, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said: The objects of the High Court of Justiciary Bill are two-fold. It proposes, in the first place, to extend the term during which appeals from the decisions of inferior Courts under the provisions of the 20th of Geo. II., cap., 43, may be competent; and in the second, to extend the grounds of those appeals. According to the 34th clause of that Act, it is lawful for any party conceiving himself aggrieved by the judgment of any sheriff or burgh Court, when such sentence shall be concerning matters criminal of whatever nature or extent, except all cases which infer the loss of life or demembration, or in matters civil where the subject-matter of the suit does not exceed in value the sum of £12, to appeal to the next Court of the circuit wherein such county or burgh shall lie. No such appeal is competent before a final judgment is pronounced; and in order that it may be competent, it must be taken in open Court—

"At the time of pronouncing such decree, judgment, or sentence, or at any time thereafter within 10 days, by lodging the same in the hands of the clerk of the Court, and serving the adverse party with a duplicate … and serving in like manner the inferior Judge himself in case the appeal shall contain any conclusion against him by way of censure or reparation of damages for alleged injustice."

The provisions of this Act for appeal have been incorporated in a number of other Scottish Acts of Parliament, both public and private—amongst others, for example, in the General Police Act and in the Glasgow Police Act; and in both these Acts, and in most of the others, the grounds on which appeal is allowed have been so narrowed that it is absolutely necessary in the interests of justice, that no unintentional obstacles should be thrown in the way of exercising that right. In the Acts which I have quoted, for instance, appeals according to the provisions of 20 Geo. II, cap. 43, are only allowed on the grounds of corruption, malice, or oppression on the part of the Judge, wilful deviations in point of form from statutory enactments, and incompetency, including defect in jurisdiction. Now, Sir, when it is borne in mind that appeals under the provisions of this Act are restricted to such narrow and urgent grounds, it is imperative to see that no unnecessary obstruction is placed in the way of any person desiring to avail himself of the right of appeal which does exist. In considering this matter it must be borne in mind that in petty criminal eases in Scotland the law is administered in the most summary fashion. In the great majority of cases the accused is apprehended without a warrant, kept locked up in a police cell, taken to Court, and the trial at once proceeded with. If he asks for delay, he is entitled to have the case postponed for a few hours. But there is no provision made for informing him of that right, and if he does demand the delay, he is still kept under lock and key; so that unless he happens to have funds to employ an agent, or friends to interest themselves in his behalf, he is absolutely powerless to do anything in the way of preparing for his defence. In consequence of this there is reason to fear that much injustice is often done; and, as imprisonment follows immediately upon conviction, even the limited right of appeal given under the Act which I propose to amend becomes unavailing. As I have said, according to that Act, appeal must be lodged within 10 days of the sentence being passed; and although in the various Acts with which its provisions have been incorporated, that term has been more or less modified, it may be safely stated that such appeal is nowhere competent more than 14 days after the passing of the sentence. If, therefore, a justice or a magistrate corruptly, oppressively, or maliciously sends an ignorant and undefended person to jail for 15 days, he may do so with the comfortable assurance that by dealing out a sufficiently lengthy sentence, he has practically rendered it all but impossible for his victim to appeal against his decision, or to seek redress at his hands. For according to the 35th of the rules for the conduct and treatment of prisoners in Scotland, convicted prisoners are allowed to receive no visit, nor to send out or to receive more than a single letter during the first three months of imprisonment, except in case of sickness and other spe- cial circumstances, when the Governor may make an exception in their favour. Once, then, safely in prison for 15 days, the victim it may be of oppression, malice, or corruption on the part of the Judge, is practically cut off from the outside world, and effectually prevented from exercising his right of appeal. In using the words corruption, malice, and oppression in connection with the Judges of our inferior Scottish Courts, I should be very sorry to be supposed to wish to cast any reflection upon them. I make use of the words simply because they occur in the Acts of Parliament with which has been incorporated the provisions as to the appeal of the Act which it is the object of the Bill now before the House to amend. Cases in which there is any ground for alleging corruption, malice, or oppression against even our unpaid magistracy are extremely rare; but they are not so rare, but that the Legislature has thought proper to provide for a right of appeal, wherever such allegations can be sustained. What I affirm is, that under the existing restrictions as to the time during which appeals are competent, taken in connection with the conditions under which the accused is placed, the salutary intentions of the law with regard to the right of appeal may be altogether frustrated, and that in the very cases where it is most desirable, in the interests of justice, that effect should be given to them. This is illustrated very forcibly in a case which occurred about six months since in the city of which I have the honour to be one of the Representatives, and which excited a great deal of attention, not only there, but throughout all Scotland—the case of William Mackenzie, a Glasgow joiner. The case as set forth in the statement of facts appended to the bill of suspension which was unsuccessfully raised to obtain the quashing of Mackenzie's sentence were as follows:—On September 11, Mackenzie, who was at work on a building, the joiner work of which was being executed by his employers—Messrs. Miller and Bannerman—was taking his breakfast on the premises, when his attention was called by his wife to a woman who was gathering pieces of stick within the barricade which surrounded the building, and handing them to another woman who stood outside it. Mackenzie thereupon ordered away the woman who was within the barricade, and took from the woman who was outside the sticks which were in her possession, with the exception of "three small and useless pieces of old wood, partly rotten, and filled with nails," which the woman refused to give up, and which Mackenzie did not think it worth while attempting to force from her. He had never seen either of the women before, had not seen the three pieces of stick handed through the barricade, and did not actually know whether they had been taken from the building upon which he was employed or not. It happened, however, that two policemen had observed the old woman with the sticks, and they brought her back and made her throw them down. Now, if anyone committed a theft, it was obviously the old woman, and not Mackenzie, and if anyone should have been arrested and punished for it, it was obviously she. And yet for this wretched theft, which the policemen considered too paltry to justify the arrest of the old woman, Mackenzie, who had committed no offence at all, was sentenced to 30 days' imprisonment by Bailie Bannerman, a magistrate, who was for many years sole partner of the firm of Miller and Bannerman, who, according to the statement of facts from which I am quoting, at the very time that he pronounced this extraordinary judgment, retained a large pecuniary interest in the firm, and whose son was a partner of that firm. Now, Sir, the fact of such a sentence being pronounced in such a case, had even the alleged theft been committed, was bad enough. It was especially bad that a magistrate should pronounce it in a case brought up at the instance of a firm in which he retained a large pecuniary interest, and of which his son was still a partner, and it was doubly bad that he should pronounce such a sentence directly in the teeth of a wise and salutary arrangement which has for long been acted upon by the magistrates of Glasgow, that in first convictions for trifling offences the prisoner should be dismissed with an admonition. But, Sir, bad as all these considerations would have rendered this case, its injustice was aggravated by the circumstances which attended Mackenzie's arrest and trial. As I have said, the policemen who brought back the old woman with the three pieces of stick did not think it worth while to arrest her, and of course they had no excuse to arrest Mackenzie; but on the afternoon of the day on which the occurrence took place, Mackenzie was given in charge of the police by Messrs. Miller and Bannerman's foreman, and brought to the police office, where the lieutenant on duty, having inquired into the case, considered that there was no ground for detaining him, and dismissed him. On the following day, Saturday, when Mackenzie went to his employers' office for his week's pay, he was again given in charge by a member of the firm to a policeman whom they had arranged with to be in attendance for that purpose, and this time the charge was entertained, and Mackenzie was locked up in a police cell, where he lay till Monday morning. During this time he had no opportunity of communicating with anyone except his wife, to whom he got one of the officials to convey a message on Sunday, and who arranged to be in Court to speak for him on the following morning, as Mackenzie had such an impediment in his speech as practically prevented him, when excited, from making himself intelligible to any but her. On the Sunday, too, he was visited by the detective who had charge of the case, and who strongly urged him to plead guilty, assuring him that the case was of such a paltry nature that, if he did so, he was certain to get off with an admonition. On the Monday morning Mackenzie was brought up before Bailie Bannerman, the charge against him, which he now heard for the first time, read hurriedly over to him—in accordance with the advice he had received he pleaded guilty, intending, he maintains, to explain that it was only to having allowed the old woman to go away with the three sticks. His wife, who was to have been there to make the explanation for him, was not in Court, having been prevented by the police from entering. His plea of guilty was recorded, and he was sentenced to 30 days' imprisonment. Now, Sir, I say that this is as aggravated a case of injustice as one could well conceive, and that it is precisely one for which the law intended to provide by the allowing of appeals. But in this very case, from the restriction at present placed upon the time during which an appeal is competent, an attempt at ap- peal proved futile, and that although Mackenzie was, in accordance with a provision contained in the Glasgow Police Act, liberated after eight days only of his sentence had expired. For, as I have said, Mackenzie was virtually cut off from the outer world from the date of his arrest. He was a poor man, and had not the benefit of legal advice. He was totally unacquainted with the provisions of the law as regarded appeal, and it was not till after his release that, his case having been brought before the public, the necessary funds were provided to enable him to seek for redress. By this time the statutory number of days allowed under the Act had elapsed, and although it was attempted, by way of suspension, to have the sentence quashed on the ground that there had been corruption, malice, and oppression on the part of the Judge, and that, in fact, no such crime as that libelled had ever been committed, the Court of Justiciary held that it was too late to open up the question. Nay, the judgment of the Court aggravated the anomaly to which I have drawn attention. It was argued by the appellant's counsel, as a reason for bringing the appeal to the High Court of Justiciary, instead of the next Circuit Court, that the complainer having 14 days allowed him by statute within which to deliberate whether to seek review or not, and being—under the statute which I seek to amend—required to give 15 days' notice of his appeal to the opposite party, after he had determined on it, there was not that length of time—29 days in all—intervening between the date of the sentence and the meeting of the next Glasgow Circuit Court. Now, Lord Neaves, who delivered the leading judgment in the case, disregarded this plea.

"The appellant," he said, "takes 14 days to make up his mind to complain of the flagrant injustice under which he is smarting; he lies in jail until it becomes impossible for him to carry out the other requisite—the 15 days' notice; he could have done it perfectly well under the statute—he could have made up his mind. It appears to me it was his duty to have made up his mind; he was not bound to delay 14 days. He has that time if he requires; but there is another requisite with which I think he should have taken steps to comply when it was in his power."

