the present case there is not time for any this as a breach of privilege. I have had Committe to inquire for and examine into some experience on questions of privilege. precedents. The trial is to take place on I was present and took part in the argu- . the 31st of July in the county of Surrey ; ment of the great case of privilege at your and I ave no doubt he will be called Lordships' bar; and I will venture to say upon to plead in four days from the time that whoever has the most considered the declaration is filed. Before the Com. question of privilege will find the most mittee have made their Report, a judg. difficulty in reconciling the conflicting dement may be obtained, and a verdict for cisions and precedents on the subject, and 1,0001. may be given by a jury against the especially in deciding, as my noble Friend, defendant; and this because he has obeyed who is not a member of the profession, your Lordships' summons. It may be has done off hand, that this is a breach of said that the defendant may justify; but privilege. Taking such extremely breathhow? Are you to expose him to the same less haste as our guide is never safe. We peril to which all your own privileges ap- ought never to come to a hurried depear now to be exposed ? My Lords, I cision when a little time for delibershall move as an Amendment, “ That the ation might make our proceeding more plaintiff and his attorney be summoned to useful and satisfactory in its resulis. In appear at the bar of this House to-morrow all cases arising in the House of Comat five o'clock."

mons, the first thing done is the adoption The Earl of Ellenborough: I entirely of the course suggested by my noble and agree with the noble and learned Lord as learned Friend on the Woolsack-namely, to the course it is essential, for the main the appointment of a Committee to search tenance of the dignity and privileges of for precedents. You are not like the this House, and of its authority, for your House of Commons, a mere inquisitorial Lordships to pursue, and I shall give my body. You are a high criminal court of vote in support of the noble and learned justice in the last resort. The matter Lord's Amendment.

propounded is, that you shall call the Lord Brougham: My doubt is this, and plaintiff and his attorney before you, with I fairly state it to your Lordships. This the manifest intention, that if you are sais the first time that the question has ever lisfied, on examining those parties, that been brought before the House. We have this action is brought for words spoken not had one quarter of an hour by the under certain circumstances, you will stay clock to consider what course it would be the action by exerting your power of force the best for us to take. We have not had against the author of that action. That one quarter of an hour to look into pre- is a great step for any court of justice to cedents. We are surrounded by very se- take. It is a very novel position for your rious difficulties. We have at present the Lordships to find yourselves in : that you, statement, an donly the statement, of the a court of judicature, who as a criminal party against whom the ac ion is brought. court in the last resort, may have to deIf you look at that statement, he does not cide this very case, should at once say himself say that the action is brought for we will not allow this action to proceed." words spoken by him in giving his evi. But it is said—“Only examine the plaindence upon oath. He says, he believes tiff!" Is it nothing, my Lords, for a

. it is for words spoken by him in the pre- plaintiff, upon the mere application of the sence and hearing of the Committee. My defeodant-his adversary to be called noble and learned friend on the Wool. upon to disclose his case ? But that is sack has suggested that it does not at all what you are doing, and upon what follow from necessity that those were words ground? Simply because the defendant used by him in giving evidence before the tells you his story, he being the adversary Committee. Though he says it is his own of the plaintiff. I am not the man to adassertion, no doubt), that he never did, vise your Lordships, without further consiexcept upon the occasion of being ex- deration, to pursue this extraordinary, not amined before the Committee, say any- to say extr me course of calling upon a thing respecting Mr. Harlow, still he may plaintiff to tell you what his case is, have done it upon that occasion without merely because the defendant asks you being at the moment giving evidence on to do so by telling his account of the oath. My noble Friend opposite (the Earl matter. I am, above all things, for mainof Ellenborough) is ready to denounce / taining the purity and independence of

the administration of justice, and I believe that the privileges of both Houses of Parliament never can be safer, and never can be rested upon a more secure foundation than if they are left, like the rights and privileges of all the rest of the community the Sovereign included - the Crown included-left to the administration of civil and criminal justice in those courts which are not political tribunals, the courts of the law of the United King. dom.

a

to the fact of his having been illegally de- because he makes that disclosure ? It could prived of it. I cannot think that that is a not be endured for a moment: and do case which your Lordships will feel proud your Lordships believe that any court of or anxious to act upon. I beg to express justice would say that a plaintiff could posmy very great disapprobation of actions sibly succeed in such an action, or that a being brought for the sake of producing witness so conducting himself should be collisions between Parliament and the punished? Why should it be supposed Courts of Justice-a circumstance at all that a court of justice would overlook all times much to be deplored~actions brought circumstances of this nature? All confidenfor the purpose of obtaining from the tial communications, that are made bond prejudices or excited feelings of a jury fide, are privileged communications ; but damages which greatly exceed the amount the privileges of the House of Lords, and of injury sustained. I do, at the of your Lordships? Committees for the

