The Press. — London, England, 1856-07-12 00:00:00

JULY 12, 1856. pacc6ings arliantent. HOUSE OF LORDS—MONDAY, JULY 7. NAWAB OF SURAT'S TREATY BILL. The Marquis of CLANIUCARDE moved the second reading of this bill. Lord REDESDALE moved, as an amendment, that it be read that day six months. The Duke of ARGYLL seconded the amendment. He was not prepared to say that the Government would object to refer the question to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Lord ELLENBOROUGH thought the bill a bad prece d3nt, and earnestly desired to submit the question to the leeision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Lord DENMAN supported the amendment, which was agreed to, and the bill consequently lost. The Court of Exchequer (Scotland) Bill was read a second time, on the explanation of the LORD CHANCELLOR that the bill would unite the Court of Exchequer to the Court of Session. HOUSE OF COMMONS.-MONDAY. CITY REFORM. Sir G. GREY, in reply to Sir J. Duke as to whether the Government would assist the corporation of the city of London in passing a bill, during the present session, to extend the right of voting in the election of aldermen and members of the Common Council to al occupiers within the City who were on the perils mantary register, said he doubted the policy of introducing a bill limited to that single object. The bill of 1849 was a private bill, and any bill to amend it must of course be introduced in the same form, but the regulations of both Houses of Parliament would prevent a private bill from passing at this period of the session. MR. JAMES SADLEIR. Mr. J. FITZGERALD, in reply to Mr. Moore as to whether it was true that Mr. James Sadleir had been permitted to leave Ireland without being arrested, said, that there was not a document or witness within the reach of the Crown which would have enabled the law cfficers to take a single step towards bringing the culpable parties in the Tipperary Bank fraud to justice, until after the Master of the Rolls had de livered judgment. The most active steps were then at once taken by the Crown to secure Mr. James Sad leir. From the report of the officers employed he had reason to believe that Mr. Sadleir had not left Ireland since the 17th or 18th of June. If he had left Ireland it was before that date, and in conse quance of the irregular observations of the Master of the Rolls. MEDICAL PROFESSION BILL. Mr. COWPER, in reply to Mr. Spooner as to when the Government would fix a day for the discussion of the above bill, said it was vain to hope that the house would be able to consider the prmisions of the mea sure, and he would therefore move that the order be discharged. The order for committee on the bill was accordingly discharged. 'AIRS OF ITALY. The report of the resolutions agreed to in Com mittee of Ways and Means being brought up by Mr. FITZROY, WAYS AND Lord J. RUSSELL said, he thought it desirable that the Government should take an early opportunity of affording some explanations to the house with regard to the communications that had taken place with foreign Governments on the subject of Italian affairs• On any day that might he convenient to his noble friend at the head of the Government—probably on Friday or on Monday—he would move for copies of the communications to which he referred, and he would ask the noble lord what fruits might be expected from the declarations made at the Paris Conferences. PIIBLIC EXPENDITURE. Sir H. Wn.Lonouny, referring to the resolutions agreed to in committee of ways and means, com plained that the house possessed no information with regard to the public expenditure of the past year. The house was in total ignorance of the financial transactions for the year ending on the :list of March. There were certain accounts, called the finance ac counts, which were laid upon the table at so late a period of the session That hon. members had no opportunity 6f examining them until after they had arrived at a decision upon the most important finan cial questions. Last year these accounts were laid upon the table in July, but they were not delivered to hon. members until the 6th of October, when the house was not sitting. The house was called on to declare that there was a surplus of 562,020/., when, in fact, it had no means of knowing anything about it. He therefore called upon the Government to remedy this extraordinary state of things. The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER said, with regard to the production of the accounts, he might THE PRESS. state that the whole of them were in the hands of the printers on the 4th of June with the exception of those of the Land Revenue Department. When completed, he could assure the house that no delay would take place in having the whole laid on the table. Mr. DISRAELI said, what he should like to know was, why the accounts, if they were ready for the printer on the 4th of June, were not yet on the table. They might have been printed in a week. What the