I would ask the House to mark the effect of these last words, for it has a most important bearing on this Bill. It is this—that, according to Lord Neaves, when less than 29 days elapse between the pronouncing of a sentence and the sitting of the next Circuit Court of Justiciary, the respondent is entitled to 15 days' notice, and the appellant only to so many days as may remain between the date of the sentence and the 15th day before the sitting of the next Circuit Court. So that actually if the sentence should happen to have been pronounced 16 days before the sitting of the next Circuit Court, the appellant, according to this learned Judge must be restricted to a single day instead of the 10 or 14 granted him by statute, and if judgment happens to have been pronounced within 16 days of the sitting of the next Circuit Court, the man must, according to the same reasoning, be deprived of the right of appeal altogether. Now, Sir, any one who takes the trouble to read the words of the statute regarding this 15 days' notice, will see that, according to the plain wording of the Act which I seek to amend, the appellant is entitled to so many days wherein to give notice, and the respondent to 15 days' notice, and that he must attend not at the next Circuit Court after the trial, but "at the next Circuit Court which shall happen to be held 15 days after such service." It will thus be seen that Lord Neaves' decision on this point was directly in the teeth of the obvious meaning of the statute. But when Judge-made law and statute law come into collision the latter too often goes to the wall; and I have shown what Lord Neaves' interpretation of the right of appeal under 20 Geo. II, cap. 43 is, because it strengthens my case, and renders more urgent than ever the necessity for such an extension of the time during which appeals may be competent, as is proposed in this Bill. Before leaving this point, it may be as well to correct an impression which a sentence of Lord Neaves, which I have quoted, might leave upon the mind of the House. The learned Lord speaks of a man lying in prison, being perfectly well able to appeal under the statute of 20 Geo. II As I have shown, the rules which regulate the management of prisons in Scotland render this practically impossible; for, according to them, a convicted prisoner cannot receive any visit, nor write or receive more than one letter during, the first three months of his imprisonment. But a hon. and learned Friend of mine, a Member of this House, said to me—" What is the use of granting the right of appeal against a sentence of imprisonment after it has been undergone?" My reply is, that the Act of 20 George II., as it at present stands, grants that right of appeal, and very plainly suggests the reason for so doing. For under it, any man who has been unjustly imprisoned for any period less than 25 days must bring his appeal after his term of punishment has expired. Moreover, according to it, provision is made not merely for serving the adverse party with the appeal, but "for serving in like manner the inferior Judge himself, in case the appeal shall contain any conclusion against him by way of censure or reparation of damages for alleged wilful injustice." The reason, therefore, for allowing these appeals under the Act of 20 George II. is clearly not only, in cases where that is possible, to prevent unnecessary hardship being suffered through the operation of an unjust sentence, but when that sentence has been completed to allow the injured party to clear his character by the annulment of the conviction recorded against him, and to obtain reparation of damages at the hands of those from whom he has suffered wilful injustice. The importance of the last object, not only to the injured party, but to every one concerned in the purity of the administration of justice in our inferior Courts, is obvious, and the importance of providing for the revision, and, if it appears proper, the reversal of sentences in such cases as are dealt with under this Act, is equally obvious if it be remembered that as long as the conviction stands it is practically impossible to obtain reparation for injury suffered under it, by a civil suit. This constitutes my case for the extension of the time during which appeals under 20 Geo. II., cap. 43, shall be competent. What I propose is that they shall be timeously made if lodged at any time during the currency of the sentence, or within 14 days after its expiration—and I make this proposition with the view of converting what is at present, in those cases where the most wrong has been suffered, but the shadow of a right into a reality—with a view of abolishing that legal fiction which at present gives a convicted prisoner the right of appeal, while the prison rules effectually prevent his availing himself of it. The 2nd clause of the Bill now before the House is intended to enlarge the ground on which appeals from the Inferior Courts to the High Court of Justiciary are competent. Originally the powers of review of the Supreme Court were unrestricted; but it has comparatively of late years become the fashion in various statutes with which the provisions for appeals of the Act to which I have so often referred have been incorporated, to limit the grounds on which they can be exercised. In a number of cases these are now so limited as to apply only to cases where the injustice of a sentence has not only been manifest, but where it has arisen through the wilful act of the Judge. Thus, in the General Police (Scotland) Act of 1862, and in the Glasgow Police Act, the only ground on which an appeal from the magistrate's decision is competent are (1) corruption, malice, or oppression on the part of the Judge; (2) such deviation in point of form from the statutory enactments as the Court of Review shall think took place wilfully; and (3) incompetency, including defect of jurisdiction. What I propose is to add that an appeal against a sentence shall be competent whenever the Court of Review shall consider that the proceedings under which that sentence was pronounced were so conducted as not to afford the appellant a fair trial. It may be objected that the words in this Bill are such as would allow the Court of Review a very wide discretion. Such, I do not conceal, is their object; but I do not think they would allow it a wider general discretion than that which is already allowed it in different directions even by the various restrictive enactments. Thus, it does not allow a wider discretion than is allowed the Court in the interpretation of what constitutes oppression, a term which, elastic as it is, is sometimes stretched to its very limits of expansion in order to allow the Court to get into a case when an obvious injustice has been done, but which technical difficulties hedge round against the exercise of appeal. Again, in the Small Debt Act, Section 31, appeals are allowed in the case of such deviation of form from statutory enactments as the Court shall think took place wilfully, and prevented substantial justice from being done. Now, this is precisely analogous in point of the discretion allowed, and almost of the language used with what is proposed in this Bill. In both cases the Court of Review is left to determine, in the one case, whether the wilful deviation from forms has prevented substantial justice from being done; and, in the other, whether the proceedings were so conducted as not to afford the appellant a fair trial; and in each case it has it in its power to remit to the local sheriff, or some other commissioner, the task of inquiring into, and reporting on, the one preliminary point or the other. Having disposed of this objection, let us now consider a few cases which illustrate the necessity of the extension proposed in this Bill. In the first place we have the Mackenzie case, to which I referred at some length in connection with the proposed extension of time for lodging appeals. There, as we have seen, the prisoner was afflicted with such an impediment in his speech as rendered him when at all excited unintelligible to everyone except his wife, and those whom habit had enabled almost to read his thoughts. His wife, who had seen the whole transaction, and who came to Court to speak for him, and who in his case was really as essential to the elucidation of any explanation which he had to make as an interpreter would have been in the case of a mute or a foreigner, was prevented by the officer in charge from entering the public Court. The prisoner was not even supplied with a copy of the charge against him, and knew nothing of its particulars beyond what he could gather from having hurriedly read over to him a long document, couched in unintelligibly technical language, and encumbered with a mass of technical details. He pleaded guilty, intending to add to allowing the old woman to go away with the pieces of stick. His stammer prevented him from gasping out more than the word which was interpreted as guilty, and he was forthwith sentenced to 30 days' imprisonment. Now, Sir, as the law at present stands, under the words of the Glasgow and of the General Police Act, the oppression which has occurred, not being oppression on the part of the Judge, would not justify an appeal. At the same time, it will hardly be denied that in the interests of justice it is desirable that a sentence pronounced under such circumstances should be capable of being appealed against. This is precisely one of those cases where the Cour of Review, if this Bill passes, would have a wise and desirable discretion allowed it, and an appeal would be competent if the proceedings under which the sentence had been pronounced were such as in its opinion not to afford the appellant a fair trial. Another Glasgow case which forcibly illustrates the necessity for the extension of the grounds of appeal which I propose is that of Gray v. M'Gill which is reported in Irvine's Justiciary Report, vol. 3, p. 29. In this case the appellant, a boy of eight years of age, was taken out of bed in his father's house, after his father had left home for his work, hurried to the police office, tried, convicted, and ordered to be flogged; and in accordance with his sentence received 20 stripes all within a few hours, and before his father could even be communicated with. In this case the sentence was quashed because of certain irregularities appearing ex facie of the written record of the proceedings; but on the main facts of the case, Lord Ivory said—

"The complainer is a child, his father was known—a householder in Glasgow. The child was, in the absence of the father, tried and punished with reckless haste. I would abstain from placing my judgment on this ground;"

and the two learned Lords who were sitting with Lord Ivory concurred with him as to the grounds on which the judgment should rest. It would thus appear that under the existing law there could have been no appeal, unless for the accident of these formal irregularities. I maintain that it is most undesirable that this right of appeal, in such a case, should depend upon an accident, and what I propose is, that if in a case like this the Court of Review considered that the proceedings at the trial were so conducted as not to afford the appellant a fair trial, irrespective altogether of points of form, it should have the power to hear the appeal. Another case which also occurred among my own constituency, and I am done. In November last a woman of loose character was assaulted. A fortnight later she gave a lad named Gilmour, aged 16, the only son of a respectable widow, in charge of the police for having committed the assault. This occurred on a Saturday night. On the following day the mother learned through some one who had seen the arrest what had taken place. She at once went to the Police Office where her son was locked up, but the officer on duty positively refused to allow her to see him. On the following morning she went to the Court; but, although, according to the words of an appeal which was afterwards raised, she remained at the entrance of the Court from half-past 8 in the morning till I in the afternoon, she was positively refused admission till the Court was over. Meanwhile the lad, who, from his age and inexperience, was naturally unable to conduct his own defence, and who, in consequence of his mother being kept out of Court, was unable to communicate with witnesses, who he maintains could have proved his innocence, was sentenced to 60 days' imprisonment. An appeal was taken in the case, and the matter came before the Glasgow Circuit Court only last week, when it was held by the Court that as there had been no oppression on the part of the Judge, the sentence could not be reviewed. Now, assuming these statements to be correct, I think that there can be little question but that in this case the proceedings were so conducted as not to afford the prisoner a fair trial; and what I contend for is that in such cases the mitigation or reversal of an unjust sentence, pronounced under circumstances for which the Judge himself is not to blame, shall not be left to the chance of a legal quibble, or pronounced altogether incompetent, as at this moment it is; but that in such cases as those which I have described the Court of Justiciary should have power, should it think fit, to review the decision of the inferior Court. And now, Sir, having fully described the scope and objects of the Bill before the House, I have only to move its second reading.

, in seconding the Motion, said, he had much pleasure in supporting the Bill of his hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow. That was a subject which excited much interest among a large and intelligent class of the Scottish community, for it related to the proper administration of the criminal laws, than which nothing could be more important. In ancient times the central Regal power being weak in Scotland, it was found necessary in charters and grants of regality, barony, and others, to include criminal jurisdictive powers. These were often the instruments of intolerable wrongs, and in the reign of Charles II., in 1672—a reign which, he might observe, had generally been regarded as one in which the exercise of arbitrary powers was a matter of constant occurrence—was established the High Court of Justiciary, the supreme tribunal in criminal procedure. When he spoke of that Court, he meant whether it sat at Edinburgh, or on circuit. Notwithstanding occasional instances of abuse, it could be truly said of the High Court that its records were of an honourable character, and it had often proved the safeguard of those falsely accused, and the terror of inferior evil-doers. The right of reviewing inferior Court sentences was, as had been clearly pointed out by his hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, put on a distinct footing by the Act of 20 Geo. II, cap. 43, passed in the year 1747, and from that period until well on in this century, the rights of review thereby constituted were fully taken advantage of, and the High Court ex nobili officio, by a train of decisions, came to establish for itself the very widest power of review. The rules laid down by the Act of Geo. IL, when population was more scanty, and crime perhaps not so common, were sufficient for the time; but as towns and cities grew in population, and local Acts of Parliament came to be applied for, for police and other purposes, Provisoes that the sentences pronounced under these special Acts should be subject to no Court of review whatever, except on very limited grounds, almost impossible of proof, became common, and thus the rights of appeal were so narrowed and hampered as to become almost useless for any good purpose. It had for some time been obvious to those who had studied the subject, that the provisions of the Act of George II, with regard to appeals, had become inapplicable, in consequence of the restrictions he had referred to in special Acts, the altered state of population in large cities, and the rules laid down for the management of prisons and prisoners. The illustrations, striking and apposite, which had been given by his hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, of the hardships under the present law, sufficiently demonstrated that position, and showed that the present law was insufficient in many cases to afford justice. It was one of the boasts of civilization that, as it advanced, so did the freedom of the individual, and they were proud to think that in no country in the world was there less danger than in their own—that if there were a wrong committed, it could not be righted. The Bill was a studiously moderate one; it did not in the least facilitate unnecessary appeals, nor strike at the stability of sound decisions; but it certainly gave to the ignorant and unfortunate, and to those innocently charged, opportunities of redressing wrong which they did not then possess. They contended for the correctness of the principles involved, and if the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate was of opinion that the wording of some of the clauses of the Bill might be amended with advantage, that could be done in Committee.

said, he did not intend to move the rejection of the Bill; but it was very undesirable to multiply Bills on subjects of the kind; and as the Lord Advocate had a Bill on a cognate, or rather the very same subject, he would suggest to the hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) that his object might be attained by the introduction of Amendments on that measure. He was not prepared to admit as facts all the statements made by the hon. Member for Glasgow—they must be regarded as simply ex parte statements, although, for the purpose of argument, he was willing to assume that they were true. In regard to the Mackenzie-Bannerman case, he regretted that the Court had not seen its way to go into the facts, and the 1st clause of the Bill before the House would probably meet such a case. Some of the cases which had been referred to seemed to turn upon the police, or the officers of the Court having exceeded their duty by preventing the friends of persons accused from entering the Court. Such cases could scarcely be provided by any alteration of the law. All Courts were open, and those who could have assisted the accused had a right to be present in Court. These were matters for regulation by the magistrates not for legislation. He, himself, had no wish whatever to stand in the way of appeals from the Inferior to the Supreme Court; but they must take care not to encourage frivolous appeals on trifling points, which were apt to be raised by ingenious lawyers, but would not bear argument in Court, and were only calculated to add great expenses to the punishment their clients had already suffered. He thought the most objectionable part of the Bill was the 2nd clause, which, in his opinion, opened the door to appeals of the kind to which he had referred. Cases had been stated where the police were accused of having influenced parties to plead guilty. In cases of this kind, it was the duty of the Judge to take the matter up. He would move that the Bill be not read now.

