Star. — London, England, 1827-02-28 00:00:00

had found fault with the manner in 'con of Chancery remaioed in the same state--no diminution of the immense arrear, which wet* disgrace I n the country, as well as ruin to the suitors. The Chancellor had tried two experiments; they had both fa il a ,i—and now he was willing t o t ry a third, which would fail also. He would tell the Right Hon. Gent why he did not propose to remove the bankruptcy from the Court of Chancery; the reason was, it was too profit ,,bie;—if it had not been so profitable, it would have gone long ago: The Commissioner: said very little s wot the bankrupt business, which was so profitable to * Coon of Chancery. The reason was, the Chancel• kg was himself a Commissioner, the others also were all ; A wn, and his Lordship has all the patronage of the la, and is besides a very pleasant Gentleman. Who toold refuse to agree to him? he had no doubt the Might Hon. Gentleman was taken in as well as the rest. great laugh). The Right Hon. Gentleman had kept back the real features of the case—he had kept the dozen foot out of sight. He did not use the term doyen foot unkindly—(Great laughter.) He was toofident that a man of one-third of the abilities of tad Eldon, with plain common sense and decision, (told get through all the arrears in the Court of Chan ainy, which this Bill would never effect. Was it to be sad in the nineteenth century that there was no man in *country fit to execute the high trust but the Noble Lard? He was confident that the only means of expo ang the business of bankruptcy would be to separate it from the Court of Chancery. if Ministers were afraid to depend on thetalents of those who voted with them, he begged them to turn their eyes to his side of the House. The Court of Chancery was an important object to every man in the country, none of them could know bow soon they might be brought into that Court, from which they could never escape.—(Laugh ter.) Nothing proposed to be done by the present Bill that the Lord Chancellor could not have done of his own authority, if delay was not the object. Every one whoread the public papers must know the state of the Court. A Solicitor told him, that he had had a cause set down for judgment in the paper fifty times. Another had told him, that after having a cause in the Court five years, he advised his client to refer it, as it was nut likely ever to be decided in Chancery. He did refer it, and it was settled in five months. In another cause be bet; a person to take 20,0001. instead of 25,5001. for which he bad a decree, rather than risk an appeal. An eminent Solicitor had proved before the Commission, that it was a common termination of suits in Chancery for the Solicitors on both sides to unite in application to the Court to have the property in dispute divided between them, in part payment of their cost (Hear, hear.)-We were very sparing of money in the present Bill, but he understood that anotherVice-Chancellor was to be appointed. Lord Hardwicke had 4 1: manyßills filed in his Court as the present Chancellor, but Lord Eldon said he had not so many motions. Let the bankruptcy ; business be separated from the Court of Chancery, and that would at once diminish the motions. He should not object to the bringing in of the Bill, but he pledged himself to persevere in endeavouring to obtain a Parlia mentary enquiry into the teal causes of the ruinous de lays in the Court of Chancery. Mr. D. W. HARVEY would not venture to say that there was no use in a Court of Equity; but he would say that it was better to be without one, than to have one framed like the present Court, which, among its other evils, usurped the usages of the Courts of Common Law—(Hear). The Report of the Corm missioners had disappointed the Profession and the Public. The two great evils of delay and expense were but triflingly remedied, for out of the 180 clauses in the intended Bill,to be founded on the 180 propositions of the, Commissioners, there was no one that facilitated the pro ceedings, and only two that lessened the expense. But even these were no saving to the Public, for the Masters were to be compensated for the loss of this Bd. fee; and the 20,0001. per annum, paid to the Masters, saved in this way, was to be spread over the thousands of sui tors to this endless Court. The whole system of Bank mptey Commissioners ought to be broken up and re modelled. The Commissioners (70, at .5001. per annum) were more intent on making fees, and seeking perquisites, than upon administering justice, and were either imp perienced young men, for whom 5001. per annum was a pretty annuity ; or stultified old men—the refuse of the profession. There ought to be five competent Judges appointed, at a salary (without fees) of 50081. per annum; and the country would be benefitted, and the supply of much of the Chancery evils cut off. The Court of Exchequer ought also to be broken op ; at present it was a nursery of old women--(Hear). Judges ought to be appointed competent and learned in Equity, to whom the real property and bankruptcy business of the Chancery should be referred. The Vice-Chancellor alto ought to have a separate jurisdiction. The Loici Chancellor should have an appellant (but not an origi nating) power over all their proceedings. At present he was weighed down by the mass of business, making from 151. to 201. on each bankruptcy, pocketing and netting from bankruptcy fees alone about 28,0001. pa annum. Mr. H. BANYES assured the Hon. Member, that the Noble and Learned Loed's fees were but 11. 