear that the patronage portion of it was considered its most important part, and it had been dealt with as they sometimes dealt with a money Bill—tacking a clause to it, because they were determined the Lords should pass it. The constitution of the Court and its procedure were mixed up together. The two were entirely distinct. He had, therefore, placed on the table two Bills, one of which related to the constitution of the Court and the other to procedure. And for this reason. How had the present movement originated? In another place the Marquess of Clanricarde had discussed the relative costs of proceedings in the Courts of Chancery in England and Ireland, and the result of that discussion was that a Commission was issued to inquire as to the reduction of costs to suitors and the expenditure of the public money. But the Report of that Commission was of a most extraordinary character. The reference to the Commission was to inquire into the means of reducing the costs to the suitor. That was quite legitimate and proper. There could not be a more desirable thing than to reduce the cost of proceedings; because, although it was no doubt very well to get easily into the Court of Chancery, it was still more important to get out of it as cheaply as possible. The next object of the Commission was to inquire into the procedure, practice, and fees of the Court of Chancery in Ireland; and they were also to inquire into the difference between the constitution and form of practice of the Court of Chancery in England and Ireland. They took the last subject first; but what was most extraordinary was that the relative costs, of procedure in England and Ireland was entirely passed over, not a single question being asked with regard to it. There was not one word in the Report upon this all important subject—the real object of the Marquess of Clanricarde in moving in the matter. It would be his duty to prove that, so far from lessening costs, this Bill of his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General would much more than double them in the Court of Chancery in Ireland. The Bill would involve the creation of new places to the amount of £10,000 or £12,000 a year. The expenses of the staff was a small consideration compared with the administration of justice; but the Bill proposed to repeal every clause of the Chancery Regulation Bill, except the clause relating to pensions. Who carried the Bill of 1850? The Master of the Rolls, Sir John Romilly, who had signed the recommendations on which the present Bill was founded. But he preferred on certain points the deliberate opinion of Sir John Romilly expressed in that House some few years ago, supported by the most eminent men at the Chancery Bar, and not altogether unassisted by men whose names commanded considerable respect on this subject. By the Bill carried in 1850 it was enacted that parties taking certain proceedings in the Court of Chancery in Ireland must make affidavit that what was stated therein was true. Now, he found upon referring to the Act of Parliament that it was enacted that when a petition was presented it was to be verified by affidavit according to the form set down in the schedule of the Act; and that form was to this effect—the petitioner declared that so much of the petition as related to his own acts and deeds was true, and so much as related to the acts and deeds of others he believed to be true. That was the form which was so much censured by his hon. and learned Friend. Was it not right that a plaintiff who was about to put his adversary to an oath should be obliged to verify his petition by an oath also? The Master of the Rolls, in support of the change, stated that the effect of it would be to bring the matter at issue much more speedily before the Court, and the practice of filing pleas and demurrers, which led to so much delay, would be put an end to. But the extraordinary part of the legislation now proposed was this—that they were called upon to go back to all the technicalities which they had got rid of fifteen years ago. Again, the Master of the Rolls recommended his measure on the ground that it would enable the Court to take vivá voce evidence; but now it was proposed to restore the very mode of taking evidence which Sir John Romilly had condemned. Mr. John Sadlier, whose authority he would not wish to quote upon some other points, but whoso experience as an attorney entitled his opinion to weight on this, said that written evidence was futile. Mr. Henley was of opinion that it would be impossible to resist the extension of the improvement to England. His right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Walpole) gave, it was true, a more qualified opinion, for he held that to expedite the business in Chancery the proceedings in the Masters' offices should be thoroughly reformed. But when Lord St. Leonards came to Ireland that very thing was done. Sir John Romilly also quoted the opinion of the late Mr. Bell, who said that in all his experience he had never cross-examined a witness unless he could examine him in chief, or cross-examine him on the ground of interest.

said, he did not propose to go back to the old system. In England they had entirely got rid of the system of interrogatories, and the examination was vivá voce not only in substance, but in form.

said, it was to be done in a dark chamber, and that was the very thing to which he objected. The Master of the Rolls was strongly opposed to it, and here it was to be observed that the reformers were the Judges, and the anti-reformers the Law Officers of the Crown. He had seen a few days ago in Ireland an examination despatched in an hour which if conducted in a dark chamber would have lasted two or three days. The Master of the Rolls also said that the system of the Court of Chancery at that time amounted in a great measure to a denial of justice, and it was admitted by Mr. Pemberton Leigh that nobody could venture into that court unless the sum at stake was at least £1,000. An opinion was also expressed by a gentleman not then so well known to the House as he was now, but nevertheless admitted to be skilful, discreet, and learned, and that gentleman was Mr. Roundell Palmer. Mr. Roundell Palmer was then fresher and younger than now—he would not say more learned, but he was quite as competent to pronounce an opinion upon those principles which he had that night denounced with so much ability. He could not allow his hon. and learned Friend to escape. Mr. Roundell Palmer said it was an opinion very uniformly entertained that a very extensive reform must be carried out on such a principle as was incorporated in the Bill, and that such a remedy was absolutely necessary to restore efficiency and complete utility to the Court of Chancery both in England and Ireland. His hon. and learned Friend proceeded to say that the former system had brought discredit on the Court of Chancery; that practitioners in the Court were as nearly unanimous in favour of the principle of the measure as possible, and that a Bill formed upon the same principle ought to be applied to the Court of Chancery in England also. He would refer to Mr. Headlam as another authority who had spoken strongly of the value of sending cases for administration directly to one Judge, and said some of the great defects of the Courts of Chancery in London were the expensive and voluminous proceedings, and the great mass of documents that were accumulated in consequence of all the evidence having to be in writing. The Bill passed for Ireland provided a remedy for these, and enabled the Master to dispose of all orders of the court. Mr. Keogh also said during the discussion that the Bill would be regarded as a boon to Ireland, and he censured very severely, with that eloquence which belonged to him, an unfortunate English gentleman who had ventured to open his lips—Vice Chancellor Stuart. Sir Page Wood found in the Bill the principles he admired, and recommended it to the House as one that would pull up old abuses by the roots, and he contended that the same principles ought to be adopted in England. The present Lord Chief Justice, when speaking on the same subject, derided the lawyers who objected to changes, and said if a measure were brought in to alter the constitution the lawyers would be quiet, but if it were to touch a cobweb in Westminster, the lawyers would be up eagerly opposing it. The measure, he said—

"Was calculated to work a most salutary reform in the proceedings of the Court of Chancery in Ireland, and if extended to England he had no doubt it would be found to work with equal advantage here."

And he wound up by saying:—

"He wished, as a member of the legal profession, to express his unbounded acknowledgments and grateful thanks to his hon. and learned Friend for having taken up a course of legal reform in that House, which would be most gratifying to the public, and which showed that he was treading in his father's footsteps and was likely to add lustre to the honoured name which he bore."