Does the hon. Member propose an Amendment?

thought the matter had better be left in the hands of the Government, and would therefore move its rejection.

seconded the Amendment.

said, he had had a long experience of judicial business—not much in his own country—but, to some extent, in England; and a great deal in another country, where appeals were carried to excess. That being his position, he had listened attentively to the hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron), and his impression was that he had not made out a sufficient case. Though appeals were in many cases necessary and expedient, they might be carried too far, and, as had been said by the hon. Member who moved the rejection of the Bill, there was a danger of giving too much encouragement to appeals of a frivolous nature, which might be got up by members of the legal profession. Not one case of practical injustice for want of an appeal had been made out by the hon. Member for Glasgow, and a good deal of what he said went to prove other things than those with which the Bill dealt. He had referred to cases in which injustice had been done by unpaid magistrates and the police, but he had given no single case in which justice had been thwarted by the existing limitations of the right of appeal. Even in the Mackenzie case, the injustice which had been done was eventually set aside. Therefore, he could not see that a case had been made out for the Bill; and considering the undesirableness of encouraging appeals, and the proneness of his countrymen to litigation, he did not think we should too much facilitate litigation. At the same time, he thought much might be said in favour of the 2nd clause, which would enable a prisoner to appeal on any serious irregularity in the trial. Inasmuch, however, as the Lord Advocate had a Bill on the same subject, he thought the hon. Member for Glasgow might withdraw his, and let the whole matter be considered when the Government measure came on.

said, he thoroughly agreed with the remark that it was desirable there should not be too many Bills in regard to small matters. Though the Bill he himself had prepared and brought in did not propose to deal with the points brought out in the present discussion, still those points could all be raised when they were dealing with that measure. He thought when hon. Members had time to peruse it—and he regretted it had not been ready earlier—they would find that ample provisions were made for the review of the decisions of the Inferior Courts, at least in regard to matters which involved questions of law and not of fact; but he confessed he had not addressed himself to the peculiar forms of appeal which arose in cases like those which had been referred to. It would, however, as he had said before, be perfectly competent to discuss all matters connected with the subject when they got to Committee on his Bill. Certainly his desire was that there should be fair play given to all the people of this country in regard to the administration of criminal justice, and his wish was to have as satisfactory a review as possible on matters of this kind, in regard to which, he was aware, considerable interest was felt by the working classes throughout the country. He understood the hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) had introduced this Bill in consequence of the discussions which arose as to the Mackenzie-Bannerman case. It appeared that it was alleged that Bailie Bannerman, who tried that case, was interested in the contract at which the prisoner was working, but inquiries he had made satisfied him that he was not. At the same time, his son was interested in it, and he admitted that it would have been advisable for Bailie Bannerman to have abstained from sitting on the case. Still he was quite entitled to do so, and it appeared that the case came before him while he was presiding magistrate for the week. The offence which the man committed was not a very serious one, and probably an admonition might have satisfied justice, but a different sentence was pronounced, and he was sent to prison. An appeal was got up on his behalf, but as there was not sufficient time to enable it to be brought on at the Circuit Court, it was sent to the High Court of Justiciary. Now, it happened that there was no provision for such appeals in the High Court of Justiciary; but the course that he (the Lord Advocate) thought should have been followed was to wait for the next sitting of the Circuit Court. At the same time, he thought it desirable to make it competent to go to the High Court of Justiciary as well as to the Circuit Court, which would remove the possibility of any miscarriage of justice, and he would introduce Amendments into his Bill with this view. He would suggest that the hon. Member should rest satisfied with having raised that discussion, and instead of pursuing the Bill further, to wait to see the Amendments he (the Lord Advocate) proposed to make in the Government measure.

said, that this discussion had opened up a question of great importance, and he was glad to hear the Lord Advocate proposed to deal with it. The point, however, was whether the appeals should be confined to questions of law, or whether they should be extended to irregularity of procedure which might work injustice to the prisoner. He would suggest that the hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) should withdraw his Bill, on the understanding that the Lord Advocate would do something to meet his views.

said, he would admit that it was undesirable to have many Bills on matters of this kind; but still, as the hon. Member for Glasgow had made out a fair case for an alteration of the law, he hoped the House would not refuse to read a second time the Bill before them. Considering that its principle had been generally approved of, he thought the best way would be to read it a second time, and leave it to be determined afterwards how the principle should be carried out, on the understanding that it should not be placed in rivalry with the measure of the Lord Advocate. The right hon. and learned Lord said he had several Amendments to propose in his Bill, and as it was desirable to have that Bill before them in as complete a manner as possible, the provisions of this Bill might in Committee be introduced into the Lord Advocate's Bill.

said, he had simply introduced the measure to remedy what appeared to him to be an injustice in the present system, and if the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate would take the matter up that would meet the end he had in view. Though he was willing to withdraw the Bill, he thought, with all deference to the right hon. and learned Lord, that the proper course would be to read it a second time pro formâ, and postpone its further consideration until the Government could state what they proposed to do in their own measure.

thought there was a general concurrence of opinion in favour of the principle of the Bill, and therefore he would appeal to the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate to agree to the second reading, and then the Committee could be postponed to a time that would allow the Lord Advocate's Bill to be brought forward, and let them see how far it met the case in point. He thought the House would stultify itself if it rejected the Bill, when it was really in favour of its principle.

approved of the suggestion. In late years there had been many Bills read a second time with the consent of the Government on former occasions, although they partly objected to them. In the present case the Lord Advocate was substantially in favour of the principle of the Bill, and therefore he hoped he would not oppose the second reading.

said, he would withdraw his Amendment.

said, he would not oppose the second reading, on the understanding that he did not pledge himself to accept the details of the Bill, because it was difficult to carry out matters of the kind in legislation; the matter, however, should receive his best consideration. The course he thought would be the best to follow was to postpone the Committee on the present Bill till June. He mentioned that time because the 4th of May was fixed for his Bill; and some 10 days or so would be required to make Amendments in the direction of the main objects proposed in the measure they were discussing.

, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, that at present the state of the law was this—that a sheriff might try any case, of whatever magnitude, so long as it affected only pecuniary or personal property; but if in any case there was involved what in Scotland was called heritable right, which was the same as real estate in England, it became necessary, however small the amount, to take it out of the hands of the sheriff, and hand it over to the Supreme Courts at Edinburgh. This amounted practically to a denial of justice to many persons who were too poor to go to Edinburgh to get their cases tried. He believed the feeling in the country generally was in favour of the Bill, the only exceptions being the lawyers of Edinburgh, who naturally did not want their work taken away from them. He, however, thought they had forgotten the large number of cases which were never tried, because of the expense of going to Edinburgh. He had the testimony of the sheriff of Lanark, who had a large experience in these matters, to say that the present state of the law amounted to a denial of justice in such cases, and therefore he thought he would have no difficulty in getting the House to agree to the second reading. However, within the last few days the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate had given them a Bill dealing with this very question, and so far as he (Mr. Anderson) had read it, he would be perfectly satisfied with it; but time would require to be given to the country to see whether it approved of it, as it dealt with many other points besides that which he had raised. Under those circumstances, he would suggest that the same course should be followed as in the last case. If Scotland had perfect confidence that the right hon. and learned Lord really meant to pass his Bill, he (Mr. Anderson) might withdraw the one before the House. The Scotch newspapers did not hesitate to say the Government measure was not intended to pass at all this Session; but he firmly believed that it was the intention of the right hon. and learned Lord to pass it, but he might not have sufficient time, and judging by the way Scotch business had been systematically shelved by the present, and still more by the preceding Government, it was not impossible that obstacles might be allowed to get in the way. He would therefore suggest that the House should agree to the second reading, and he would postpone the Committee until June, In fact, the only difference between the right hon. and learned Lord and himself was, that while he (Mr. Anderson) proposed to remit all cases of heritable right to the sheriffs, without limit as to amount, the right hon. and learned Lord proposed to introduce a limit of £1,000. He would not be at all disposed to fall out with him about that. His only reason for abandoning any limit was that it occurred to him that there might be a preliminary litigation to ascertain the value of a subject, which would be of itself a very inconvenient thing to have; and he thought that as there was no limit in regard to actions in which personal property was involved, there equally seemed to be no great occasion for a limit in the case of real estate. But he would be perfectly content to adopt the limit of £1,000 proposed by the right hon. and learned Lord. The hon. Member concluded by moving the second reading of the Bill.

said, contrary to what the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) had stated, he did not think the House should take the same course with reference to this Bill as it had taken with regard to the last measure. The hon. Member himself, if he understood him rightly, had said that if he thought the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate had a chance of passing his Bill, he (Mr. Anderson) would not think of pressing his; but he should like to know what chance the hon. Member had in that case of passing his Bill, and after such an admission by him, he (Sir Graham Montgomery) saw no good reason for reading it a second time. Now, the whole subject had been reported on by a Royal Commission, and the Bill of the Lord Advocate dealt with the whole question; whereas that of the hon. Member for Glasgow really only dealt with a fragmentary portion of it; and, under these circumstances, he thought the House would do well to reject it.

said, he hoped that the House would, in regard to the Bill, follow the same course as that which it took upon the last measure, and for very much the same reason—namely, that the Bill of the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) affirmed a principle as to which they were all generally agreed. Indeed, his only objection to the measure was that it was not wide enough in its scope. He thought that a Bill of the kind ought to deal with the appointment of sheriffs, and when he spoke of the sheriffs, he referred more especially to the sheriff's substitute. Hon. Members from Scotland were aware that by far the larger part of business of Scotland was performed by the sheriff's substitute, who were already with regard to jurisdiction, both criminal and civil, in a considerably higher position and exercising larger functions than that occupied by the County Court Judges in England. Now, if that greatly extended jurisdiction were to be given to them, their position, if allowed to remain unaltered, would be a most anomalous one. They were nominated, not by the Crown as the Representative of the people, but by individuals—namely, the sheriffs of counties, while they received far less salaries than those paid to County Court Judges in England. It seemed to him that a Bill which proposed to extend the jurisdiction of the sheriffs substitute should also deal with the mode of appointing them and with their salaries.