2s. on each bankrupt case, and that the income was at the utmost 50001. from bankruptcy fees. He (Mr. Bankes) was one of those Gentlemen who fell under the unjust anima& unions of the Hon. Gentleman, helot; a Commissioner of Bankrupts. Mr. J. SMITH could bear the testimony of much personal experience in bankruptcy cases, to the evils of delay and expense consequent upon their present mode of proceeding. As to the Lord Chancellor himself, he was weighed down in the mass of business. He has more to do, and did more, than any man in the empire —(Hear, hear). Mr. BROUGHAM lamented, that there was no Meru* of the Commission present to answer, if any answer could be given, to the able speeaes of the Hon. Members for Colchester and Durham. He thought the time was now come for doing what his Hon. Friend (ilr. Williams) had recommended three years ago.— That was to refer the abuses of the Court of Chancery to a Committee, instead of suffering them to continue as such a mockery of juspce as he verily believed was sever before suffered to exist in any other country on this earth—(Hear, bear, hear). We were now at the end of three years, in the same state as we were at the commencement. Still no man could say he was disappointed. No min could suppose that the Commission as it will appointed, could effect any tefurmation. Even the Ministers, before whom he was now speaking, had smiles playing on their lips when they succeeded in forming such a Commission with the Noble Lord, the crinduct of whose Conn was to be en quired into, with the Vice Chancellor, the Master of the bolls, and Masters in Chancery and Commissioners of Bankruptcy in abundance-4U persons who had been promoted by him, and looking to still further promo. ' tion. It was said the Chancellor never took the Chair. He was too able a tactitian to go to the Commission. beating his breast, weeping salt tears, talking of his conscience and his poverty, that he would have no more than a million and a half to leave his family, be sides his good name, which was now in their hands. He did no such thing. He did not make himself so cheap ; he went but seldom, but all his clients ran with his eyes. They neither wished to condemn the system nor the man, and they did neither. It was admitted that the Lord Chancellor could have made all the im provements suggested by his own order; but it was now proposed to make the improvements by Bill, and to give the Chancellor a suspending power. Parliament was not to venture to legislate without giiing the Lord Chancellor a power to dispense with all their proceed. ings. His belief was, and it was the opinion of the ablest and profoundest men in the profession, that it was the man, the individual Judge, more than the sys tem, that was the cause of the delay and all its miseries —(Hear.)—No man formed an opinion more promptly, nor held it faster, but he had an unfortunate infirmity that pr:vented his making up his mind and acting on ' that opinion—(Hear, hear.)—lt was said he had more business to do than any man could do; the conse quence must be, that what be was not bound to do at a particular time would be left undone. Besides all the business of the Court, he had much to do in the House of Lords, in the Cabinet, with Ministers, and with his Sovereign, besides having a large fortune to manage, and much patronage, both legal and clerical, is dispense, the consequence must be that some ponies of his business would be neglected, and that would be the business of the suitors in his Court—(Hear, hear). In the case of Mr. Norton's bankruptcy, in the year 1820, five creditors, whose debts amounted to 4471. petitioned the Court of Chancery against the other cre ditors, whose debts amounted to 20,000 i. The proceed. ings on the petition were still going on, the expense was 5,0001. The whole estate was still hung up in Chancery, and the brief of the Right Hon. the Master of the Rolls weighed not in the scales of justice or of equity, but in the scale of the tallow chandler they weighed no less than 25 pound ',whether troy or averdupois was not said. (Laughter). Much had been done for the Lord Chancel lor; a Vice-Chancellor had been appointed, and a Speaker in the House of Lords, but still the arrear of business in his Lordship's Court increased, though in the days of Lord Thurlow and Lord Loughborough, arrear was never heard of. Lord Eldon appeared to be one of those sovereigns who could bear no brother near the Throne, other wise be would have recommended the Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and other eminent persons in the profession, to the honours of the Peerage. He could now be surrounded by persons in the House of Lords whescarsistance would prevent the appellant jurisdiction of that House from becoming a matter of ridicule. He would however say of Lord Eldon, that of all the Judges before whom he had ever practised, Lord Eldon was most agreeable to the prac titioner. He only discharged his duty in the observe. tions he had made, and bore no enmity towards the' Noble Lord.