Was it possible that the Government was now going to destroy a Bill which had the approval of such men, and which had proved one of the greatest blessings that Ireland had obtained from the Government of England for a long time? In the Bills which he had himself introduced he had yielded a great deal in order to get rid of opposition, but he could not yield those principles which these eminent men had approved in 1850, and which had been acted on ever since. In regard to the mode of verification proposed by the Bill now before the House, he contended that the measure would overthrow the Act of Parliament which had been found to work so satisfactorily. In England the vocations of the Master were added to the Vice Chancellor, and in Ireland the powers of the Vice Chancellor were given to the Master. In the 15th section of the Irish Act, it was enacted that all suits should go direct to the Master, and now it was proposed to introduce a Chief Clerk in the proceedings. He quite agreed that it was of great advantage that one mind should begin, continue, and end the cause; but the Attorney General, while professing to be in favour of the principle, by introducing the Chief Clerks, created the very evils he deplored. After all, the principal question, so far as the suitor was concerned, was the question of costs. When sitting upon a Committee for the rearrangement of the County Court Acts for Ireland, the Irish Chancery Act was brought prominently before him, and it was found to be a most useful measure. That Committee had to consider how cases under £200 should be dealt with, and they recommended that County Court Judges should be empowered on moderate terms to wind up suits under that amount. A question had arisen within a few days in England as to what was to be done with cases between £200 and £500. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General, in arranging his new and costly machinery, seemed to have forgotten what had recently passed in another place. Ireland was too poor a country to pay such excessive costs. By the County Courts Act for England the scale of costs and the fees of the Courts were fixed by the Judges, and he believed they might amount to £10 as against £2 10s. in the Irish County Courts. The Lord Chancellor had in the present Session introduced a Bill giving the County Courts of England equitable jurisdiction in cases not exceeding £300. Why was that increased jurisdiction to be given? Lord St. Leonards objected to the second reading. He was unwilling to send litigants, even in small cases, before an inferior tribunal, and he said that questions might arise in cases of no greater amount than £300 as important to the litigants and involving questions of as much nicety as if thousands of pounds were concerned. Lord Cranworth argued that courts which were intrusted with the duty of ascertaining whether debts were due were competent to wind up these small estates, to ascertain who were the creditors, and to divide the assets. The Lord Chancellor reminded Lord St. Leonards of the effect of the reduction already made in the fees of the court. He said—

"I find that there was a suit instituted in the Court of Chancery to get a decree for some property not exceeding in value £150. The costs amounted to £95 13s; but the court fees, the reduction of which is the panacea of my noble and learned Friend, were only £5 7s. 6d. The next case is something still worse. There was a small suit instituted for the administration of an estate. The whole estate was £400, and the debts on it £100. The costs amounted to £139 8s. 8d., the court fees being only £9 12s."—[3 Hansard, clxxvii. 1040.]

And the Lord Chancellor proceeded to express an opinion to which he entreated the particular attention of the Attorney General—

"The great fault of lawyers is that they become so enamoured of the old system in which they have been bred and in its principles, that they refuse to see anything but good in its application, and they look with suspicion on any plan which is likely to make the form of judicial procedure less elaborate and less costly as likely to cause a departure from that exactness in which they believe justice resides."—[3 Hansard, Ibid. 1041.]