said, that the Bill stood undoubtedly in a position somewhat analogous to that of the last measure, and he hardly thought that the House could consistently reject it on the second reading. To do so would be to deny a principle which the House generally assented to. He might say further that the Bill came before them supported, not merely by the authority of the sheriff of Lanark, but by that of a Commission which, after inquiring into the subject, recommended that the jurisdiction of the Sheriff Courts should be extended to cases of heritable right. But while saying that much in favour of the Bill, he must, at the same time, say that while that Commission sanctioned the principle of extending the jurisdiction of the Sheriff Courts to those cases, they did so subject to a very important qualification, in addition to that as to value which the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate had introduced into his Bill. The Commission considered that the defender should be enabled to carry his case up to a higher Court at once, and that no case should be decided in the Sheriff Court without the consent of both parties. If both these principles were embodied in the Bill of the Government, he (Sir Edward Colebrooke) did not see why there need be any great limit to the sheriffs' jurisdiction. If, on the other hand, it was considered desirable to introduce a principle of limitation, he thought that the same principle which applied to cases of small value in regard to personal property might be made in certain cases to apply to heritable right. He trusted that the right hon. and learned Lord would consider the matter, and say whether it would be necessary to introduce the principle of limitation. Although many of the questions involved in the consideration of the subject were of a legal and technical character, which it was not in the power of laymen like himself to decide, yet he thought that Scotch Members might with advantage resort to their little Parliament to consider these matters, and fortified with the advantage of the opinions of the profession, and armed with such criticisms as they received from the different learned bodies in Scotland, he did not despair of seeing these wholesome attempts at legislation finally and speedily accomplished.

said, that although the hon. Baronet who had just sat down spoke with an authority on the subject to which he (Mr. Dalrymple) could not lay claim, yet he thought that that was a question which would be much better discussed in that House than in a Scotch Parliament. He had risen to suggest that instead of the House being asked to read the Bill a second time, the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) should withdraw it. He could not admit that the case for the Bill was on all-fours with that for the last measure. It seemed to him that the two Bills stood upon a totally different footing; because in the case of the first Bill, a point was raised which was not contained in the measure of the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate, consequently some advantage was gained by reading it a second time; whereas, in this instance, the hon. Member for Glasgow himself admitted that the point dealt with in his measure was embraced in the Bill brought forward by the Government. His hon. Friend had, in his capacity of private Member, been singularly fortunate in passing Bills through that House, and therefore if he consented to withdraw the Bill there need be no risk of his amour propre being injured. On the contrary, he might take credit to himself for having embodied in this measure a principle which was contained in what might be called a Government Bill, and under all the circumstances he would suggest to his hon. Friend that he should not press the measure to a second reading.

said, that as the principle of the Bill was not contested, he did not see why the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) should be placed in a worse position than his hon. Colleague (Dr. Cameron), whose Bill had been read a second time. He agreed with the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy Burghs (Sir George Campbell) that both sheriffs-depute and substitute were at present placed in a false and anomalous position. Duty after duty had been heaped upon these gentlemen, and yet nothing had been done in the way of augmentation of their salaries. He was therefore afraid that the interests of these gentlemen, who occupied a high position in Scotland, did not receive that justice from Her Majesty's Government to which they were entitled, simply because hon. Members in their good nature did not persevere in pressing their just and reasonable demands upon the attention of the Government.

said, he was in the peculiar position with regard to the Bill, that while he entirely approved of the sheriffs having jurisdiction over the heritable subjects of small value, he was altogether opposed to giving them unlimited power to deal with the larger properties in Scotland. He thought it would be an exceedingly rash thing to give them such a power. In fact, it would be putting them in an equal position to that of the Judges of the Supreme Courts of Scotland. He knew a little about most of the sheriffs-substitute that had been appointed during the last 30 or 40 years—not personally, but by report. He knew that many of them were able men, and that some of them, according to general report, were more able lawyers than their superiors—the sheriffs-principal; but he knew also that many young men were appointed sheriffs-substitute, who had not succeeded in earning a living in their own professions, and who were not supposed to be possessed of a great deal of law, though no doubt they had a great deal of honesty of purpose. He would object altogether to giving these gentlemen this very extensive power, though he admitted that it was desirable to give them jurisdiction in small cases. He thought the limit of £1,000 which the Lord Advocate's Bill fixed was a reasonable one, and if this Bill were pressed to a division, he should feel bound to vote against it.

said, he must presume that hon. Members would vote for the second reading of the Government Bill when it came before them, and, if so, they would be stultifying themselves that day if they refused to read a second time this measure, which embodied a similar principle. He therefore joined in the appeal which had been addressed to the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate to allow the Bill to be read a second time, and then to postpone the Committee until after the Government Bill had received the assent of the House. He agreed with what had been said by the hon. Member for Dumbarton (Mr. Orr-Ewing) concerning the sheriffs-depute and sheriffs-substitute. It was high time that their case was taken into consideration. Year after year fresh duties were being imposed upon these learned gentlemen, but no increase was made to their salaries, and he was not at all surprised at the dissatisfaction which had been expressed. Repeatedly, deputations had waited upon the Scotch Members urging upon them the justice of increasing the salaries of the sheriffs-substitute in accordance with the recommendation of the Commission, and he trusted that these representations would be favourably considered by the right hon. and learned Lord. He would only say that, whether the House agreed to the second reading of the Bill or not, he approved most cordially of its principle. He did not think that one Petition had been presented against it, while hundreds had been presented in its favour.

said, he was unable to concur in the observations of the hon. Member for Linlithgowshire. The Bill which the House was asked to read a second time was to give unlimited jurisdiction to the Sheriff Courts of Scotland over heritable property, and he agreed most fully with the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren) that it would be very dangerous to give such a power to an inferior court, such as the Sheriff Courts in Scotland. If they affirmed the principle of the Bill, they affirmed the principle that unlimited power ought to be given to these Courts over the largest estates in Scotland. He hoped the House would not do that, but wait for the measure which the Government had laid on the Table. The House had been informed that provision was being made to extend the jurisdiction of the Sheriff Courts in a manner which he believed the whole House would consider to be safe and reasonable, and the hon. Member who had charge of this Bill, and who asked them to affirm this unlimited jurisdiction, did not complain of that jurisdiction being limited to £1,000. It seemed, therefore, that the hon. Gentleman was not very much in love with the principle of his own Bill, when he was willing to cut it down from an untold limit to £1,000 of heritable value. With respect to the salaries of the sheriffs-substitute, his experience did not concur with what had fallen from several hon. Members on that subject. Within his own recollection, the salary of the sheriff-substitute in his district had been very nearly doubled, and he believed that the same might be said in regard to those officials in other counties in Scotland. Moreover, in many cases, by a change in the limits of jurisdiction, the salaries had been made more commensurate with the duties performed.

said, that an important question contained in the Bill was its extension to heritable property. All agreed with the recommendations of the Royal Commission in extending the jurisdiction of the Sheriffs' Courts, and only differed as to its amount, but that was only a matter of detail, on which the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) was willing to leave to be settled in Committee. He congratulated the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate on the honour which he would acquire in having taken up this great and useful reform, and with having dealt with it so comprehensively in the Bill which he had presented to the House; but, at the same time, he would appeal to him to allow the present Bill to be read a second time on condition that, whenever his own Bill passed through a second reading, the hon. Member for Glasgow would at once drop his. The question which the right hon. and learned Lord had taken up was a very large question, and it was one which he (Sir George Balfour) had in vain endeavoured to induce the late Lord Advocate to take up. The present right hon. and learned Lord would give great satisfaction to the people of Scotland if he should succeed in inducing the Government to improve the position, whilst extending in this useful manner the jurisdiction of the sheriffs-substitute.

, while expressing his satisfaction at the announcement that the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate intended to deal with the subject, hoped he would not give his assent to the second reading of the Bill; because he (Mr. Stewart) felt convinced that if he did so, it would go forth that the Government were going to give great power and authority to these gentlemen, and although their decisions might be approved of in certain cases, yet there were many instances in which these decisions had been revoked and rescinded, and in which they had not given that satisfaction which he should have liked them to have given. He fully concurred in the remarks which had been made on both sides of the House with regard to increasing the remuneration at present given to sheriffs-substitute, and he trusted that that point would not be overlooked when the Bill of the right hon. and learned Lord came on for discussion. Hon. Members were very much divided in opinion upon the principle of the Bill, and he therefore hoped the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) would withdraw it.

trusted that the learned Lord would consent to the second reading of the Bill, on the understanding that had pervaded almost every speech that had been made on the subject. The hon. Gentleman who had just sat down was afraid that there might be a misunderstanding in the country if the Bill were to be read a second time. Fortunately, however, the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) had not exercised his right of noticing the presence of Strangers; and as far as his (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman's) experience went, the reports of debates in the newspapers were much more widely read than the Bills which came before the House. Not only were Bills not read in the country, but they were often discussed in that House at considerable length, without the preliminary process of reading them having been gone through. He thought, therefore, that if the House consented to the second reading, no misunderstanding was likely to arise. The debate would show to the country that there was a substantial agreement that heritable jurisdiction should be conferred upon the sheriffs, and that was the principle of the Bill. The only question was as to its amount.

said, that however important the question of an increase of the salaries of sheriffs-substitute might be—and he thought it was eminently deserving of attention—it could only be properly dealt with when the right hon. and learned Lord had time to take up the whole subject of the constitution of these Courts. If hon. Members would take the trouble to look over the judicial statistics of the business that came before these Courts, they would see that the State was paying for the services of learned gentlemen in various places where very few cases indeed of importance came before them. He conceived, therefore, that this was not the proper occasion on which they should press upon the Government the consideration of an increase in the salaries of these officers.

said, that appeals having been made to him to allow the Bill to be read a second time, he might he permitted to appeal to the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) to withdraw it, inasmuch as it was admitted that his (the Lord Advocate's) Bill comprehended the principle which was enunciated in the present measure. It had, moreover, been conceded that he had drawn a fair limit in the matter of the heritable jurisdiction to be conferred on the sheriffs. The hon. Member for Glasgow knew that he (the Lord Advocate) had never stood in the way of his passing measures which he had thought fit to promote, but, on the contrary, that he had given to the hon. Member every assistance possible; and, under these circumstances, he would suggest that this Bill should be withdrawn. It had been brought forward, he supposed, as a sort of spur or stimulus to him. If so, he could only say that the question had engaged his attention during the autumn; but, unfortunately, illness, which prevented him from attending to business during the early part of this year, had prevented him from bringing forward the Bill sooner. He would remark, as a further reason for his hon. Friend withdrawing his Bill, that it was his intention to press forward the Bill which he had introduced, and he saw no reason why it should not pass. He did not understand that it would meet with much opposition. Although he unfortunately did not number among his supporters a majority of the Members for Scotland, yet his experience was that he had not much difficulty in getting through Scotch business. An additional reason for withdrawing this Bill was that it was a mere skeleton Bill. It confirmed the proposition in the Preamble, but it had no provisions for carrying that out, and remitted the formation of rules to the Court of Session. He did not think that was the proper course to adopt. He thought the proper course was that the Bill should contain the opinions of the House as to the way in which the principle should be carried out. He would further suggest that it was not unbecoming in him to ask that this Bill should be withdrawn, seeing that in the last case he did give way, and an hon. Gentleman had said it was a bad practice, for which the Home Secretary was to blame. He was afraid that if he were in this instance to follow the same course, he might get credit for giving way too easily, and he would suggest, therefore, that there should be a withdrawal of the Bill. When he brought his measure forward, he should be ready to give every consideration to any Amendments which might be suggested.

said, the right hon. and learned Lord thought that, having given way in the last case, he ought not to be asked to do so in this.

said, he would remind the hon. Member that he was not entitled to make a second speech. He might, however, explain to the House the course which he proposed to take.

said, he was aware that, as the rejection of the Bill had not been moved, he was not entitled to a reply; but he was only going to say that, as suggested by the hon. Member for Bute, he had no reason to feel that his amour propre would be hurt by withdrawing the Bill. On the contrary, he was only too pleased to find that its principle had been taken up by the Government; because, in that case, he knew it would meet with attention, and as the right hon. and learned Lord had said it was his full intention to press on his measure, he would therefore withdraw the one before the House.

, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, its object was to amend the licensing appeal system, which in Scotland was very bad indeed, and he would state at short length what the present system was, and what were the evils of it. The present system was, that the appeal should be from the licensing magistrates to the justices of the peace in quarter sessions, and as the battle lay between the publicans on the one hand and the teetotallers on the other, in a very large proportion of the cases the decisions of the magistrates were appealed against. It appeared to be considered by both parties that the original decision was a very secondary matter, and that the real battle had to be fought, not before the licensing magistrates, but in the appeal Court. It had consequently become the practice in a number of counties for the parties interested to canvass the justices and induce them to go down to the appeal Courts and vote in a given direction. So notorious was it that that was done that both parties went even beyond canvassing, and he had been told, on authority he could not question, that justices of the peace had been known to take presents in the shape of railway tickets or the payment of their hotel bills for going down to vote on a certain side. He submitted that when things got to that extent, when appeals were not decided on their merits, but on corrupt principles and according to which side had made the most vigorous canvass, the appeal became in reality a scandal and a farce, and ought to be got rid of. He believed there were no two opinions on that subject. No hon. Member of the House would contend that the present system was one that could be supported, or that it ought to be tolerated any longer. The only point on which there could be discussion was as to the nature of the remedy. He had taken great pains to find out what would be the most likely remedy to meet the admitted evils. It had been suggested to him that the justices should appoint licensing committees; but he had felt obliged to give that idea up, because he could not see any way in which a committee of justices could be appointed without the same evils springing up as existed now. The committee would, of course, be constituted of men holding the views of the majority of the justices, and that would not be an arrangement to give satisfaction and confidence. After great consideration, he had come to the conclusion that what was wanted was a Court of Appeal that would have a local knowledge sufficient to judge of every case on its merits, and at the same time to be above local prejudices and beyond the slightest suspicion of being open to corruption. They must be superior to canvassing, and must accept no railway tickets or hotel bills, nor, as had been done in some cases, presents of whisky. [Laughter.] The hon. Baronet near him (Sir Edward Colebrooke) smiled as if that were a doubtful statement; but he assured him the thing was perfectly notorious even in the county of which he (Sir Edward Colebrooke) was Lord Lieutenant. The remedy which he (Mr. Anderson) proposed was to make the sheriff and the sheriffs-substitute the Court of Appeal. Those officials were looked up to by everybody in Scotland, and there would not be the slightest suspicion of corruption or of anything but fair-play between the parties in the decisions they might give. Strange as it might seem, the parties he had expected to support him in the Bill—the parties who wished to restrict the issue of licences, had held aloof altogether, and some of them, he understood, intended even to oppose him; but, to his surprise, the party he had expected to oppose him most strongly—namely, the party representing the publican interest—had very cordially accepted it as a fair compromise. The other party opposed him, because they thought there should be no appeal at all from the magistrates. The publicans, however, very reasonably said—"We must have an appeal—if we don't, there will undoubtedly be injustice done." Another strong ground why there should be an appeal was, that if there were no such appeal, every municipal election would become, far more than it was at present, a contest between the two rival parties on the liquor question. That matter already entered into municipal contests so far as to be an evil. More important matters were lost sight of, and a man's election or rejection depended on whether or not he was a teetotaller, and if that system were encouraged by the abolition of appeals, they would have in some towns what would please the hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle—namely, town councils composed entirely of teetotallers; but, in other towns, they would be composed exclusively of publicans, which would not please the hon. Baronet so well. It was perfectly impossible to do away with appeals; it would not be fair to either party, nor good for the interests of the public to do so. He understood the Lord Provost of Glasgow objected to the Bill because he thought it would be derogatory to the dignity of burgh magistrates to have their decisions in any way subjected to the review of sheriffs or sheriffs-substitute. He had great respect for the burgh magistrates generally, and for the Lord Provost in particular, believing they performed responsible and thankless duties in an admirable manner; but he could not see that it took away from their dignity to have their decisions reviewed by such a Court of Appeal as he had suggested. He should dismiss that objection, therefore, as untenable. If they had no Court of Appeal, such a thing might happen as took place the other day at Dundee, where the magistrates assembled and decided beforehand not to hear cases on their merits at all, but to refuse every application for a new licence, and the renewal of licences to men who held more than one. That was a clear case of going beyond the statute, and was a specimen of the unfair and illegal things which might be done if there were no appeal. The only reasonable objection he had heard to the sheriffs as a Court of Appeal was that the matters they would have to deal with were not confined to legal points, but involved questions of administration and discretion. He had mentioned that objection to the sheriff of Lanarkshire, who said he considered it no objection at all—that his office was to a great extent an administrative one, and that while he thought there were grounds for objecting to the Bill, he could not regard that as one of them. The sheriffs had not been slow to assert the importance of their office from an administrative point of view when they wanted larger salaries, and it was rightly considered that their duties were largely administrative. No doubt, many of the sheriffs were opposed to the Bill, because they expected it would throw on them a large amount of work, but he anticipated nothing of the kind. The sheriffs, haying the same desire as the magistrates to preserve peace and order, would generally affirm their decisions; but, at the same time, would be able to prevent any injustice like that perpetrated the other day at Dundee. He believed the extra work thrown on the sheriffs would after a time be very limited indeed, and they would be looked up to with universal confidence; and as there was some talk of giving them larger salaries, there ought not to be any objection to a little more work. He would not further detain the House. He thought he had shown, in the first place, that the present system was intolerable; in the next place, that they wanted a Court of Appeal, which should have sufficient local knowledge, and yet be above possible corruption, or above any small local prejudices. He thought he had also shown that they could get that in the Sheriffs Courts, and that it would not be for the good of the community, or fair to the community, to abolish appeals altogether, because it would turn municipal elections into a battle-ground between the teetotallers and the publicans, and that certainly would not be for the good of the community. Although he had chosen what he believed to be the best Court of Appeal that could be got, he freely admitted that there were some objections to it; and he was not so wedded to it as not to be prepared to accept some modification if hon. Members could point out any better arrangement in Committee; but the main principle of his Bill was, that the present Court of Appeal was entirely unsatisfactory, and should be changed. He would conclude by moving the second reading of the Bill.

said, he could not believe the charges of corruption which had been made, for had it existed to anything like the extent represented, he must have heard of it, as it would have been represented to him by the authorities. He certainly did hear some statement about a few magistrates dining at the expense of some of the parties applying for a licence and that was a serious charge, no doubt; but it was made in such vague terms, that he could take no notice of it. The hon. Member having made these charges, should inquire more fully into them, and if they were found to be true, he would like to see the matter brought before the Home Secretary; for if the statements were true, nothing could be more discreditable or more likely to shake public confidence in the administration of justice. If, however, they were not true, he hoped the hon. Member would have the grace to tell the House that they were false. He would admit the unsatisfactory nature of the present Court of Appeal, but could not agree that the sheriffs were the proper parties to throw the duty upon. It would be in- consistent with their other work, and it was very undesirable they should be mixed up in local squabbles, which could only tend to interfere with the dignified performance of their higher duties as the administrators of justice. In that way, imputations would be heaped upon them tending to bring discredit upon their tribunal. As Judges of the land it was very much to their interest to stand aloof from local questions, and it was far better that duties of this kind should be discharged by bodies who could bring to bear local knowledge. In the boroughs there was a tendency to take extreme views; but, on the whole, it would be better to continue the present system rather than adopt the sheriffs as a Court of Appeal. Besides, there was the less need to call on them to perform this work, because they had a remedy already lying at their feet. The numerous body constituting the Court of quarter sessions should delegate their functions to a committee, and that would meet the necessities of the case and remove the existing evils. It was a course which had already been recommended by several Parliamentary Committees which had considered the matter, and it had already been adopted in English counties under the last Licensing Act. He cordially concurred with the hon. Member as to the necessity of having some appeal, because there was far more danger in Scotland than in England of justice running wild. The people took stronger views, and were more likely to run into extremes. In conclusion, he must again regret that his hon. Friend should have made such general and serious charges against the magistrates, for the appointment of some of whom he (Sir Edward Colebrooke) was personally responsible. He should vote against the second reading of the Bill.

said, there was no doubt that there was a grievance in Scotland on the question. They had no appeal Court at all, for it was merely an appeal to the same justices who had originally decided the question. The hon. Baronet the Member for Lanarkshire had repudiated the accusations which, for his own part, he (Mr. Orr-Ewing) had seen more than once in the papers, but he had never seen any official contradiction of it. By the Bill it was proposed to have an appeal Court for the counties, but there was no alteration proposed for the burghs. Now, it was in the burghs where the greatest evils existed, and he thought the hon. Member for Glasgow would do well to confine the Bill to the burghs, and leave the Government to deal with the counties. They could fancy that there would be no better constituted body than the magistrates, who were responsible for the peace and good government of the city, to grant these licences. Take Glasgow. The decisions of the magistrates of Glasgow were subjected on appeal to the justices of the county of Lanark, who were not interested in Glasgow, and who came under circumstances as described by the hon. Member; and these justices decided what licences should be granted to music-halls and dancing saloons. This was a most unsatisfactory state of things. He did not think that it would be right to delegate a certain portion of the magistrates to hear appeals. He believed the sheriffs would be the best Court of Appeal so far as the burghs were concerned, and therefore he should support the second reading of the Bill.

said, he had for the last 30 or 40 years paid great attention to licensing, and he certainly did not agree with those who had so many faults to find with the present system. He would, however, admit that it was very unsatisfactory, the magistrates who decided the appeals being often not cognizant of the merits of the case. The most dangerous state of things in public or private affairs was when parties came forward and said "something must be done," without knowing what. If the something was done, they often got deeper into the mire. Until something could be done which was certain to be an improvement, he held that nothing should be done. So far from this Bill effecting any improvement, he believed it would be a great evil if it were passed into law. The sheriffs objected to being made the Court of Appeal, because it was imposing a duty upon them foreign to their office, and they said that, for the due exercise of that power, they would require local knowledge as to the requirements of the towns and villages within their jurisdiction which they did not at present possess; and, on the other hand, they affirmed that such knowledge was possessed by the justices of the peace who were drawn from all districts of the country in which the jurisdiction was exercised; and, lastly, they said that if this duty was thrown upon them it would tend to impair the administration of justice. He coincided with the suggestion of the hon. Baronet the Member for Lanarkshire that the Courts of quarter sessions should appoint a small licensing committee, say of four, and he would make the further suggestion that no decision of the local magistrates should be reversed except with the concurrence of three out of the four members of the committee, as was the rule with the Judges of the Supreme Courts. He thought that would afford a fair presumption that there had been no miscarriage of justice. It was not so much a question of law to decide as of fact. All the old Licensing Acts said that licences were to be given, not to everyone qualified according to law, but "to such number of persons as the magistrates shall think meet and convenient in each locality." It was a question of discretion; and who was so well qualified to decide as the magistrates of a borough or the justices of a county? To prevent the four magistrates or justices being selected on grounds of partisanship, he would have the names of all the magistrates present at the Court of quarter sessions put into an urn, and the first four drawn out should constitute the committee. They would thus obtain a fair and impartial court of appeal. He had many other objections to urge, but he had said quite sufficient to show that he opposed the Bill.

said, if the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren) would move the rejection of the Bill he would second it. It appeared to him that the question was one of very great importance to the country, and that it ought to be taken up by the Government, as there could be no doubt that some alteration of the Licensing Acts was imperatively called for. He had had some experience of quarter sessions both in England and Scotland, and he felt that the practical effect of the measure would be to throw upon the sheriff an odium that no Judge ought to incur. As he had said, the question ought to be taken up by the Government, and although he could not suppose, in the crowded state of Public Business, it could be taken up this Ses- sion, still he hoped the debate would not be futile in eliciting some expression on the part of the Government, or in drawing their attention to the fact how great and important the question was in the eyes of the people of Scotland. The suggestion thrown out as regarded the selection of a certain number of magistrates to form a committee in order to adjudicate in licensing appeals would not hold good in burghs, where the number of magistrates was not large enough to inspire confidence in the selection. It had been said that there were too many public-houses in burghs, but the excessive number of public-houses had not sprung up within the last few years. On the contrary, there had been recently a decided disposition to reduce the number of public-houses, and the number of licences granted had been very few. He should, for his own part, be glad to co-operate in any measure which would still further diminish the number of public-houses; but he did not believe that the Bill, if passed, would produce the effect which the hon. Member for Glasgow desired.