--(Hear, hear!) The AITORNEY-GENERAL said, it appeared to Nat, from all be had heard from the Gentlemen oppo site, that, so far from the Lord Chancellor having done too little, he bad absolutely effected more than it seemed Nu for the faculties of any one man t o acco mpli s h. Nis Learned Friend who bad last spoken. seemed to think, that the amenity of Lord Eldon's manners had entirely -subdued the Commissioners, and rendered them perfectly subservient to the views of the Noble Lord ; but certainly appeared, that his Learned Friend himself bad fallen a victim to the same sort of fascination; for, repeatedly, in the course of his speech, when be was apparently on the point of making some ill-natured observation on the Noble Lord, he checked himself, and thus 'hewed that even he could not make up his mind to say any thing disrespectful or unkind of the Lord Chancellor. His Learned Friend had blamed the Lord Chancellor* for not acting as Chairman of that Commission. Now, he thought his Lordship acted very properly, in de clining any such interference. If he had acted in that capacity, it would have been immediately asserted that he had done so for the purpose of overawing the Com mission, and that be had neutralized and paralyzed their exertions. The Commission, he contended, had kept the pledge which had been originally given. They had called in the assistance of the most able and efficient persons, and their labours appeared in these 180 propositions, which had the recommendation of the Lad Chancellor, of the Vice-Chancellor,(which, as his learned Friend. had so highly complimented that Learned Judge, would, he supposed, carry some weight with it), and of many other eminent Lawyers. The question, then, was, whether these Resolutions were such as the House ought to legislate on? He thought they were. One of the great causes of complaint was the delay which took place in the Masters office, because there was no controlling power by which the Master could compel the Solicitor to pro- ceed speedily. That evil was remedied by one of these resolutions, which gave the Master power to compel the solicitor to proceed within a prescribed time. His Liarned Friend bad declared that this report was a. niorickery, that the judgment of the Commissioners had been seduced by the conciliating manners of the Lord Chancellor, and that they had in consequence framed a Report which amounted to nothing. But if his Learned Friend had read these resolutions, he was inclined to believe that he would have arrived at a different con clusion. His Learned Friend had observed, that no person had risen to defend those propositions. The fact was, that the parties on the other side bad not fixed on any point to be answered. The late Learned Member for llchester (Mr. J. Williams), whose absence he regretted, would have found it a difficult matter to shake the basis on which these propositions were founded; and he (the Attorney-General) was sure that, if that Learned Gent eman could not effect his object, he had left nobody behind who was capable of effecting it. It was made matter of complaint, that is dispensing power would be granted under this Bill, enabling the Lord Chancellor to elter the resolutions as circum stances might warrant. Now, according to the consti tution r:f all the Courts in ‘Veitminster Hall, the Judges might Atter the practical rules of the different Courts when they were bound inconvenie .t. Here there were 188 resolutions, and if any one of them was bound not to work well, he knew not bow it could be altered, unless a power for that purpose were regu larly vested in the Coon. It would be absurd, to think thAt a system of resolutions could be framed which would never require varying; and. no one was better able to decide when such variation might be convenient th..n the individual who presided. over the Court. The Hoc. and Learned Gentleman opposite 4jorisdiction of the House of Leeds was toe et MK . b it it was riot Lord Eldon's fault that there was so" small an attendance of Peers on these occasions, nar would it, perhaps, be decorous in that House to call in question the mode in which the other House might feel disposed to perform their peculiar duties. The general opinion, both of Wesminster-hall and the pub. lic, was in favour of the resolutions • and when the Bill came to be examined in detail, he Chould be happy to enter into a more particular and minute explanation of the reasons of the regulations. Mr. Secretary PEEL then spoke to the following effect—After the attention of the House having been so long called to the protracted debate upon the present subject, it certainly is not my intention to create any on• reasonable delay in coming to a decision upon it—parti. cularly, as the luniinous speech of my Right Hon. Friend has rendered many remarks from me unnecessary. No roan, under any circumstances, could be more incom petent to discuss the 180 propositions of the Commis sioners than I could be, even if my leisure permined me to give them the consideration they deserve ; but I will fairly own that other occupations-occupations for which I am more immediately responsible—have prevented me from giving mach attention to their merits. I, there fore, necessarily leave them to be considered .and can vassed bythose whose professional avocations enable them to form more correct opinions than I could possibly do. But there is one subject connected with this part of the Report, on which I am desirous of making a single ob servation. Every man, whether he be a Chancery lawyer or not, must be aware of the many difficulties that exist with respect to titles to property ; and every man who reflects upon it must regret the many modes of annoyance, and