right hon. gentleman said as to the Land Revenue Department not being prepared with their accounts was by no means satisfactory, because the question still remained, why were they not prepared? The right hon. gentleman had ample power in this matter, and he should have issued orders to have these accounts forwarded in due time. At all events, the house might have had before it other accounts which were of much greater importance than those connected with the Land Revenne Department. APPELLATE JURISDICTION BILL. On the order for the second reading of this bill, Mr. E. DENISON presented a petition from Lord Wensleydale (who was present below the bar), praying that the house would make such amendments in the bill as would leave the royal prerogative and his right to sit and vote in the House of Lords en tirely unaffected by the bill. The ATTORNEY-GENERAL, in moving the second reading of the bill, adverted to the grave complaints made regarding the manner in which the appellate jurisdiction was exercised in the House of Lords, where the number of law lords hearing appeals was seldom more than two, and sometimes only one. He acknowledged that the question was beset with diffi culties, but the evil was great and pressing, and must be overcome ; and, unless some other scheme could be devised which would effect the object of establishing a tribunal of ultimate appeal that would be satisfactory to suitors and to the country, he hoped the house would not reject the present bill, which, if passed, would always give three judges to hear appeals. Sir A. Cockburn then adverted to the life peerage question, and defended the introduction of this novel principle in the upper branch of the Legislature on the ground that the choice of func tionaries to sit on appeals in the Lords would be much restricted if limited to those members of the legal profession who would accept, and could support, the dignity of an hereditary peerage. Mr. BOWYER opposed the bill. He proposed in lieu of this scheme that a supreme court should be established to hear and determine appeals in criminal as well as civil cases. He moved as an amendment that the bill be read a second time that day three months. The chief feature of the bill was its operation on the right of creating peers for life without seats in the House of Lords. At present every peer was entitled to a seat in the House of Lords by himself or representative. The new life peers would not have this power. Would they then bo eligible to be elected to that house? If this new class of peers became numerous, he conceived they could not long be excluded from the House of Lords. This would lead to an opposition of interests in the house itself owing to two classes of men sitting together whose powers were so widely different. He protested against a measure of this kind being passed inciden tally, and under cover of a bill to amend the appellate jurisdiction of the house. There were other anoma lies and absurdities in the bill ; for instance, the title " Deputy-Speaker." These Deputy• Speakers were not to act in the absence of the Speaker, but to sit along with him. Could anything be more absurd ? The bill did not decide whether the lay lords were to take any part in appeals ; but the understanding was that they would abdicate their functions. If so the house would consist of a Speaker and two Deputy- Speakers. The thing was utterly ridiculous. What was worse, the house so constituted was to sit during the recess. The House of Commons might justly look with jealousy on such a measure. Mr. R. PRILLIMORE seconded the amendment. He did not believe the bill would remedy a third of the evils complained of. It left untouched the great practical defect, that of having two tribunals of supreme and co-ordinate jurisdiction. Mr. WifirrernE supported the second reading, and defended the House of Lords as a judicial tribunal. The imperfections now experienced were, he main tained, of brief existence and accidental origin. At former periods the number of law peers who sat on appeals Was amply sufficient, while their high character and eminent talent rendered the tribunal fully worthy of its exalted attributes. All that was wanted was to provide for the intervals when, as at present, age or ill health prevented some of those peers from attending the house, and this, in his opinion, the bill now before them would satisfactorily accomplish. Sir J. GRAHAM said, the bill presented itself in two aspects; first, it disposed of the controversy as to peers for life; secondly, it upheld the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords. In respect to the first, the bill, in his opinion, should either be • rejected or referred to a committee, for at present it 653 left uncertain a great branch of the prerogative, and he was satisfied that, if adopted, it would be neces sary to go on and to extend the creation of peers for life to the army, the navy, and politics, and he en treated the house to pause before it