thought any system would be better than the present one, and he noticed that every one who had spoken had approved of the principle of the Bill. Everyone, too, considered the present circumstances unsatisfactory, and that there ought to be a change. The Preamble of the Bill did not ask for the appointment of sheriffs, but it simply stated that the present state of things was very unsatisfactory, and that it was necessary to have a change. He believed that a better amendment of the law could be made than was proposed in the Bill; and he had no doubt that in Committee the hon. Member for Glasgow would be ready to assent to any Amendment which would render its provisions more entirely satisfactory. For his own part, he must say that he preferred the constitution of the Court of Licensing Appeal as proposed by the Commission of 1860 to that proposed by the Bill. That Commission suggested that a committee of justices should be formed to hear appeals. In many places, public-houses were now forced upon the inhabitants of towns by packed benches of magistrates—he would not say by corrupt, but by facile magistrates. That would not be the case if the Bill passed, and he should therefore vote for the second reading, reserving to himself the right to support Amendments on its provisions in Committee.

thought the Bill had been introduced in consequence of some local grievance which the hon. Member for Glasgow had in reference to the administration of the laws in licensing appeals by the justices in the lower ward of Lanarkshire. He objected to go into Committee on the Bill with a view to substitute an entirely different Court of Appeal from that which it proposed to establish. He thought it would be very unwise to transfer the appeal from the justices to the sheriff. At the same time, he thought it would be expedient that appeals should be heard by a committee selected but not by ballot, from the justices, instead of by the bench at large, as was the case at present. Although he did not object that the sheriff or sheriffs-substitute should preside over such a committee, he could not consent to transfer to them alone the whole power now exercised by the magistrates.

said, that on the ground that the present system was very unsatisfactory, and that some remedy was required, he should vote for the second reading, if the hon. Member should go to a division. The principle of the Bill was not that the licensing appeals should necessarily be transferred to the sheriff, but that a new licensing Court of Appeal should be constituted. The true course would be to pass the second reading, and then amend the constitution of the proposed Court of Appeal in Committee. A change in the present system was certainly required, for, as it was, the decisions of the local justices were often overruled by magistrates from other parts of the country who knew little of the merits of the question. He had known a case in which the decision to refuse a licence by four local magistrates had been reversed by two justices at quarter sessions, one being the sheriff. The licence was granted, though the local magistrates considered that it should be refused, and though the proprietor of the house himself had requested by letter that it should be withheld. Nothing more anomalous than that could be pointed out in order to induce the House to provide some remedy.

said, he strongly objected to an appeal being allowed from the decision of magistrates to the sheriffs of the county. His duties, as a justice, with regard to licences had been of a disagreeable nature; he would be very glad to be relieved of those duties, but it would be intolerable that the decision of county magistrates should be reversed, or liable to be reversed, by a Sheriff Court. He strongly objected to the Bill, and if the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren) would make a Motion, he would support the rejection of it.

said, that as his hon. Colleague (Mr. Anderson) had expressed his determination to carry the matter to a division, he felt it incumbent upon him to explain why he would vote against the second reading of the Bill. The measure contained no such provision as that which had been recognized and adopted by Parliament in respect to licensing appeals in England, and which did away entirely with appeals from the decisions of the local magistrates in all applications for new licences. Now, the Bill before the House proposed to place all appeals in the hands of the sheriffs. It was not a novel proposal, as it had come under the consideration of the Royal Commissioners in 1859, and they had not only reported against it, but also against what might be described as a much milder suggestion in the same direction—namely, that the sheriffs should be ex officio members of the Licensing Appeal Court, which the Commissioners recommended should be appointed. Since these Commissioners reported, the law relating to appeals had been altered in England, and the suggestion of the Commissioners that a Licensing Appeal Court should be formed had been accepted; it was accepted also with this further important addition, as he had just explained, that no appeal should be allowed from the local justices in the case of refusal on application for a new licence. That was really a matter of much greater importance than the question of the constitution of the Appeal Court. A Return, which had been laid before the House last Session, showed that in Glasgow, within three years, 150 licences had been granted by the county justices over the heads of the city magistrates. The reason why the measure of his hon. Friend, therefore, met with the opposition of the Good Templars and of the Executive Committee of the Permissive Bill Association in Scotland was, that they feared that it would be a means of saddling permanently upon that country a mode of dealing with licensing appeals which was far behind the system adopted in England, and for that reason he (Dr. Cameron) was prepared to vote against the second reading.

said, that he should consider it his duty to vote against the second reading of the Bill. He believed that its principle was not merely that there should be a better licensing Court, but that the appeals should be taken from the justices of the county, who had local knowledge, and given to the sheriff and his substitutes. He objected to that. He granted that the present system afforded room for improvement. He had sat for more than 30 years as a licensing magistrate, and a magistrate hearing appeals. He had sat at quarter sessions with a bare quorum of three magistrates, when an appeal had often come from a decision of a unanimous bench of magistrates, and he was always sorry when these questions of licensing came before them. Under those circumstances—knowing that he was ignorant of many local details bearing upon the cases—he had always felt it his duty not to interfere with the decision of the magistrates; but he thought it was hard on the magistrates of burghs, who knew their own town and its circumstances, for them to feel that their decisions were liable to be reversed by another set of justices who happened to meet in the county town on the day of quarter sessions. He thought it very desirable that such a contingency should be obviated. In reference to the Bill itself, the proposal to refer appeals to the sheriffs would not improve the condition of affairs. They could not have the local knowledge required in each particular case. Besides, he found that it would be possible for the decision of the sheriff, who might be in the right, to be overruled by his two subordinates, whom he had himself appointed. The sheriffs themselves objected strongly to have this duty thrown upon them, and urged that it was quite foreign to the discharge of their official duties. They were appointed to decide upon questions of law, not matters of expediency such as the granting of licences; and they thought that it would be better that the system of throwing the decision of such questions upon a licensing committee should be adopted in Scotland as it was in England. In Scotland it happened very often that an appeal would be heard by a smaller number of magistrates than the Court which had granted or refused the licence. There might in some cases be strong pressure put upon the magistrates to refuse or to grant licences; but he believed that the mode in which it was proposed by this Bill to meet that possible danger would neither be satisfactory to the magistrates nor to the people of Scotland. He thought the suggestion thrown out that there should be a licensing committee sitting as a Court of Appeal was one worthy of attention, and he should be very glad to see it carried out. If possible, the sheriff of the county might be placed upon the committee, and if that were done, he thought they would have arrived at a very fair arrangement, by which the matter would be put on a much better footing than it was at present.

said, that it seemed to be admitted on all hands that licensing appeals should not be abandoned, but he did not think the Bill had pointed out the right course that should be adopted. If, as was stated, the sheriffs objected to the Bill, he thought all the more would the sheriffs-substitute object, for they lived on the spot, and they would dislike to be mixed up in private squabbles about licences. Several speakers had suggested the appointment of a committee of justices to quarter sessions, and he could not see why there should be any difficulty in adopting this suggestion. The county of which he had the honour of representing, a division was divided into districts for licensing and other purposes. From these district courts there was an appeal to quarter sessions. Let the justices meeting in quarter sessions appoint a committee composed of those best qualified for the duty, to be assisted by a magistrate chosen from each of the district courts, who would give the committee the benefit of their local knowledge, and, at the same time, guarantee thorough impartiality in hearing appeals. He believed that in that way disputed questions arising in any particular district would be satisfactorily settled, and, if such a provision were introduced in any Bill on the subject, he would support it. There was not the least occasion for that committee to dispose of any case at the moment. They might sit from time to time, according to circumstances. One objection to the sheriffs would be that they would be inclined to grant licences simply because the applicant bore an unimpeached character. The sheriff would say—"He is a respectable man, and I am prepared to grant him a licence." He did not think that would be satisfactory, although, at the same time, he thought it would be very desirable to get rid of the present system of canvassing the magistrates. A great deal had been said about the opinion of the sheriff of Lanarkshire, and it seemed to him that on the present occasion they were asked to upset the whole system of licensing for the simple purpose of providing a new licensing Court for the city of Glasgow. Notwithstanding the high authority of the sheriff of Lanarkshire—whom he knew to be a most excellent man and able lawyer—although he did not know that he had any other special qualifications as a licensing magistrate—as to the necessity for the change proposed, he did not think they were bound to pass the Bill.

said, there were many inconveniences connected with the matter of licensing appeals, especially as far as regarded a large community like that of Glasgow, and he thought it desirable that there should be some change in the present system. But he was quite opposed to the substitute suggested by the Bill, for it would be quite inconsistent with the recognized principles of local administration in such affairs that the opinions of the magistrates of such a place as Glasgow should be overruled by the opinion of a sheriff and a sheriff-substitute, which was really what was proposed by that measure. The sheriffs were unwilling to have imposed on them such a duty, not because of the additional work, which would not be very much, but because it would introduce them into disputes with reference to social and temperance questions from which it was very desirable they should be kept free, in order that they should maintain their judicial position. In Scotland the question of temperance probably occupied a larger share of public discussion than it did in England, and they were told that the selection of members of municipalities depended upon the opinion on that subject held by candidates. If that were the case, how very unfortunate it would be if the sheriffs and sheriffs-substitute should be subjected to the opposition of a certain party, because of their judgments in the licensing Court. The question had been under the consideration of the House before. It was also considered in 1870 by a Commission who were in favour of the appointment of a committee of justices as a committee of appeal to be nominated by a general meeting of the justices; and in the Licensing Act passed for England in 1872 there was a provision for the appointment of a licensing committee composed of justices, annually nominated, and he thought that in the case of Scotland it might be well to have some such committee, dealing, however, with the large towns in a somewhat different manner from the small towns. In small towns and remote districts such questions could best be determined by those who had local knowledge, and even in such large cities as Glasgow and Edinburgh, they would be better dealt with by a licensing committee of magistrates than by the sheriffs. He could not assent to the Bill; but, without pledging the Government to the introduction of a measure that Session, he would promise that the question of the licensing Courts in Scotland should be dealt with at the earliest opportunity.

was about to reply, when—

said, the hon. Member would be out of Order in making a second speech.

said, that no formal Motion for the rejection of the Bill having been made, he was deprived of the opportunity of reply, but he must trouble the House to divide.

said, the debate had hitherto been confined entirely to Scotch Members, and it might go on for a considerable time longer, as those hon. Gentlemen kept dropping into the House. In the meantime, he desired to say a few words. He was very glad to see the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) had taken up the part of a temperance reformer, and was endeavouring to improve the licensing system, from which they all suffered so much. The debate had been particularly pleasing to him, because almost every hon. Member who had got up had made a speech in favour of the Permissive Bill. He must, however, look at this Bill from his own point of view, and that point of view was, that all the facilities which were afforded for drinking were very dangerous to the people, and were the cause of a great amount of the misery which existed among them, and in that frame of mind he should support any measure which went in the direction of removing such dangers. The only question he had to consider, therefore, was whether this Bill, if carried, was likely to diminish those dangers. There had been great diversity of opinion expressed on the subject. The Scotch Members were generally supposed to agree better among themselves than the Irish Members did; but, on the present occasion, the variety of opinion they had expressed was rather perplexing. For his own part, he could not see why the Scotch law on the subject should be different from the law of England, and what he would suggest was that the law of Scotland should be made the same as that of England, and that there should be no appeal from a refusal to grant a new licence. If an Amendment to that effect was introduced in the Bill when in Committee he would vote for the second reading now. Apart from that question, the Bill was of trifling importance, and the general opinion seemed to be that it would make things worse rather than better. Before sitting down, he wished to refer to a matter to which he almost felt that it was his duty to call the attention of the Speaker, and to ask him whether it was not a breach of Privilege—only they had breach of Privilege questions almost every day now. He referred to a note addressed to the Members of the House signed by the Secretary to the United Licensed Victuallers, Protection Society for England, Ireland, and Scotland, which was couched in the most insolent terms—

"Sir,—Please to be in your place in the House of Commons on Wednesday, the 28th of April, to vote for the Licensing Appeal Bill for Scotland, to be brought forward on that day by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Mr. Anderson."