He did for a moment imagine that the cases cited by the Lord Chancellor must be extreme cases, and he called upon a solicitor in large practice, who assured him, however, that there was nothing remarkable in the costs in those cases, and that he did not see how the suits could be carried through for less. That gentleman added that he himself had several cases in which the costs considerably exceeded those referred to by the Lord Chancellor. He thereupon sent to Dublin and got four bills of costs. In one case the value of the estate was £651, and the cost of winding it up was only £59. In a second case the costs were £49; in a third £42, in a fourth £50 2s. He had received a communication from Master Fitzgibbon as to the way in which these Acts were worked out. And he confidently asserted that if a speedy decision at a trifling cost was a desirable object the present practice of the Irish Court had attained that object. The question was, whether substantial justice could be got for the public, and he said that cheap and substantial justice had been obtained. The Masters did the most work, and they were Vice Chancellors under the present system. In a Committee of the House which sat six years ago, of which he (Mr. Whiteside) was a Member, the question was considered whether Masters should be abolished. The Committee, so far from so thinking, agreed that the Masters ought to have an original jurisdiction. They reported that the practice of taking vivé voce evidence in Chancery was a sound one, and that there ought to be a more extensive application of the principle. The Attorney General was accordingly directed to draw a Bill founded in fact upon the practice in the Irish Court of Chancery, and giving the Judges the power of reforming the practice of the English Court. That Bill would have prevented the necessity of even applying to Parliament again on the subject. He was sorry, however, to say that the Judges had refused to agree on the plan proposed. The Committee proposed to give power to the Judges to do by a general order all that the Committee thought necessary for the public good; but the presumption was that the Judges did not think that the proposed changes were required. The Committee admitted that it would be well to allow of a Parliamentary title being given to all landed property, whether encumbered or unencumbered: but then came the question whether the function of dealing with landed estates should be given to the Court of Chancery or to a separate tribunal; and the Committee was not in favour of throwing the additional duty on the Court of Chancery. Accordingly, he (Mr. Whiteside) brought in a Bill under which the present Landed Estates Court was created. He proposed that the work should be discharged by two Judges, but objection was taken to this, and in Committee on the Bill the number was increased to three. That he was right in supposing two would be sufficient to do all the business was evident from the fact that on several days the Judges of the Landed Estates Court rose as early as one o'clock. The business of the court had greatly diminished, for you could not sell the entire soil of a county twice over in twelve or fifteen years. The three Judges of the Landed Estates Court were able men, and had discharged their duties in a very satisfactory manner. Instead, therefore, of appointing some gentleman of the bar to the office of Vice Chancellor, which his hon. and learned Friend proposed to create at a salary of £4,000 a year, he would appoint one of those learned Judges. He said this without having had any communication with them on the subject. He would also, if his hon. and learned Friend's Bill was to pass, amend it by a provision to retain one of the four Masters in Chancery who at present discharged their duties in so efficient a manner. Lord St. Leonards had appointed the best men to be Masters in Chancery; and of all the cases that had come before them three only had been reversed. He desired that one of these officers should have the functions of a Vice Chancellor; but the Masters among them sometimes decided forty causes a day, and it was not to be expected that a Vice Chancellor could do the same. He was quite aware that the moment a man ventured to speak seriously of economy in the public expenditure lie involved himself in difficulties; but he must express his conviction that, between doubling staffs and paying pensions, the measure of his hon. and learned Friend would increase the expenditure for the administration of justice by much more than £12,000 a year. He objected to the system of Chief Clerks, and his hon. and learned Friend would not introduce it into Ireland if he could help it. The Judges of the Landed Estates Court had Examiners, and these gentlemen were barristers. If there were to be Examiners, and solicitors were to be appointed to the office, he wished them joy of it; but if asked whether he should prefer to have nice questions of account taken by the Masters in Chancery or by a Chief Clerk, he should unhesitatingly give the preference to the former. Sir James Graham himself advised the House to beware of the system of Chief Clerks. The Examiners in the Landed Estates Court had distributed £30,000,000, and he believed that no one would deny that that distribution had been made to the entire satisfaction of the public, By the practice advocated by his hon. and learned Friend great delay would take place in the progress of the suits, because it was not unlikely that matters which were speedily settled by the plan now adopted would occupy weeks before they were decided by the Chief Clerks. For simplicity and brevity he infinitely preferred the former system. As the public were well satisfied, he should like to see a uniform system adopted in the Landed Estates Court and in the Court of Chancery. At a lecture lately delivered in London it was correctly stated that the increasing power of the Chief Clerks should be viewed with some alarm. He thought that his hon. and learned Friend in seeking to extend to Ireland what was advantageous in England ought to consider more carefully the advantages which that country already possessed. In making a beginning it had naturally been thought better not to engraft the old dilatory proceedings of the Court of Chancery on the Landed Estates Court, but the quick proceedings of the Landed Estates Court upon the slow method employed by the Court of Chancery. Mr. Gibson had expressed his admiration of the simplicity of the Incumbered Estates Court, and the extreme facility which was afforded for personal communication with the Judges. That gentleman also said that it was the feeling of the profession generally that it would be better not to delegate authority to the Chief Clerks. Mr. Adair, in like manner, suggested that the principle of the Incumbered Estates Court should not be abandoned, but that it should be engrafted upon the Court of Chancery. His hon. and learned Friend had said, with an air of triumph, that the body of solicitors generally approved his Bill. Now, he did not believe that those gentlemen would be influenced in favour of a scheme which they did not approve by any hope of place, but he did not believe that his hon. and learned Friend was acquainted with the evidence given by that body. Regarding these gentlemen, as he did, with the greatest possible respect, he had examined their evidence. Those gentlemen said that the Irish Chancery Regulation Act was working well for the public, and had effected a great saving of expense. In answer to questions as to the working of the 15th section, which gave independent jurisdiction to the Master, they approved that section with some modifications. Those gentlemen suggested that a time should be fixed after which no further affidavit should be received. He had acted upon that suggestion, and had framed a clause in his Bill to carry it out. They would have no plea or demurrer, and he had abolished both. They would have no interrogatories without special leave of the Court, and that recommendation he had acted upon in his Bill. They thought that the business before the Chief Clerk should be mere matters of vouching and figures, and he had adopted that view in his Bill. In respect to the question of interrogatories, about which the Attorney General had been so triumphant, he (Mr. Whiteside) thought the system of taking further evidence by an Examiner was vicious, and so thought the Master of the Rolls in Ireland, the Chancellor, and the great body of solicitors. He was at issue with the Attorney General upon that point, but he was fortified by the opinion of the Master of the Rolls, expressed in the able pamphlet which the hon. and learned Gentleman had not answered, and by the practice of the Chancellor, who took evidence himself, and prevented counsel putting useless and irrelevant questions. Then, he would ask, was the House of Commons to surrender its convictions to a blue book, and because certain gentlemen recommended uniformity was a bad practice to be introduced into Ireland? He was authorized by one of the Commissioners to say that this Bill had never been placed before them, nor had their opinion been taken as to the propriety of the mode of obtaining uniformity. Then, the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General urged them to have the demurrer, but the Master of the Rolls in Ireland, with his sixteen years' experience as a Judge, declared that the idea of avoiding expense or preventing delay by means of a demurrer was a simple delusion. The accident of the Master of the Rolls being in London together with a chief officer of the Court of Chancery made it a convenient opportunity for inquiring into the matter before a Committee, which could take into consideration the whole of these Bills. He was told that the number of steps in a Chancery suit in England was double the number of those in a suit in Ireland. The hon. and learned Gentleman concluded by moving that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee.

said, he concurred with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Whiteside) in considering this a most interesting question, not only to the suitors of the Irish Court of Chancery, but to the country at large. Several steps had been taken in the direction of a reform of the Irish Court of Chancery; the first of which was that taken by Sir John Romilly in the year 1850. He was perfectly justified in saying, considering the number of Commissions and Committees that had examined this subject, that it had received every consideration, and the House was qualified to decide the question upon its merits without again referring it to a Select Committee. It was hardly correct of the right hon. Gentleman to say that in proposing the abolition of the Masters in Chancery, and the substitution of a Vice Chancellor, he had yielded to the opinions of others rather than acted upon his own conviction; because that very provision was contained in a measure upon this subject which was brought in in the year 856, by the right hon. Gentleman himself and Mr. Napier. It was perfectly true, as the right hon. Gentleman stated, that several eminent men, including Sir Page Wood, supported the Bill of 1850; but that was because it was a step in the right direction in the commencement of Chancery reform. The Commission appointed to inquire into Chancery reform in England adopted the principles not of the Chancery Act of 1850, but of the Bill now before the House. The right hon. Gentleman said the expense of proceedings in the Court of Chancery in Ireland was much less than in that of England, but that was a matter of opinion, and he (Sir Colman O'Loghlen) did not believe the Irish system was so cheap as the English. One main principle of the Bill of 1852 was that a suit should be commenced and finished before the same Judge, and the Bill now brought forward by Her Majesty's Government was framed upon that principle. The right hon. and learned Gentleman objected to the Bill introduced by the Attorney General, because it differed from his own by providing for the appointment of a Chief Clerk instead of an Examiner. Now, the right hon. Gentleman in his own Bill really did provide for the appointment of a Chief Clerk, although he called him an Examiner, and the very clause proposing to appoint an Examiner was copied from the clause in the English Chancery Act appointing the Chief Clerk. The words of the two clauses were identical, and the duties of the offices were precisely the same. Another objection taken by the right hon. and learned Gentleman was that the Attorney General's Bill allowed a de- murrer. In this matter the opinion of the Commission of 1852 had been, as he believed, rightly followed. With regard to the question of the examination of witnesses, the right hon. and learned Gentleman had made a mistake when he supposed the Bill proposed to introduce the system of interrogatories before the Examiner. All these questions could be discussed and settled in a Committee of the Whole House, and were not of a character which ought to be referred to a Select Committee. It certainly would be most unwise and imprudent to limit the discretion of the Crown in the selection of Judges in the manner proposed by the right hon. and learned Gentleman; and he demurred entirely to the right hon. and learned Gentleman's statement that the Judges of the Landed Estates Court had at present little to do. Their duties took up much time, and would be considerably increased by Bills now before the House. The Attorney General had shown that, even allowing for all the new appointments which would be necessary, £4,000 a year would be saved to the Treasury. The Bill had received the sanction of every man practising in the Irish Court of Chancery and of the Incorporated Society of Attorneys. All the questions of importance at issue between the Attorney General and the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite were of such a character as ought to be settled, not in a Select Committee, but by a deliberate vote of the House, and the mere matters of detail were so few that they might very properly be disposed of in Committee of the Whole House.