' same time, think that there is no more purpose of public inquiries, stand beyond certain mode of encouraging such pro- the reach of any criminal or civil proceed. ceedings, than by interfering with a view ing by way of action. I venture to think, to stop the due course of justice between although I know what has been said in the Queen's subjects by the high hand of another place, that there is nothing in the power on the part of Parliament, under conduct or in the disposition of the courts the pretence that the parties against whom that disentitles them to the credit of wishing such proceedings were taken were acting to put down any action brought under such under its protection. I should be very circumstances. But, on the other hand, is slow in offering any opinion upon this case. it to be maintained, if parties will vent any The facts at present before your Lordships personal malice, or will indulge in any perare merely ex parte. I know that the pro- sonal and unjust reflections to the preju. position before your Lordships is, that the dice of others, while giving evidence before facts be inquired into by summoning those a Committee of your Lordships' House, that parties to the bar who are supposed to have those persons are not be pursued in order injured this petitioner, that is, to summon that the facts may be inquired into, and the plaintiff and his attorney. But, by be decided upon in due course of law? But summoning those parties before you, your upon this more general ground--a ground Lordships pledge yourselves to take some which has been considered and felt at all course, provided certain disclosures are times by those Judges who were aware of made ; but which disclosures, I hum- the high privilege they enjoyed, of standbly apprehend, ought not to be sought ing between irresponsible power and those for from any of Her Majesty's sub-whom it was sought to make its victimsjects who are only seeking to establish I am opposed to the undue interposition of their rights in a court of justice. I am privilege to impede the due administration very unwilling to commit myself without of justice between subject and subject. necessity upon a point of law; but I have The feeling which has actuated all those not the least difficulty in saying, that if Judges who have thus appreciated their this statement be true, and I have no doubt own high privilege, has been this -- We it is—if this respectable person, of whom know our duty, and that duty we will perthe noble Duke has spoken so highly, has form ; we will perform it without fear or really done no more than what is stated in favour, for the protection, not of one class, his petition, then I have not the least diffi- not of an individual who happens to have culty in saying, nay, it admits of no doubt, been a witness before a Committee either that the plaintiff cannot hold up his head of this place or of another place, but for in a court of justice. What! when a com- the protection of all; for doing equal juspetent tribunal, justly held in the high- tice to all, in order that those who are inest respect by the country-a Committee jured may obtain redress, and that those of the House of Lords, appointed to inquire who complain that they are injured may into the necessity of making an amendment have the right to show how and wherein in the law of the land—when such a tri- they have suffered." These are general bunal summons before it a public officer, a grounds, I think at least, sufficient to induce man competent to speak of the conduct of your Lordships to pause before any steps certain parties having relation to that law, are taken. I should have thought the and when that officer shall have fairly and Motion of my noble and learned Friend fully disclosed what he knows on oath-on the Woolsack, if any course was to be is he to be accused as a malicious slanderer taken on the subject, was the only course

that a deliberative body, with due regard | the other courts. He wished to know with to their own high station, and to the great what justice they could ask witnesses to power they possess, and the great injury give evidence before their Committees, by they may by possibility inflict, could have which they would subject themselves to taken on such proposal being made. My penalties such as that which the petitioner Lords, I venture to warn you against the had incurred? He said penalties, because notion that dignity consists in taking sud- the petitioner had already incurred exden offence, and in putting down all who penses, and which would be further in question your proceedings. There may be creased. If witnesses were to be subject good grounds for the statements of those to such actions, they could not, in justice, who come before you for protection. Your be expected to come forward and tell the Lordships do not possess the means of in- whole truth on matters upon which it was vestigating the merits between the con- necessary for the House to be informed. tending parties; but if those grounds exist, the assertion and proof of them will be available to the party complaining in any court of justice in the kingdom.

Lord Stanley protested, on the part of the Government, against the doctrine that the House was abandoning those persons who gave true and faithful evidence in obedience to their Lordships' orders. There could, he believed, be hardly a dis

Lord Campbell would warn their Lordships of the infinite importance of the step they were now about to take. If they re-sentient voice to the proposition that it was fused the Amendment he had proposed, their duty to protect those persons. By they would be declaring to all the world the vote the House had just come to, they that let an action be brought against any had not abandoned one jot or tittle of the one for what he might have said before a privileges of the House; but what they Committee of their Lordships' House, they had done was to abstain, on the recomwould not interfere to protect him, even mendation of his noble and learned Friend, though he should be a Peer of the realm, from taking a hasty course the moment a Lord Brougham had always said that petition had been presented. They had the House had the right to commit for been recommended to take some short contempt of its privileges. The courts of time to examine into precedents of the law had the same right. He would ask, course adopted on former occasions, in however, if an action were brought against order to assist them in arriving at a dea witness for something which he had said cision upon the course to be taken in the upon oath in the Court of Queen's Bench, present instance. He conceived that neiwould the Lord Chief Justice call the ther their Lordships' privileges nor the plaintiff and his attorney before him and cause of those persons who had given eviask him on what account his action was dence before them, were compromised, if, brought; and if they replied "On account upon conflicting opinions being expressed of what the defendant had said before by the highest authorities upon such a you," would the Lord Chief Justice then question, their Lordships took twenty-four say, "Then I commit you for contempt?" hours to consider the wisest course to Yet that, he considered, would be tanta- pursue. mount to acceding to the Motion of his noble and learned Friend near him. He would only add, that if the statements contained in the petition were true, this was one of the most ridiculous actions that had ever been brought against any person.

On Question, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of Motion? House divided:-Content 33; Non-Content 22: Majority 11.

Resolved in the Affirmative. Then the original Motion being put,

The Marquess of Clanricarde contended that if they allowed their privileges to go to the courts of law, they gave up their prorogatives and submitted themselves to

It was

The Earl of Ellenborough could not but feel apprehension if, after the Report of the Select Committee, the House should adopt the course recommended by the noble and learned Lord opposite, that a most serious effect would be produced upon evidence given in future before Committees of their Lordships' House. essential that evidence given before those Committees should be given without the apprehension of punishment-it was essential that it should be given without fear. If witnesses-even although they should ultimately receive indemnity-were to give evidence under the apprehension, so embarrassing and distressing to nervous minds, that they might be forced into a