Why, that was language which they could not have dared to address to their own potboys, and he protested against the audacity of dictating to hon. Gentlemen what course they should adopt in dealing with the question. He felt that it almost amounted to a breach of Privi- lege, but he would not be too hard upon them, and would not call upon the Speaker to decide that it was so. He simply called attention to the fact that that note was signed by the Secretary to the proprietors of all the drinking establishments of the United Kingdom. He scarcely liked to vote in such company; but on the condition he had stated as to an Amendment, and on the old principle that half a loaf was better than no bread, he would, as he said, vote for the second reading.

, in rising to move that the Bill be now read the second time, said, that, looking at the time of day—4.15, P.M.—and the importance of the question, he should be unjust to hon. Members holding opinions different from his own if he made a long speech. He should, therefore, be brief, in order to give those who were opposed to his views an equal time with himself. Lest any hon. Member of the House might suppose he had been anxious to bring this question forward, he begged to say he had done everything in his power to induce the Government to bring a Bill themselves. When the question was brought before the House last Session, nearly all the Members who spoke on his side of the House urged the Government to bring in a measure of their own. With that sentiment he cordially concurred, expressing, at the same time, his opinion that it was not a question which a private Member could carry, but was a question which could only be carried by the Government. It had been said that he and his hon. Friends who supported him were anxious to bring this question before the House with a desire to make political capital. If any hon. Member thought that of him, he was much mistaken. The people of Scotland intensely felt the grievance under which they now laboured. The hon. and gallant Member for South Ayrshire (Colonel Alexander) proposed last Session, in an able speech, views which he (Mr. M'Laren) now ventured to bring forward in his Bill. The hon. and gallant Member said, the Resolution he then proposed pledged the House to find a remedy for the existing state of things, and asked the Lord Advocate to undertake the duty. The hon. Member for Dumbarton (Mr. Orr-Ewing), who seconded, expressed similar views. Again, the hon. Baronet the Member for Peeblesshire (Sir Graham Montgomery) said, that a disagreeable feeling undoubtedly did prevail in Scotland with regard to this question; and he thought no Member of the House more competent to deal with it than the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Lord Advocate. Hon. Members on both sides of the House urged the Government to bring in a Bill on this subject; and before he (Mr. M'Laren) replied, the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. M'Lagan) told him that if he would not insist on a division, the Lord Advocate would publicly pledge himself to bring in a Bill next Session. He then said he should be willing to withdraw his Bill on that assurance. What, then, did the Lord Advocate do, as the Representative of the Government? The right hon. and learned Gentleman said—

"It shall be my endeavour to bring in next Session such a Bill as will meet, if possible, the difficulties which have been stated in the course of this discussion …… If it does not give complete satisfaction, I hope it will at least approach that result. Under the circumstances, I trust my hon. and gallant Friend, to whose industry and information we are so much indebted, will not press his Resolution, and that the hon. Member for Edinburgh will withdraw a Bill which, in any case, could not usefully be proceeded with during the short period that remains of the present Session."—[3 Hansard, ccxx. 1322.]

In place of making a long speech in reply, he (Mr. M'Laren) said only a few words—that after the statement of the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate, that he intended to bring a Bill, he should be quite content to leave the matter in the hands of Her Majesty's Government, because he admitted it was a question which ought to be dealt with by them rather than by a private Member. That was how the question stood at the end of last Session of Parliament. At the commencement of the present Session he was, unfortu- nately, through illness, unable to be in his place, but the hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) was good enough to introduce the Bill, and he then told the hon. Member that whatever might be the chance of his ballot for an early day, he was not to fix one within two months of the commencement of the Session, in order to give the Lord Advocate time to bring in his Bill. At a later day, he put a Notice on the Paper to ask what day that Bill would be brought in, and before it came on, his right hon. and learned Friend asked him to postpone the Question some little time, as he had not yet got instructions from the Cabinet. He did postpone the Question, and he postponed the second reading until that day, when nearly one-half of the Session was passed. He said this, not to upbraid his right hon. and learned Friend in the matter, but to show that he had not been pressing the measure unduly on the House. On the contrary, he had been most anxious that the Government should take it up, and he would give them every possible facility in his power. Having made that preliminary explanation, he must revert to some of the objections which were made last Session regarding the Bill. He had obtained facts since that time to show that these objections were ill-founded. He might state some of the alleged cases of hardship. Excessive rates had been levied on poor people, as he would show by the result of careful inquiries made by competent authority. In the case of the Orkney and Shetland Islands, which he particularly dwelt upon, it was denied that there were hardships he had stated. He had mentioned one case where the rate levied was 12s. 5d. in the pound. Doubts were thrown on that fact; now, he had most undoubted authority for stating that the rate of 12s. 5d. in the pound was levied in one of those Shetland parishes, and the Free Church minister whose manse and garden were rated at £159s., was assessed at £9 16s. In Orkney he heard also, from a gentleman of undoubted authority, that the heritors of St. Andrews—six miles from Kirkwall—had just built a manse for the minister of that parish at a cost of £655, and office-houses £210—in all, £865. A handsome sum to pay for the accommodation of a minister having, according to his own showing, not more than 45 communicants. Most of the people in the parish preferred walk- ing a distance of six miles to Kirkwall, and had done so for 40 or 50 years, rather than worship in the parish church. In the parish of Lady in the Island of Sanday, a manse, &c, had been put up at a cost of over £700. The Rev. John Dangerfield, the minister of this parish, said he had 25 communicants; the average attendance at his church was about 12, and never exceeded 24; while in the immediate neighbourhood the Dissenting Churches were attended—the Free Church by 300 persons, and the United Presbyterian Church by 500, the membership of the former being returned to the General Assembly as 358, and of the latter to the United Presbyterian Synod as 507. Rather than build a new manse the heritors of the parish of Evie had, during the past few months, put repairs costing £469 upon the manse. The average attendance at the parish church of Evie was not more than 90, while that of the Free Church congregation, almost next door, considerably exceeded 200. Indeed, the membership of the Free Church was given at 265, while that of the Established Church for the combined parishes of Evie and Rendal was given in the Return presented to the House of Commons at 213. Was it not hard that poor people who supported their own ministers should be fleeced for ministers of the Established Church? It was called the Church of Scotland, but it was not the Church of Scotland in any sense whatever, more particularly in those parishes; for as he had shown the congregations there were in most instances smaller than those in the Free Church. With one other case, and one only, he would trouble the House, because it was one that was particularly used last Session. In the course of the debate last Session, a statement was made to the effect that the Clerk of the Cairston Presbytery had informed the hon. and gallant Member for South Ayrshire that the manse of Harray, which had cost the heritors £1,800, had cost so much in consequence of the heritors having disputed among themselves, and further, that Lord Zetland had paid almost half the amount. He (Mr. M'Laren) had made inquiry into this matter, and found that the buildings did actually cost the heritors £1,800; that there was no dispute among them, except in so far as the parish minister, who was also a land- owner in the parish, desired, along with the Presbytery, to compel the heritors to build a manse which would have cost nearly £3,000. This the heritors refused to do. The Presbytery were afraid to go into Court, and the compromise of £1,800 was agreed to. Lord Zetland acted along with the other heritors all through in this matter, and simply paid his legal proportion of the cost; the other proprietors, chiefly very small and poor, had many of them to sell their pigs and cows to meet this most iniquitous demand. A case such as that showed how much existed of hardship and injustice which ought to be remedied. The hon. Member for the Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Ramsay) last year went fully into the origin and incidence of this question. He showed that church rates in Scotland were optional under the Act of 1649 just as much as church rates in England were optional; but that in course of time it became otherwise. He showed also that the Parliament of Scotland imposed a maximum amount, that no more than £83 6s. 8d. should be imposed for erecting a manse; but by a decision of the Courts in Edinburgh—Judge-made law—the sum was raised to £1,000, or more, as might be thought fit from time to time. Even if a man's house was rated at only £4 a-year, he was legally liable for his share, under the present law as interpreted by the Courts, for erecting a manse for the minister of the parish. When it was said that the cases of the two countries were not exactly the same, let him remind hon. Members that in England the incumbent was not entitled to a manse at all at the cost of the people. He was bound to pay for keeping up his dwelling himself, and if he left it in a dilapidated state, his successor could proceed against his heirs, and compel them to put it in a proper condition. All the Scotch ministers had to do was to declare the manse was not in a proper state, and they could get an assessment to put it right. One great evil had been the extension of this Act to small proprietors—feuars, as they were called—in Scotland. It was not intended, but was so construed owing to the ambiguity of an Act passed for regulating the mode of defining assessments in 1856. It enacted that no burden should be imposed on any man, or on any property which was not formerly legally imposed in respect of the property; but one clause provided that all assessments thereafter should be levied in conformity with this new valuation, and, in practice, the latter clause had been held to overcome the former. If a declaratory Act were passed, stating what was the real effect of the Act of 1856, all the smaller people would be exempted. His right hon. and learned Friend had said the passing of this Bill would have disendowed the parish ministers, by depriving them of a portion of their income. He (Mr. M'Laren) begged altogether to deny that impression. All the Bill did was to transcribe the clauses of the English Act passed in 1868. That Act was passed after many years' battles, and although church rates might still be levied, no legal proceedings could be taken to enforce them. What had been the result? Plenty of money had been raised. There was no difficulty at all about the matter; neither would there be in Scotland. One religious body alone, the Free Church, since 1843 had erected 900 churches. There were only about the same number of original parish churches in Scotland altogether. Suppose all these were overthrown in one year by an earthquake, the Church of Scotland would be able to re-erect them for themselves, as were the Free Church congregations. Surely, then, the voluntary efforts of the friends of the Church would be amply sufficient to keep the fabrics in repair. The Free Church had erected nearly as many manses, and besides that they had erected colleges and schools. The United Presbyterian Church also had 500 churches erected at the expense of those worshipping in them. There had never been any difficulty in getting money for those churches, and he presumed there would be no more difficulty with regard to the Establishment. The Church of Scotland was, however, in a decided minority of the people of Scotland. There were disputes whether that Church had one-third or two-fifths. Most people thought two-fifths was nearer the case than one-third, and he doubted whether it came to two-fifths. Taking the attendance on the Census Sunday, the numbers attending the non-Established Churches were about 60 per cent more than those attending the Established Churches. Presuming he had not misstated these facts, he would ask, was it fair to impose a compulsory rate on poor people who entirely supported their own churches, manses, pastors, and schools, to compel them to contribute towards another Church? His right hon. and learned Friend and various other hon. Members had admitted that was a grievance, and having done all he could himself, he now called upon the Lord Advocate to fulfil his promise and bring in a Bill. He had implicit faith in the good intentions of his right hon. and learned Friend, and he did not believe if it was in his power to do what they desired to be done, it would be left undone. It was the Government which was to blame. He should not further allude to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Glasgow; but he did say that the Government had entered into an undertaking and had failed to fulfil that undertaking, and the people of Scotland would resent this failure. He begged to move the second reading of the Bill.