supported the proposal that the measure should be referred to a Select Committee, together with the Bill introduced by his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for the University of Dublin. He would remind the House that the Commission which had inquired into that subject did not include either the Lord Chancellor or the Master of the Rolls in Ireland; and he could state that the Master of the Rolls disapproved of many of its provisions. He was surprised not to find in this Bill any reference to the Report of the Committee which had sat upon the same subject. Prom 1850 to the present time the Masters in Chancery had been acting, with what success was shown by a Return obtained last year, from which it appeared that since the 1st of January, 1851, when increased jurisdiction was given them under Sir John Romilly's Act, down to the 1st of April, 1864, the five Masters made in all 14,443 decretal orders, of which only 134 were appealed against, and but forty-two reversed. As long as these able officers were intrusted with the same powers, it mattered little to the public whether they went by the name of Masters or Vice Chancellors. The Bill of the Government purported to have in view the same objects as the Report of the Commission—namely, to reduce costs to the suitors, to prevent undue expenditure to the public, and to assimilate as far as practicable the procedure of the two countries. But so far from this, the measure would in practice greatly increase the expenditure to suitors, add enormously to the public expenditure, while in the name of assimilation it was proposed to force upon the profession changes some of which were opposed to the wishes and opinions of a very large proportion of the best informed members of the profession in Ireland. The Incorporated Solicitors, he perceived, were now disposed to look favourably on the plan of the Government, though before the Commission they warmly supported the existing system, as administered by the Masters in Chancery. He could scarcely believe that a body of gentlemen so respectable would allow themselves to be influenced by the fact that the Clerks in Chancery were to be chosen exclusively from members of their own profession; but it certainly was remarkable that the change in their opinion was coincident in point of time with this determination on the part of the Government. The Bill proposed to appoint a new Vice Chancellor and a Chief Clerk, to give the Master of the Rolls two additional clerks, and to appoint another registrar and other officers—causing an additional expenditure of £12,500 a year. It abolished at one stroke four Masters in the fullest enjoyment of their faculties, with full will to continue their duties, they would be entitled to pensions, amounting to about £3,000 a year, and there was a shoal of clerks employed in their offices who would also be entitled to compensation. For what purpose was all this waste of money, and why should the country be saddled with such an expenditure? The new offices would cost from £10,000 to £12,000 a year; the retiring pensions to the Masters would amount to much more. No case had been made out for such a scheme, and in times of economy like these the House of Commons would do well to look closely at a Bill which would create a large number of good places, and displace able officers who would become pensioners on the State. The Government made a constitutional difficulty to the appointment of the existing officers to the new offices, but it would be impossible to find Judges more able or more esteemed than those of the Landed Estates Court. It required much to justify the course of proceeding the Bill proposed, and to show how far it was necessary in furtherance of the ends of justice to adopt the scheme proposed in this Bill. With regard to the question whether the Bill would increase the costs to the suitors, he would remind the House that there were some points in which the Irish practice was superior to that of England. For example, though all were agreed on the propriety of abandoning the system of successive affidavits, verification of the pleadings on oath ought not to be lightly abandoned, and the plan now proposed would certainly add to the expenses of the suit. Again, the practice in Ireland with regard to demurrers and pleas was the best, and the Master of the Rolls also disapproved the proposed vivá voce examination before the Examiners, believing that days would be occupied instead of hours, as would be the case, if the examination took place before the Court, and that a large additional expense would thus come upon the suitor. In a country like Ireland it was better to have justice administered, if less elaborate!, with less expense to the suitor than was the case in England. It had been shown conclusively that whereas the Commission was intended to save costs to the suitors and lessen the expenditure of public money, the Bill which pretended to carry out the Report of the Commissioners, did exactly the reverse. He and those who thought with him were of opinion that it would be fairer to ask the House to refer the subject to a Select Committee rather than crowd the notice paper with Amendments, which would be numerous and voluminous, and might lead to a great loss of time. If the Government would allow these three Bills to be referred to a Select Committee they would be able in a short time to combine them into a useful and satisfactory measure.

had heard four interesting speeches from four learned Gentlemen, and the details of the Bill appeared to him to be thoroughly threshed out. The real question left for the House was, whether or not the Bills should be referred to a Select Committee. It had been truly said that, in the present case, the bone of contention was the question of patronage, and lie thought it would be a wholesome regulation if in a Billl of this sort the practice and procedure clauses were framed by the Government, and the drawing up of the patronage clauses handed over to a patriotic Opposition, in order that the existing staff might be utilized. This the Government Bill did not propose to do. He did not see the use of sending the question before a Select Committee; and, as they had only had some twelve Members present on an average throughout the discussion that evening, they had practically had a Committee quite select enough. The only drawback to that was, that when the bell rang a number of Members would rush in, and by their blind votes overrule the judgment of those who had carefully attended to the business of the House. He thought it would be advantageous if, in the case of all Commissions of Inquiry into matters of that kind, the Commissioners were directed to frame a Bill to carry out their own recommendations in order that it might be submitted to the Government and Parliament. He regretted that in this case the Commissioners should have entirely overlooked one of the paramount objects for which they were appointed—namely, to inquire how the cost to the suitor and the expense to the public could best be redured. But he presumed that if the new procedure secured expedition it would necessarily diminish expense. In the Masters' Offices some cases had been going on for ten years, and they seemed likely to continue there for another ten. The Attorney General admitted that his measure would cause an immediate increase of charge to the public of £6,200, and that there might be a still further increase of £4,500. If permission was given for the creation of additional offices, and the incurring of additional expense, they might take it as a settled matter that the extra appointments would be made and the extra money spent.

