On the second reading (June 13th) lord Lyndhurst objected to the bill in point of principle. He had conversed, he said, with different members of the profession, of all political parties, and had not found a single individual who approved of it. The two bills formed one measure, and the effect of the measure was simply this, not to separate the political from the judicial functions of the chancellor, but to divide the judicial functions into two parts, and to attach to one of these parts the political functions now belonging to the office. The lord chancellor, retaining all his political functions, was to preside at the hearing of appeals in that house, and at all judicial discussions in the committee of the privy council, whenever his services could not be

dispensed with. The necessary effect of this measure would be to divide the office of chancellor, and to disqualify him for exercising that very appellate jurisdiction to which he was to be devoted. If the office was thus to be stripped of all its laborious duties, it would doubtless be less endowed, and no vice-chancellor or master of the rolls would abandon his tenure of office for one so shorn and pre

carious as the office of lord chancellor would then be. The average of equity appeals heard before the house for some years did not exceed fourteen or fifteen. Now, in the courts of the master of the rolls and vice-chancellor, men presided, who had been selected from the highest rank in the profession, and who, after their elevation to the bench, had their minds constantly engaged in discussing and applying the great principles of equity. Such was, and would be, the character of the inferior judges in equity; and what would be the character of the judge of appeal? Was it to be supposed that even a man of the same capacity of mind could have his intellects kept alive, his faculties sharpened, and his mind invigorated, by having to decide annually fourteen or fifteen appeals in the House of Lords, and one or two appeals before the judicial committee of the privy council? The result of the arrangement would be, that the appellate judge would be inferior to those whose judgments he was called on to review. Nothing could be more destructive of the utility of the office; no confidence would any longer be reposed in any judgment which he might pronounce. It was on this plain ground that lord Hardwick, Mr. Pitt, sir S. Romilly, and lord Redesdale, had all deprecated the course which it was now proposed to follow, and no man had placed the consequences of it in a stronger light than lord Brougham, when the subject was brought before the House of Commons in 1830. He then said: "the jurisdiction of the lord chancellor is superior to all ordinary jurisdictions. If his duties were confined to sitting

in the House of Lords, he would soon become a mere judge of appeal; he would soon cease to be what the constitution prescribed he ought to be, the first lawyer in the country. Even as a judge of appeal, we might plant him on the woolsack, and give him power; but would he have any authority? Would he satisfy the courts below, or the suitors, or the profession? He would then be chosen, because he was a cunning intriguer behind the curtain, or a skilful debater in the House of Lords. Could such a man be qualified to decide appeals from the vice-chancellor and the master of the rolls? He would hear, and he might listen; he would discover a hole to pick here, and a word to carp at there; now a commentary to hazard, then a remark to risk; but would he be competent to grapple with the difficulties of a complicated case? Would he have any confidence in himself? Certainly not; because he would well know that the profession would have no confidence in him. The power of the appellate jurisdiction, which ought to be the last resort of suitors, the comptroller of judges, and the security of right, would exist only in name?" He by no means said that nothing ought to be done; he admitted that additional judicial power was required to render the Court of Chancery efficient. The mischievous delay was the delay which intervened between a case being ripe for hearing, and the actual hearing; and it was monstrous that, in a country like this, there should not be a judicial establishment so strong as to enable it to hear and dispose of a case in equity the moment it was ready to be heard. It was im

possible, with benefit to the administration of justice, or even to property, to take the lord chancellor from the duties of his office in the Court of Chancery. Let the additional judge preside over the committee of the privy council, a tribunal which required peculiar qualification, because it had to deal with the laws of every civilized country. The lord chancellor would then have sufficient time both for his duties in Chancery, and for attending to the appellate jurisdiction of the Lords. That jurisdiction was by no means in such a situation as to require that the house should continue to sit, notwithstanding a prorogation. The average number of appeals entered annually during a period of fourteen years was seventy-seven ; and he knew from experience that one-fifth ought to be deducted as going off in points of form, or by private arrangement, thus leaving only sixty-two. During the period of fourteen years, 745 cases had been decided in 836 days. Thus the sixty-two cases, which formed the average number would be disposed of in about seventy days during each session. This part of the measure was, at the least, unnecessary; but the principle of the other part, viz., to separate the ordinary judicial functions of the lord chancellor from his office was most mischievous, and he therefore moved that the bill should be read a second time that day six months.