said, the difference between himself and the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren) was that, while the latter doubted the promise made by the right hon and learned Lord Advocate, he (Sir Graham Montgomery) believed the right hon. and learned Gentleman would bring in a Bill. There were difficulties in the way; but if he did not do it this Session, he would do it next. ["Oh, oh!"] He was not without hope they would have it this Session. However this might be, the hon. Member for Edinburgh had elected to proceed with the second reading of his Bill, and he (Sir Graham Montgomery) must state the reasons which induced him to move its rejection. The hon. Gentleman had always proceeded on the assumption that assessments in Scotland were the same as church rates in England. That proposition he entirely denied. He would endeavour to show what church rates were in the early history of England. It was stated that their origin was lost in antiquity, and so great was the uncertainty in reference to church rates in the early history of England, that it was felt necessary to have some definition of the law. The consequence was that 13 learned doctors of civil law met in conclave at Doctors' Commons, and endeavoured to put forth to the country definitions as to church rates, and how they were to be levied. These learned doctors issued several directions, but these, he was sorry to say, in course of time were all pronounced to be wrong by the Courts of Law. He then tried to find a definition of church rates, and he found a book in the Library of the House of Commons which defined that church rates were not a Common Law charge, neither were they a charge on land, neither were they a definite permanent charge, but depended on the pleasure of the vestry. The question came up in 1837, in the Braintree Case, when the vestry would not raise a rate, and the churchwardens proceeded to raise one themselves. This was decided by the Court to be illegal. After that a minority of the vestry proceeded to put on a Church rate, and that also was declared to be illegal. Another authority stated, that the Braintree Case completely altered the law, and that church rates, instead of being a burthen on land, became a voluntary payment dependent on the majority of the ratepayers. For many years after 1837 the question of church rates was debated in that House; and, at length, Parliament decided that, though the vestry might continue to impose the rate, payment should not be compelled. With regard to Scotland, he was quite willing to admit that before the Reformation the laws of the two countries were pretty much the same. The parishioners supported the fabric of the church, and the parson the chancel; but after the Reformation, the two countries proceeded in totally different directions. The church rates in England were voluntary assessments; in Scotland they were a charge upon the land. The highest authority on the subject in Scotland stated that the heritors were bound to provide and maintain the church and manse, and burial-ground, for parishioners. This was done by Acts of the Scotch Parliament in 1572 and 1663. The heritors had no option in this matter. It was a burthen on their land. If they failed to do it, there was power to compel them. It was a power inherited by the Presbyteries of the Church from the Bishops, and if the heritors failed to perform their duties, the Presbyteries could appeal to the Sheriff, and then to the Court of Session; so that the payment was in no sense voluntary. He thought in what he had said he had succeeded in showing that this burthen fell entirely upon property, and it was not, he thought, a burthen from which the heritors of Scotland should be relieved. They were not seeking to be relieved from that burthen. He had seen the list of Petitions presented in favour of the hon. Member's Bill, and none of them came from the heritors of Scotland, and he was quite sure that they did not seek to be relieved in the manner proposed by the Bill. The question of commutation had been referred to; but, individually, the more he looked at it the more difficulties he saw in that question. If commutation would have the effect of separating the owners of the land from the Church, as he believed it would, he should oppose it on that ground, although he had formerly expressed an opinion in favour of commutation. Of course there were persons in Scotland who objected to compulsory payments for the support of religion; but it appeared to him that those persons were in possession of property bearing legal burthens which they ought in justice to pay, and there surely could be no objection on their part to pay what was really their legal dues. They took their property upon the understanding that they would have to pay them, and why should they be relieved from them? He objected to such a relief being given, and should consequently move the rejection of the Bill.

said, he would at once acknowledge that church rates in Scotland were, as a legal matter, on a very different footing from that on which church rates in England had been. In the case of Scotland they were a charge laid upon property, while in England they had been levied upon the individual. But although there was a difference legally, he thought it could be shown that the incidence of the tax became practically the same as it had been in England prior to 1868. So far as church rates were concerned, he would say that since they had been abolished in England, not the slightest difficulty had been found in accomplishing without them all that had formerly been done with them. Indeed greater facilities were found in raising money for Church purposes, and in his opinion, the same result would happen in Scotland. Not only had it been possible in England to do more than could be done when church rates were compulsory, but the sense of irritation and soreness that had existed was at the same time removed, and he believed that the Church of England was really stronger than it had been before those rates were repealed. He would acknowledge at once that church rates in Scotland were assessed upon the land for the building of manses and the building and repairing of churches, and he would also acknowledge that the heritors generally did not wish to be relieved from these charges; but they had heard from the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down (Sir Graham Montgomery) that the more he inquired into the question the more difficult did he find it to bring about any commutation that would be satisfactory. He (Mr. Noel) ventured, however, to point out to hon. Members who were unacquainted with the subject that, as a tax on the feuars, this assessment fell very heavily, and nearly in the same manner as the old church rates had done in England. A most admirable speech on this subject was delivered by the hon. and gallant Member for South Ayrshire (Colonel Alexander) last Session. It was a speech that should be read by every hon. Member who wished to become acquainted with this subject. That hon. and gallant Member pointed out to the House distinctly that there were three classes of parishes, and he read a list of parishes where there had been no assessment since the memory of man—or, at all events, for a very long time. He then gave the number of parishes where there was no assessment, or where, at all events, it was not paid by the feuars; he also gave cases in which the feuars were assessed, and he quoted instances of parishes in which there had been no assessment—in some for 60 years, some 20 years, and in some none at all. If these discrepancies existed, it did not appear that this was a charge that could be commuted, but one that ought to be removed altogether. When a man took a piece of land, how could he tell how much it was likely that he would have to pay, when in some parishes there had been no assessment for 60 years, and in some there was none at all? Yet, directly he built upon the land, an assessment might take place, and in the following year he might be called upon to pay 4s. 6d. or 5s. in the pound. When they considered that some of these feus had been used for building manses, he asked, was it a reasonable and a fair thing that a heavy tax, quite an irregular tax, a tax that was so irregular that no reliance could be felt as to whether it would be raised or not—was it fair that such a heavy tax should be placed on the feu, when the sum thus raised might be applied to the building of a manse be-longing to a sect different from that which he who paid it belonged? They had been told of the parish of Inveresk, which enjoyed an unenviable notoriety for putting on an assessment, and other instances showed that an absolute want of uniformity existed, and surely it was necessary that they should remove the want of uniformity by taking off the tax forthwith. He thought that in these days they were all agreed upon the general principle that it was not only very unjust, but very unwise to tax persons of one creed for the maintenance of another creed, in which they did not believe, and that such taxes should be at once repealed. This was not like a fixed charge upon property in the way of tithes. A tithe could be estimated, and was estimated, in the purchase of land; its amount was perfectly well known, and could be said to belong to the property. But in this case it was perfectly clear that the charge was, in many instances, falling upon the feuars, so that it could by no means be termed a fixed charge upon property. That it caused a great amount of soreness in Scotland no one could deny, and he asked whether it was wise, in the interest of the Church of Scotland, that it should any longer be maintained? Some might think it was wise, but he ventured to say that no wise statesman would resolve to continue it. Although he would admit that the hon. Member for Edinburgh was not looked upon as a friend to the Established Church, yet he (Mr. Noel) thought that by the passing of this measure that Church would receive a real accession of strength. Both as a religious body and a Christian Church it would find itself much stronger should the feuars be relieved from the burdens imposed upon them.

said, he could not endorse the principle of the Bill, which he believed was framed in the interests of a comparatively small number of people; but he was ready to admit that there were cases of grievances which ought to be remedied, in some parts of Scotland, and more especially in the Orkney Islands. His own experience, moreover, convinced him that in the majority of cases the Church authorities showed no disposition to impose the rate on people who objected to it. But to say that they were to entirely remove an impost which had been for many years on the land of Scotland, merely to alleviate the evils complained of by a few persons, was a matter which he did not think the House of Commons would sanction. The hon. Member for Edinburgh had said that the Church of Scotland embraced only two-fifths of the people; but he (Mr. Stewart) differed from that statement, and thought there were more people connected with the Established Church than the hon. Member seemed to think. He should like to quote a few statistics. According to the Return of the Registrar General, 82·02 per cent of the people of Scotland were married by the clergy of the three leading Presbyterian Churches. In 1870—the last year, he believed, for which Returns were published—the numbers were 44·76 per cent in the Church Scotland, 22·91 in the Free Church, and 14·35 in the United Presbyterian Church. Then, as regarded education, the Commissioners in their Report for 1867 showed a Church connection of about 2,000,000 out of the 3,000,000 of the population of Scotland, or 81·3 per cent. connected with these three Churches, of which 44·4 per cent were Church of Scotland, 26·1 the Free Church, 10·7 the United Presbyterian, and 10 per cent were unclassed. In the Return given to the General Assembly, in May, 1874, of the adherents of the various Churches, out of a population of 1,704,837 embraced in the Return, 813,149, or 47·7 per cent. belonged to the Established Church. As to the number of communicants, he was speaking from memory, but he believed that in 1871 there were something like 436,000 belonging to the Established Church, 285,300 to the Free Church, and 165,000 to the United Presbyterian. These figures showed that the Established Church was much stronger than the hon. Member wished to make out. As regarded the Bill, he would repeat that he was perfectly ready to relieve the grievances which were justly complained of, but he was not prepared to give into the hands of the heritors that money, the payment of which they did not at present grudge. They should recollect that the Established Church possessed 1,160 churches throughout the country, and they should also recollect that the present incumbents of parishes had taken their livings believing that their manses, churchyards, and churches would be properly kept up but, if the Bill passed, they would leave those incumbents in a difficult position. That was not a proper thing to do, especially at a time when they were promised a Bill by the Government. As grievances did exist, however, he would willingly give what assistance he could to the settlement of the question on an equitable footing, and he had no hesitation in believing that the Lord Advocate was sincere in his intention to deal with this subject, and therefore he should vote against the Bill.

said, he was unwilling that the House should go to a division on the Bill, because they were aware that the Lord Advocate had promised to deal with the subject. He was quite ready to remedy any legitimate grievance which might be complained of, but he could not agree with the remedy proposed in the Bill, and he would therefore rather wait for the measure of his right hon. and learned Friend. He believed his right hon. and learned Friend intended to settle the question not perhaps, entirely in accordance with the wishes of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, but in a manner satisfactory to Scotland generally. He admitted that there existed some hardships with reference to the feuars, and they were all anxious that they should be removed, though not in the manner proposed by the hon. Member for Edinburgh—namely by the total abolition of what he termed church rates. He would not enter at length into the question, but he would point out that church assessments in Scotland were not the same thing as church rates in England; they were, in fact, more like the tithes than church rates. He thought it would be very much better if they tried to lay their heads together and come to some understanding which would be a practical settlement of the question. He hoped his right hon. and learned Friend would be able to give some pledge that he would be able to bring in a Bill which would settle the matter, and he hoped the House would not be called upon to express an opinion upon the subject then. To abolish the charge according to the terms of the Bill would be to rob the Church of the value of these assessments and put the money into the pockets of the heritors who did not ask for it. It was not the original intention of the law that these feuars should be assessed, and what he would suggest was, that they should revert to the original intention of the law, and let the tax fall upon the land, and if the land had been feued, let the feuar pay upon the ground rent and not upon the houses. If the hon. Member for Edinburgh would accept this settlement, he would get a great deal of what he asked for, and he believed it would remove the grievance which he admitted was at present complained of.

said, he was of opinion that the Bill was one which it would be best to leave in the hands of the Government. Indeed, it ought not to be dealt with by a private Member at all.

gave Notice that on an early day he would again bring the Bill forward. And it being a quarter of an hour before Six of the clock, the Debate stood adjourned till To-morrow.