said, that the main difference between the Bills before the House seemed to be this—that whereas one of them recommended the appointment of one Vice Chancellor, whose selection was to be left to the responsible Advisers of the Crown; the other Bill recommended the appointment of two Vice Chancellors, whose offices should he placed in the first instance at the option of certain judicial officers now in existence. Of those two principles he much preferred that contained in the Bill of the Government; for he thought that public officers, and especially judicial officers, should be appointed on the the responsibility of the Advisers of the Crown, and it hardly became Parliament to suggest to the Crown the persons who should even have the option of accepting such an office. At the same time it would be for the Advisers of the Crown in the exercise of their discretion to consider whether they should select competent men who held existing appointments, or should give their patronage to other persons. There were some principles involved in the two Bills to which he wished to call attention. Parliament had thought proper to proceed on two entirely different principles in reforming the Courts of Chancery of England and Ireland. In 1850 it proceeded to reform the Irish Court of Chancery on the notion that all these matters could be conducted by cause petitions, and on evidence principally supplied by affidavits. From all that had occurred during the present discussion, he was led to believe that the objections taken to the Bill of 1850 had been completely sustained, and he was glad to find that the Attorney General had adopted the view then advocated. In respect of the English Court of Chancery, the Act of 1852 proceeded on a totally different principle, and was really one of the most successful amendments of the law which had been made in our time. The first credit was due to the Commissioners for the recommendations they made, and great credit was also due to his noble and learned Friend (Lord St. Leonards) for the manner in which those recommendations bad been carried out. But there was one point in which that Act was defective. He referred to the Examiner's Office. He did not believe there ever could be a good administration of justice unless the evidence was taken before the Court which had to determine the matter in issue. There was very great difficulty in working out that result; but on that point there were clauses in the Bill of his right hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Whiteside) preferable to those in the Government Bill. There was another defect in the English Act of 1852 with reference to the working out decrees by the Chief Clerk. After the onerous duties of the Judge were got through, the labour imposed on him was too great to attend to the details of the Chief Clerk's office. The Judge was also naturally interested in supporting that officer's position, because he was his own Chief Clerk. These were the points to which he wished to call the attention of the House. Everything else was matter of detail, important indeed, but hardly fit for general discussion in that House. The question then arose, how should they deal with the Bills? If they could secure the attendance of the Attorney General, his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Belfast (Sir Hugh Cairns), and his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for the University of Dublin, and other Members, who really understood the subject, be believed they would be enabled to work out the result better in a Committee upstairs than in a Committee of the Whole House, where the matter would be discussed perhaps in presence of twenty or thirty Members, and divisions carried by those who had not heard the discussion. He should be glad to give his own assistance, either in a Committee upstairs or in a Committee of the Whole House, to put the Bill into as perfect a form as possible.

confessed, that after listening to the whole of the debate he had seldom found himself more embarrassed. He had thought they were all agreed that the system at work in Ireland was unsatisfactory, and that it required amendment; but he collected from his right hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Whiteside) that he was satisfied, and that the people of Ireland generally were satisfied, with the existing system, subject to some slight correction. If that were so, his hon. and learned Friend, instead of submitting Bills of his own on the subject, should have opposed the measure of the Government upon the second reading. The Government were under considerable disadvantage in legislating on this subject. The Attorney General in dealing with the question must have felt the disadvantage of never having observed the working of a single Irish Chancery suit, and during the debate he had been unsupported by any Members on his own side of the House who had had that advantage, with the single exception of the hon. and learned Member for Clare (Sir Colman O'Loghlen). He had known a good deal of the Court of Chancery in England before the Bill of 1852. His right hon. Friend who preceded him, had correctly stated that the Bill was an enormous improvement. It had corrected a system which was a disgrace to a civilized country. The country now had as much reason to be proud of the system as it had before to be ashamed of it. There were, no doubt, some defects still—one being as to the mode of taking evidence; and another, the system of proceedings in Chambers by the Chief Clerks; but, upon the whole, it had worked exceedingly well, and if there were imperfections in the Irish system, the proper course would be to extend to Ireland the system in operation here. He quite agreed that the evidence should be taken viv£ voce whenever it was practicable; but viv£ voce evidence in the Court of Chancery here was impossible, on account of the weight of business, and the system of examination before the Examiner was, he admitted, objectionable. The working out of decrees was also a great imperfection. It could not be denied that a Judge who for six hours of the day had devoted all the energies of his mind to the hearing of causes must be too much exhausted to be able to give three hours afterwards to duties in Chambers. The Court of Chancery had been vastly improved of late years; great expedition was now used; general satisfaction was given, and if there were any defects in the Irish system it was only right that they should be amended. But he could not imagine anything more simple than the plan of defending suits by demurrer, and there could be no more convenient mode of deciding cases, if the facts were agreed upon. Nor could he fall in with the suggestion that the plaintiff should be required to verify his bill on oath, because it might be filed upon imperfect information, and he ought to have the opportunity of improving his case, and it was only to the way in which he ultimately put his case that he ought to swear. Upon the whole he came to the conclusion that it was desirable that the system in England should be extended to Ireland, and, therefore, he felt bound to support the Bill of the Government. During the present debate there had been the greater part of the time four or six Members sitting on the Government side and ten or twelve on the Opposition Benches; but if they sent the Bill to a Select Committee those who were most competent to deal with the subject would not be able to attend, He suggested to his right hon. and learned Friend that he should endeavour to amalgamate his Bill with the Bill of the Government, and the question should then be considered in a Committee of the Whole House.