the many means of protracting de cisions, which it is in the power of interested persons to place in the way of this particular branch of law. The subject is evidently most worthy of consideration. There is then one passage in the Report, and indeed it is the only one of which any man is able to judge, in the spirit of which I cordially concur, and to which I would earnestly call the attention of the House. The Cotimis sioners state, that no person in any degree experienced in the practice of theConrts of Equity can be ignorant of the difficulties and uncertainties that lie in the way of titles to property; and they venture to submit to his Majesty the propriety of appointing some competent person, and at the same time, some person of experience, toexamine into the state of the law on this subject, with a view to narrow the expense, and to prevent the delays which have heretofore encumbered it. In this recommendation I cordially concur ; but I think the topic ought to be approached with due caution. Now, I have received offers of service from several very able and distinguished individuals,well acquainted With it, and I do not despair, with their assistance (devolving, however, upon a few persons, and those as I have said, persons of great weight and experience) to devise some means by which those views of the Commissioners may be completely _ . met, the expenses materially lessened, and the delays in a great degree prevented; and I believe the appointment of such a Commission would meet with the approbation of the House. I now feel myself called upon so notice some of the observations of the Hon. and Learned Gentleman opposite, who has spoken in terms of great asperity of the Lard Chancellor, and in doing do, I beg first to say that I am not, any more than he is, under the slightest persoual obligation to that distinguished individual. 11, therefore, I attempt to vindicate him from some of the aspersions which have been so lavishly heaped on him, I do so because I think myself bound to do justice to one whose colleague in the Government I have the honour to be. I hope, at the same time, the House will bear in mind that the attacks of the Hon. and Learned Member for Winchelsea, were made upon that Noble Lord in his absence. Mr. BROUGHAM interrupted the Right Honourable Secre tary, by stating, that be was authorised to make what obserratioas he thought fit, with reference to a Minister of State, notwithstand. ing that be was of necessity, absent. Surely such an observation as that of the Right Honourable Member was, may the least, trilling. Mr. PEEL continued—l do not deny the right so to do; but I mean, therefore, to conclude, that, for this reason, it becomes the additional duty of those, with whom he is associated, to appear for him ; and that this fact gives me a more perfect right to say what I can say, in his defence. And when the Honourable Mem. ber for Durham (Mr. M. A. Taylor) cheers this in. terruption, I will remind my Honourable Friend (if he will permit me to call him so) of his having stated that we should be tender in our attacks upon Solicitors, because they could not defend themselves, and were not present to do so. The cases of the Lord Chancellor, and of the Solicitors, are certainly widely diffetent ; but upon this principle I act, and only ask the House to hear my defence of the Noble Lord, because he is not himself here to make it. At the same time, I will state that I never denied the right of any Hon. Member to criminate him if he pleased. First, then, it was not, in my opinion, quite fair or right of the onourable and Learned Gentleman to throw that disparagement on the Noble Lord, because of the fortune be has gained in the public service. I appeal to himself, in his cooler moments, to decide if he were justified in so alluding ? Was it right in him to speak of his fortune as interfering with the duties of his office ? Or, was it right in the Hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. D. W. Harvey) to declare (upon what authority I know not) that this fortune had been swelled by the enormous annual sum of 20,0001. accruing from the bankruptfy department of his duties? I believe a statement of the emoluments of the Lord Chancellor was some time since laid before the House, and if my recollection of this statement be correct, I am justified in saying, it was wrong to assert that the Noble Lord received such a sum, or any sum at all in proportion to it. I believe, also, that the Lord Chancellor has paid, and continues to pay, 2,5001. a year as part of the salary of the Vice Chancellor, and (I may,perhaps, be under an erroneous opinion, but I shall, doubtless, be corrected if 1 am) that the total amount of the Lord Chancellor's income, including that which arises from bankruptcies, and from every other duty that he performs, does not exceed 14,0001.