Lord Langdale, the master of the Rolls, thought that the bill did not go far enough; for he held it to be indispensable, that the judicial functions of the chancellor should be separated from those which were not judicial, and that the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords ought to be placed under

the superintendence of a judge having no connection with politics. There ought to be a lord chancellor in the Court of Chancery, appointed by letters patent, without delivering to him the great seal. This judge ought to be exempted from all political duties, and from sitting as a judge of appeal in the House of Lords. He ought to have no power to review the decisions of the vice-chancellor and the master of the rolls, but the appeals from these judges ought to go directly to the court of last resort. In the court of last resort, there ought to be a lord president, or lord speaker, who should be a permanent judge, unconnected with politics, to be aided by persons called lords-assistants. The great seal should then be delivered to the lord keeper, and to his office should be annexed all the political functions at present discharged by the lord chancellor. Although, therefore, he did not entirely concur in the proposed plan, which did not even promise to accomplish all that he could have wished, he would not object to it for the present, being persuaded that it would afford considerable relief, while it would not be pro

ductive of future inconvenience, or present any obstacle to what he deemed desirable. Lord Abinger supported the amendment, on the same grounds which had been stated by its mover. The duke of Wellington admitted that he had no knowledge of the Court of Chancery, but he had sat for many years in the councils of his majesty, and he there had practical knowledge, which convinced him, how important it was, that the most eminent lawyer in the country should occupy such a position as would give those councils substantial benefit from his assistance. Lord Melbourne did not believe that a man of talent, well grounded in his profession, would suddenly lose his knowledge, and the use of his faculties, on becoming merely a judge of appeal. He entertained no doubt that competent lawyers would be found to fill the situation, if it was once created; and he thought that as it was admitted on all hands that there was an evil to be removed, the house could not do wrong in going into committee on the bill. On a division, however, the amendment was carried by ninetyfour to twenty-nine.

a very bad committee; I may as well strike at once. What was more common than to witness the disapprobation expressed by any given party in the House, when a member attached to it, whose name happened to be drawn, did not answer to the call, or excused himself on the ground of age, or the weight of official duties? All these things shewed, that impartiality neither existed, nor was believed to exist, and that matters were fast falling back into the state from which the Grenville act had endeavoured to rescue them. Another great evil lay in the enormous expense under the existing system. The cheapest petition he could find was in the Salisbury case in 1833, and it cost 1,000l.; another in the same year cost 2,000l., and he had been informed that the fees paid to counsel in one session in trials of controverted elections was not less than 10,000l. This prevented electors, who were deeply interested in having the proper man seated, from coming to the House to have the wrong corrected. Another evil was the delay which attended the proceedings of these committees, arising partly from no committee holding itself bound by the decision of any other, so that every question had to be argued over again, and partly from their ignorance of the rules of evidence, which rendered it necessary that they should be put through a course of instruction in the progress of the case. These tribunals were thus wholly unfit for the work intrusted to them, not because their members would be so swayed by party spirit as to commit injustice, but because they knew nothing of the law, nothing of the rules of evidence, and decided on no fixed principles, and because there was thus an utter VOL. LXXVIII.

uncertainty regarding election law. Questions of qualification often involved the nicest points of law, and these points were tried by gentlemen who had no one qualification for deciding legal points. In the Dublin case, it was held a good objection to the admissibility of the poll books, that in the jurat of the affidavit which verified them, the names of the deponents were omitted; in the case of the city of Cork the same objection was held to be bad. The Roscommon committee held that the poll books, coming out of the hands of the agent of the returning officer, were not admissible; the Inverness committee held that they were. Similar contrariety of decision prevailed, at least in Ireland, on the competency of opening the registers. The Irish reform act declared the registry to be “ conclusive"; but three different committees had put three different constructions upon the word conclusive. A still more perplexing degree of contrariety prevailed every where on one of the most important points which could occur, viz., the necessity of proving agency before giving evidence of acts of bribery or treating. What could be stronger than the contradictory decisions of committees under the reform act, on the question whether, after registration, a man could be disqualified from voting? For a time it had been held by all committees, that a man, abandoning his qualification after registration but before the poll, was disqualified; last session, however, the Windsor and second Canterbury committees had decided the other way. Thirteen committees had held that paupers had no right to vote, but such votes were admitted by the second Canterbury committee, and by the Ipswich committee. Another [N]