said, that a remark had been made that no Irish Member who had served on the Commission had addressed the House in favour of the present Bill, and as he had the honour to be on the Commission he hoped the House would allow him to make a few observations upon it. The object of the Commission was to ascertain which was the better practice, that of Ireland or that of England, in this matter. The first thing which the Commission endeavoured to ascertain was the practice in the Court of Chancery in England and in Ireland, for the purpose of seeing which was the better. They also aimed at discovering the opinion of gentlemen in Ireland who were competent to speak upon the subject, and they therefore examined the Master of the Rolls, Master Litton, and Master Brooke. There were three great points upon which they were examined, the first as to the substitution of compendious printed forms for the old written pleas, the second as to the mode of taking evidence, and the third as to whether the Masters' jurisdiction should be retained or abolished. On the question of written pleadings, the Master of the Rolls said that the English practice was by far the best, that he thought that the English practice of taking evidence ought to be adopted in Ireland, and that the English practice as to Masters was the best. Mr. Litton said that he thought that the system of procedure adopted in England was nearly perfect; and Mr. Brooke said that the most valuable of all reforms would be the adoption of the English practice in the Courts of Chancery in Ireland. Not a single witness before the Commission gave evidence on the other side. On that Commission there were several persons acquainted by experience with the practice in England and in Ireland, and they were unanimous that the practice in England should be introduced into Ireland. The hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Scully) said that the fault he found with the Commission was, that they had neglected to inquire into the question of reducing the costs to suitors—the only question they were appointed to deal with. Now, what the Commission were instructed to inquire into was the differences between the constitution, forms, practice, procedure, and fees of the courts in England and Ireland, with a view to reduce the costs to suitors, and the expenditure of public money on the establishment charges. These were two distinct questions. As regarded the costs of suitors, the Commission knew perfectly well that the very great and cardinal point in which the English system had been successful was the diminution of costs to the suitors. [Mr. WHITESIDE: No!] My right hon. Friend disagrees. [Mr. WHITESIDE: Entirely.] He must be allowed to have a little experience in the matter. He knew what the costs were before the new procedure, and he knew what they were now. He knew also what the cost was in Ireland, and what the expenditure of time and money was in Ireland, in arriving at a result, sometimes occupying months and sometimes years, which in this country was arrived at in a few weeks at a very slight expense. The other point was a different matter—that with reference to the expenditure of public money upon the salaries of the Judges and officials. That was a question with which the House was as competent to deal as the Commission, and therefore the Commission did not interfere in that matter. It was not necessary for the Commissioners to do more than make the recommendations they did as to the Judges. The salaries were for the Government to propose and justify to the House. His right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Walpole) said that if he could mention one respect in which the improvements introduced into this country in 1852 had not been successful, it was the mode of taking evidence and the proceedings before the Chief Clerks. But the House must remember that since the year 1852 the mode of taking evidence had been further extensively altered, and that there was a small amount remaining of the practice of 1852. It was not the practice now, when there was any serious dispute as to facts, to take the evidence before the Examiner, or otherwise than in open court. As to the question of Chief Clerk, he owned there was a great deal of truth in what his right hon. Friend said upon the subject. The practice required most careful watching. He owned, upon the whole, that it had worked successfully up to this time, owing to the very great care which the present Judges of the Court of Chancery had taken never to let go their hold over the proceedings before them; so that whenever a person wished to have a matter heard personally before the Judge he could have heard it before him, instead of before the Chief Clerk. It was impossible for a Judge to transact every minor detail of cases, to go through accounts, and similar business, which could be performed by a Chief Clerk. At the same time there was the danger of allowing the Chief Clerk to go out of his province; and that could only be guarded against by public opinion, and by that House taking care that that officer should not pass out of his jurisdiction and assume more authority than belonged to him. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Whiteside) had raised a very delicate question connected with the Landed Estates Court in Ireland, by stating that there were more Judges than were required for the business coming before the Court, and suggesting that one of the Judges should be made Vice Chancellor. He (Sir Hugh Cairns) believed that to be quite true; but the remedy was that the Government, if they adopted that view, should not fill up any vacancy that might occur until the opinion of the House of Commons was expressed upon the subject. He did not accept the argument that they should take away a Judge from the Landed Estates Court and make him a Vice Chancellor. It would be dangerous for the House to take that course. The appointment to a judicial office should be made upon the responsibility of the Government. As to the proposal to send the question to a Select Committee, he would say for himself that the Government having in their Bill carried into effect the recommendations of the Commission he would be satisfied that that Bill should be dealt with by a Committee of the Whole House; but, at the same time, the Government would do well to consider whether a greater amount of satisfaction would not arise by complying with the inclination of the House, if there was a general inclination in that direction, and referring these Bills to a Select Committee.

said, he had had some experience of the Court of Chancery as counsel, and also unfortunately as a suitor, and it was in the latter capacity that he was able to speak of the functions performed by the Chief Clerk. The system of warrants was the great objection to the Masters' offices. The number of Masters should have been diminished, and they should have had a paper of cases as the Judges had. Instead of this the Masters were abolished. Cases now went technically before the Judge in Chambers, but practically before the Chief Clerk. The Masters used to be men of considerable standing at the Bar, and counsel appeared before them. But the Chief Clerk was usually a solicitor, and counsel could not go and argue before an attorney. It was said that the parties could go before the Judge if they were not satisfied with the decision of the Chief Clerk; but this involved additional expense, and the Chief Clerk naturally exercised considerable influence over the Judge. He had heard from many eminent and experienced solicitors that they had great difficulty in knowing how to deal with the Chief Clerks, because they often knew nothing and cared nothing about the law of evidence. Things were thus admitted before the Chief Clerk which would not be admitted in any court in the kingdom, and which were never admitted before Masters in Chancery. The fact was the practice in the Chief Clerks' offices was becoming as bad as it was formerly in the Masters' offices, and before such a system was adopted in Ireland there ought to be an examination before a Select Committee. Another point on which he wished to say a few words referred to the manner in which the judgments of the Court were given. What was the judgment of the Court? It was often a speech made by the Judge, such as might be made in the House of Commons or elsewhere, in which he introduced every possible topic that could support his view of the case. He had heard a Judge make statements in these speeches in regard to matters which were not only not in evidence, but which the parties would not have been allowed to prove in evidence if they had attempted to do so. A Judge sometimes spoke for two hours, and then at the end of his speech there was not a counsel in court who could tell what the result of his judgment was. Counsel endorsed upon their briefs what they supposed the judgment to be, and then the parties went before the Registrar to try and find out what the Judge had decided. There were minutes of decree, attendances of solicitors, and other expenses incurred, and ultimately the parties sometimes had to go back to the Judge and obtain an interlocutory opinion upon the matter. He knew cases in which a Judge had made a speech of two or three hours, but in which two or three months elapsed before the actual decree was settled. But the Judge's speech was reported and became a precedent, although the actual decree of the Court when settled was very different from the speech. Until the Judges were obliged to draw up their own decrees, giving the reasons for those decrees, there would be no reform in the Court of Chancery. He should support the proposition for sending those Bills to a Select Committee.

in reply, reminded the House that both the Bills embodied, to a great extent, the same principle—that of establishing in Ireland the English system; the two Bills also agreed in abolishing the office of Master in Chancery; and really the points of difference between himself and his right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Dublin were reduced to eight matters of procedure, and two important questions as to the constitution of the court, which were peculiarly fitted for discussion in that House rather than for a Select Committee. It was for the House to decide whether certain officers should be appointed, and whether the patronage of the offices they were to fill was to be assumed by Parliament or to rest with the Crown. As to the points of procedure, if these were to be considered by a Select Committee, it was highly probable that those hon. and learned Gentlemen who were most competent to deal with them would not be able to attend the Committee; and the consequence would be that all those points would have to be discussed over again in a Committee of the Whole House. If his right hon. Friend should succeed in getting the House to agree with him, there would be no difficulty in giving effect to his views; and if, on the other hand, he should succeed in carrying the clauses as they stood, he was sure his right hon. Friend would throw no difficulty in the way of having effect given to the pleasure of the House of Commons.

rose to address the House; but the cries for a Division were so loud that but a few detailed sentences of the hon. Member's speech could he heard.

in moving the second reading of this Bill, said, that if his Motion met with any opposition he should not press it at that late hour. The object of the Bill was merely to continue another which had already expired. As many people were anxious to know whether the measure was to be continued, and as he understood that no opposition was to he offered, he hoped the House would allow the second reading to he carried, and any discussion to take place on the Motion for going into Committee on Monday next.