passed a measure which, for a comparatively paltry object, risked the swamping of the House of Lords. With respect to the other aspect of the bill, the new appellate jurisdiction, it was, upon the face of it, he contended, a delusion, not a reality. This new tribunal was to sit during prorogation. What did that mean? Then the judges were to be paid, and the second clause excluded some high legal personages. The bill, in his opinion, would debauch both the bench at d the bar. The Crown would have the power of ho d.ng out to puisne judges the pro spect of an appointment as deputy-speaker in the House of Lords with a peerage for life, and the expectation of one of inheritance. It was compe tent to the House of Lords, without the intervention of the Commons, to mend their jurisdiction, which might be done by a distribution of the business, in classes, among the judges. Things, however, could not go on, he observed, as they now were, for the exist ing appellate tribunal was very imperfect. He thoug careful inquiry should precede legislation, and he was in favour of a committee. Mr. ROUNDELS. PALMER supported the second read ing, because legislation on the matter was absolutely necessary and ought not to be postponed, and, though he thought the details of the bill timid and imperfect, they were not beyond remedy in committee. The alternative proposed by Sir J. Graham, of classifying the appeals, and distributing them among commit tees of the judges, which merely evaded the difficulty, would not bear examine ion. He objected to re moving the judicial function from the House of Lords, either to rite Privy Council or to a new tribu nal. He thoueht the administration of justice and the House of Lords received, mutually, dignity front the exercise of the appellate jurisdiction by that house. Upon the subject of life peerages Mr. Palmer avowed his strong opinion to be that the Crown did possess the power of creating peers for life. He did not think, he said, that the prerogative of the Crown was invaded by the limitation which the bill imposed to meet a practical difficulty, or that it would, as argued by Sir J. Graham, undermine the hereditary character of the peerage. He thought the bill would be a barrier against the extension of life peerages. In its details the bill was defective : as regards the number of judges it was defective. If passed in its present form, with only two judges with the salary of puisne judges, it would be a miserable failure. He supported the second reading on the ground—that the bill went on the principle of forming in the House of Lords, and as an integral part of that house, and therefore no fiction, a tribu nal which should be found sufficient to perform all the duties of a final court of appeal. He took the principle of the bill to be that they should retain the court of appeal in the House of Lords, and on that ground alone he gave it his support. Mr. COLLIER supported the bill, which was, he said, a practical measure, meeting a practical griev ance by a practical remedy. If the suggestions of the Solicitor-General, in his evidence before the Lords' Committee, had been adopted (and he should, he said, move to embody them in the bill), there would be a court of appeal of an extremely satis factory character. Mr. J. PHILLIMORE opposed the bill as a most dangerous and unconstitutional measure. He urged, as the proper remedy, the removal of the appellate jurisdiction from the House of Lords, and constituting a separate and supreme court of appeal. Lord J. RUSSELL saw no immediate or pressing urgency for any great reform in the appellate juris diction of the House of Lords. If there were such urgency, let the tribunal be, he said, not in the House of Lords, but let it be one complete in itself, composed of the most eminent men, and let not the prerogative be fettered and curbed. He should give his decided vote against the second reading of the bill. The SOLICITOR-GENERAL observed that the House of Lords, in its judicial capacity, at the present moment, failed to give satisfaction, and while it re mained in that condition all our judicial institutions must be unsatisfactory too. Then the question was whether the constitution of the appellate jurisdiction should be altered, or an ancient tribunal should be pulled down iu order to establish a new tribunal. He thought it better to improve than to pull down merely for the sake of change. Regarding peerages for life, it belonged to the House of Lords, he observed, to determine who shoul I be admitted a member, and this bill, as he read it, left the question of prerogative in no respect effected except in a manner perfectly constitutional—namely, for the purposes of the act, it put a limitation upon the number of peers to be created for life, with the right of becoming members of the House of Lords. Was the house, he asked, prepared to reject the mea sure because it put this limitation upon the preroga tive, which the House of Lords considered to be