thought that a question of such great importance ought not to have been brought on at such a late hour, involving, as it did, the credit of the metropolis, as far as the poor were concerned. [Mr. C. P. VILLIERS: The discussion can be taken in Committee.] He might say, that if he met with any encouragement on the part of the House he should propose to add to the Bill what he regarded as a most important clause when it went into Committee. The right hon. Gentleman had latterly, as he knew, exerted himself very much with a view to amend the condition of the poor; but he did not think that matters were in quite so satisfactory a state as the right hon. Gentleman had led the House to suppose on a former occasion. A glance at the streets would show that they were never so crowded with vagrants as at the present time, and that professional mendicancy had never attained such a height. The newspapers had lately been full of clothes-tearing cases—charges against mendicants who had gone into the workhouses seemingly for the purpose of rending their garments and going out again. Although the right hon. Gentleman would, no doubt, say that these cases arose, for the most part, from the establishment of refuges by private charity, he must say that a great many of these vagrants found their way into the metropolitan refuges established by the right hon. Gentleman. What was it, however, which had necessitated the establishment of refuges by private charity? Nothing but the deficiency of the Poor Law. It was that very deficiency which induced people to think that it was better that a percentage of imposition should take advantage of these refuges than that numbers of people should starve nightly or weekly in the metropolis. By a Report laid upon the table of the House on the previous evening, but not yet printed, he perceived that these refuges could accommodate about 1,000 people nightly, and that the total number received during the month of January last amounted to 27,583. Now, there were two points to which he wished specially to direct the attention of the House. The first was the practical working of the Act as regarded cases of real distress, and the other its practical working as regarded professional mendicancy. In respect to the former point he might say that the alleged emptiness of the workhouse wards might easily be accounted for, because as long as the doors were kept shut empty houses must be the result. The workhouses nearest to that House—St. Margaret's and St. John's, Westminster—according to the Return, contained sixty-two beds. He was there himself some time ago. He found some twenty or twenty-two beds. Where, then, did the remaining forty persons go? They had to go to Kensington, a distance of three miles, and at the termination of their walk they received four ounces of bread. He did not know whether the right hon. Gentleman considered four ounces of bread was sufficient relief for a poor and destitute man, but he must say he should be sorry to see the right hon. Gentleman reduced to the condition of a casual pauper. If the right hon. Gentleman were so reduced, he should like to learn the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman as to the satisfactory working of his own Act when, after surmounting the difficulties connected with one workhouse, and after arriving at another, tired and weary from the effects of a three miles' walk, he received that amount of sustenance as the reward of his labour. [The hon. MEMBER here held up a packet containing a very small quantity of bread.] The relief given was capricious and unequal, as was usually the case in the administration of the Poor Law. The average, however, was about 5½oz., according to the Report. In every case some warm and nourishing drink ought to be given. In the workhouse of St. Olave's Union the amount of relief given was 5oz. of bread in the evening, and the same in the morning, with as much water as the pauper chose to drink. They had all heard of cafás abroad where pain á discrétion was supplied; but it was reserved for an English workhouse to boast of its liberality in cold water. Beyond that he had to complain of the insults that were too frequently cast upon unhappy applicants for relief. A few days since he accompanied a poor man, a casual pauper, to the workhouse of a rich parish where he had been refused admission. At his request the man was admitted, but the workhouse porter told the poor man to "come in" in about the same tone in which a surly gamekeeper would address a half-broke retriever. The first amenity the man met with when he went into the workhouse was that, in answer to a statement he made, he was told he was a liar. It appeared that the man really told the truth, and the workhouse porter, who was above the average of such officials in courtesy, probably meant nothing by his language, which was only the ordinary workhouse mode of addressing casual poor. The recipient of out-door relief met with the same insulting treatment. He was informed by a gentleman that at Lambeth workhouse he saw a poor woman waiting with an order for some meat, and when she told her object to the porter she was told she could wait until she got it. She did wait three-quarters of an hour, and then she got it—but it was flung across the hall to her as to a dog, and she caught it in her lap. That kind of treatment had the effect of excluding the deserving poor, but did not exclude the regular vagrant, who was accustomed to that kind of language and could return it. According to the Report, in the parish of St. George's, Hanover Square, there had been 558 men who were refused relief in the month of January on account of the fitting up of the wards. He could not understand such an excuse in the middle of winter, when the Act was passed in June or July last year. However, he was not surprised at such conduct in St. George's, Hanover Square, which was a rich but eccentric parish, for he remembered a placard which hung outside the workhouse in Mount Street to the effect that notice was thereby given that the tramp ward of that workhouse was closed; consequently, although not strictly in accordance with the law, the poor had to go away unrelieved. In the City of London Union, according to the Report, there had been 3,116 males, 542 females, and 191 children relieved as casual poor. He thought he might safely say that at least 90 per cent of the males were young and able-bodied men, who were often relieved three or four times a week. The numbers showed a great inequality between the numbers of males and females, the latter of whom were principally deserving poor. The fact was that the treatment of the vagrant was too good, while for the deserving poor it was not good enough. There had been twenty-one deaths from starvation between November and February. He had heard it gravely stated that some of those persons so died by their own choice, and that they were sometimes even in possession of property, real and personal. He asked hon. Gentlemen whether they had ever found such convenient and accommodating eccentricities among their wealthy relatives. The Act was really inefficient. He had a letter from a workhouse chaplain, who, seeing some people lying on the steps of the workhouse, asked the porter whether they had been there all night; to which the man replied that probably they had. It was true that such a practice was often resorted to by professional beggars, who found it profitable to extort money from the 'sympathetic passers-by; but he had a clause to propose which he thought would prevent that practice in future. His proposition was simply to make the police relieving officers in their various districts. The idea was not a new one. In 1846 a similar plan was adopted, and London was divided into six districts. An asylum was to be built in each. Two of those districts consented to build such asylums, but the other four refused, and so the scheme fell to the ground. It was not necessary now to build new asylums, for the present accommodation would be found sufficient, if properly applied. In St. Paul's, Covent Garden, and the Strand Union the system he advocated was in full force. The poor person received a ticket for relief from the police, who were better judges of real distress and better acquainted with regular vagrants than workhouse porters. The right hon. Gentleman might reply that such was practically the case at present—that when a policeman took a poor person to the workhouse he received relief. But it was not the duty of the police to do so, and he wanted to make it their duty, and to make it the duty of the workhouse officials to relieve the poor so brought to them. The casual poor should be taken to the police station and then taken to the workhouse. If the casual ward should be full, the relieving officer should be called upon to find lodgings for the applicant. That system was working well in one district, and why should it not work well in another? It appeared to him to be a practical mode of dealing with the question. Vagrancy would diminish, while the casual poor would receive effectual relief. The parochial authorities could not object; the Home Office and Sir Richard Mayne could not object to it. Sir Richard Mayne had been somewhat harsh towards the poor costermongers, who were honestly endeavouring to earn a living, and also towards those unhappy men called "human sandwiches," or boardmen. Their calling was not dignified, but it was honest, and produced to them the miserable pittance which preserved them from being driven to crime, as in some cases had happened in consequence of the stoppage of their employment. There could be no better occupation for the police than to relieve distress and to remove vagrants and impostors. Why should not magistrates convict vagrants and impostors? He was told that there was a difficulty, but he could not understand why such persons could not be dealt with as easily as the poor costermongers or the unhappy women who were brought before the magistrates in consequence of the insatiable morality of a Regent Street shopkeeper. He should propose that the right hon. Gentleman should introduce into the Bill, in Committee, a clause to the effect that from the passing of the Act every metropolitan police station should be constituted an office for the issue of orders of admission for destitute persons requiring the same into the casual wards of the workhouses of the district in which the said police station was situated. If this or some similar clause be added to the Act, I believe it will go far to remove the disgrace and stigma which constantly recurring deaths from starvation have fixed upon this metropolis, and upon the civilization, humanity, and Christianity of the 19th century.

said, he was sorry that the Bill had been brought forward in its present shape, for he believed it to be the fact that while the refuges were full the workhouse wards were quite empty. The terms on which relief was offered to the poor at the workhouses were such that they would not accept it, and it was a cruel thing to delude them with such a snare as the measure now before the House. Owing to the harsh system which was adopted starvation reigned in the heart of London, and that starvation had greatly increased within the last few years. Two or three years ago there were only two cases a week of persons dying from starvation, while this year the number was five or six; and that state of things could be attributed, he thought, to no other cause than the more strict enforcement of the workhouse test which now prevailed. The Committee which had been appointed on the subject was no doubt very satisfactory to the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Poor Law Board, for it had completely whitewashed him; but it should be borne in mind that he whose acts were to be tried as the chief criminal sat as judge in his own case, and that it was not unnatural that he should end by acquitting himself. When he was at the Poor Law Board, Bethnal Green was considered a pattern parish; but if the right hon. Gentleman held out London as a model of what he wished England to be in reference to the relief of the poor, he trusted the House in Committee would introduce into the present Bill a provision which would render it more acceptable to destitute persons in the metropolis.

said, he very much regretted that so important a discussion should have arisen at so late an hour, because it was impossible to enter into those details which the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Bromley) had with so much knowledge of the subject unfolded. He could not, however, allow the present opportunity to pass without saying that he did not believe the Bill of last Session had failed from any defect in its principle; it was rather because hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House had sedulously laboured to destroy its useful action by limiting its operation to a period of a few months. For his own part, he did not think it could be expected to effect the good which it was intended to accomplish unless it were made a permanent measure. But be that as it might, he must express his astonishment that any hon. Gentleman who had the slightest acquaintance with the working of our Poor Law system could have given utterance to observations so mischievous as those which had fallen from the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken. To contend that the Poor Law ought to be framed so as to be acceptable to the poor, appeared to him to be, to say the least of it, a doctrine of a most extravagant character; and if that theory were carried out in the metropolis the greatest possible injury would be inflicted on the in- dustrious classes of the community, who maintained themselves, and whose interests ought to he considered.

said, he did not at that hour of the night feel called upon to reply to puerile personalities, and he would shortly therefore proceed to state a few facts to show that the Bill was not open to the objections which had been urged against it. It was a measure founded on the unanimous Report of a Committee upstairs, and the only objection which had been taken to it last year was that it was proposed at too late a period of the Session. That circumstance, indeed, it was which had induced the House to limit its operation, while the cause of its enactment was that no adequate provision was made for the destitute wanderers in the streets of the metropolis, inasmuch as they did not belong to any particular parish. It was thought, and with some reason, that the property of the metropolis should provide for the maintenance of those people, and there was a Return stating what had been the result of the proposal. The House would learn from that Return that whereas before the passing of the Bill there was no certain provision made in the union for the wandering destitute poor, under its operation sleeping accommodation had been secured for them to the extent of 900 beds. It should be borne in mind, he might add, when the superior treatment which they received in the refuges was spoken of, that they were subjected to no test or no check on imposture; but the Return from these refuges had been sent to the Poor Law Board, and it would, he believed, be in the hands of Members tomorrow. As to the present measure, however, it might have fallen short of the expectations of some, it had not failed in its purpose, and there were under its operation thirty-nine or forty houses where there were persons up during the night to receive those who stood in need of shelter. The reason why the police were not at first authorized to take persons to the workhouses was that it was not certain that the guardians of all unions would adopt the Act. They had now done so, and had made adequate provision for the reception of these poor people; and he therefore intended to propose—and he had informed the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Bromley) of that intention—that the police should be empowered to take to these places any person whom they saw simulating misery or soliciting alms in the streets. Under these circumstances he hoped that the House would agree to the second reading of the Bill.

asked the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of the Home Department, to omit from the schedule "Epsom Common" and "Epsom Common fields," which were only about seventeen or eighteen miles from London, and therefore within the area to which the inquiry of the Committee now sitting extended.

said, that these two cases had been specially reported upon, and the Report was in the hands of Members. Epsom Common fields were cultivated land, belonging to twenty-eight persons, over which the public had no rights, and he therefore could not consent to omit them from the Bill. The other case referred to—that of Epsom Common—was one of the inclosure of a real common, and as some part of it was within fifteen miles of London he would consent to postpone its consideration.

said, that unless the public had some right over these fields he could not understand why their owners should have thought it necessary to apply to the Inclosure Commissioners at all. He believed that the public had some rights over them, and therefore he thought that neither of these inclosures ought to be sanctioned until the Committee now sitting had made its Report. In order that the hon. Gentleman might have an opportunity of again addressing the House, he moved that the Bill should be read a second time that day week.

said, that this was a question which affected private property, and he could not consent to omit these fields from the Bill.

said, he was sorry that the hon. Gentleman would not accede to the reasonable proposal which had been made to him. There wanted some reform in this matter of inclosures. Inclosure Bills were intended to be a protection for the public; but instead of that they had been made the means by which open spaces had been withdrawn from the enjoyment of the public.

hoped that the hon. Gentleman would accept the suggestion of the hon. Member for Finsbury.

said, that as to the Epsom Common fields there were no public rights whatever, and this Bill could not harm the public.

pointed out that there was a great distinction between commons and common fields.

opposed the Motion as being unnecessarily inquisitorial, invidious, and offensive, as regarded the authorities of the establishment in question.

was of opinion that the Returns moved for ought to be granted. They were only a continuation of the Returns which had been given for many years past.

denied that a Return of this kind, specifying the names, religion, employment, and salaries of the officials of the Royal Hibernian Military School, was a legitimate one. He deprecated any such information being furnished on the Motion of a Member of that House.

seconded the Amendment.

also objected to the granting of the Return, which he described as being very inquisitorial.