—that indeed it is estimated at 13,5001. about two thirds of the sum which the Hon. Member for Colchester asserted he derived from bankruptcies al .t e. And when you recollect that this income is derived from the first prize in the lottery of a profession, yoo will not, I imagine, consider it as by any means inadequate to the labour and the time which must be expended in obtaining it. The Hon. and Learned Gentleman (Mr. Brougham) also stated, or pes haps I should say intimated, that the Noble Lord had been guided in conferring offices upon the other Judges of the country, by narrow feelings and, 'selfish c.snsiderations. I believe the Hon. and Learned Member was wrong in forming such an opinion-1 believe it to be formed without consideration, or, at all `events, without proof, and particularly with reference to the Lord Chief Justice of the Court of !Ling'si littels. in whose eulogy. as prosonnted by Re Hon. and Learned Member, I perfectly agree. Re does, beyond all question. discharge the duties of hh hi g h office in a way that would do honour to any Judge who has at any time held. or at any time may hold it, and it is therefore that I believe to be altogether with. out foundation, the idea that the Noble and Learned Lord has thrown obstacles in the way of his advance ment, from any fear of him. If the Lord Chancellor had been subject to any such fear, it would have been more likely to have operated aginst a late Noble and Learned Lord (Gifford), who was of his own Court, and of whom it would have been more reasonable that he should have entertained a dread of rivalry; yet was this Noble Lord preferred by his recommendation to the high office which be held at his death. Neither can it be said, that the Lord Chancellor had advanced this Noble Lord to act as a foil to to his own splendid talents; for, be it recollected, that, in preferring him, he preferred a man, who had been held out by the Hon. and Learned Member himself, as the model of what he sameld wish a Lord Chancellor to be—who, according So his own showing, bad a knowledge of his profession. a quieknenim dispatch. and a disposition to labour, Miss easeliel in any Judge, and who bad been thus elewlei br tat Hon. and Learned Member for the of depreciating the Lord Chancellor, by whose mews be had been raised to the high sta ti on he enjoyed. The Hon. and Learned Member, in pronouncing sa proud a panegyric on one who has been prematurely taken away from us, has pronounced a more true panegyric on the Lord Chancellor, who promoted him, and has tbss removed the stigma he attempt• ed to cast in insinuating or insetting that the Lord Chancellor was guilty of the pitapat's of obstructing to the elevation to the Peerage those who were cape hie of contending with him, and of being his rivals. The Honourable Member, in the cour.e of his very severe animadversions on the Commissioners, went so _ _ far as to say, that when cestain Members were proposed to form it, there were smiles upon the faces of the Ministets of the Crown, as if they despised the object of it at the moment they consented to its appeiatment.— I, for one, deny, that there is any foundation for such a charge. Possibly, when the Honourable Member for Lincoln spoke of the gravest of his Majesty's Chap lains being disturbed in their gravity bay such appoint. meats, a degree of merriment might have been excited but that smiles, if there were smiles, were intended to ex press a feeling that the Commission was either con. temptible or useless, I will most strenuously deny, I. for one, assented to the appointment of that Coos• mission. in the firm belief that it might be beneficial, and in thehope that it would honestly discharge its duty. Be it remembered, that our choice lay between a Corn, mission moved for by the Hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. IJ. Williams), after a speech of bitter and crimina.or y attack on the Lord Chancellor, and soCommission ohich had for its object to prevent the delay, and to lessee the expense which had arisen in this Court. I will not deny that I believed this delay, and this expense. might have been lissened and prevented, and I w as, the►efote, ready to give my vote for the appointment of a Commission composed of persons whom I thought fitted for the discharge of the duty which devolved upon them, ands! persons capable of watching that that duty was per tormed. But I never could have consented to the ap pointment of a Commission criminating the Lord Chan. cellar. after having bend the speeches of both the Mover and the Seconder of the motion by which such Commission was proposed. Why, the Honourable and Learned Member has, this very evening; declared that it was not the system he found fault with but the man—surely then that object of such Commission was not to improve the system, but to criminate a man. I thank Lion that the House did not agree to appoint a Commission for such a purpose; I thank Got► that the British House of Commons did mot yield to so degrad ing a proposal— a proposal to humiliate the Lord High Chancellor of England, to drag him from his Court, and to expose him to obloquy and. contempt. lithe House of Commons had agreed to appoint such a Commission, I hope the Lord Chancellor would have known the re spect due to his high office, and to his personal charac ter, too well to have retained the seals one moment atter ; that if he had been called to an examination of so degrading a nature, be would have appeared to ca lmer it as a private individual—that he would have in stantly abandoned his situation, and have brought the seals with him to lay them down for ever, before those who were so constituted his judges. So much then for the remarks which I have this evening heard passed upon the character and conduct of the distinguished in di►idual who fills the highest judicial office in this coun try. And now let me notice the other term► in which I have heard this man spoken of in this House, this eves ing.Di ffie ult indeed it is to reconcile such strange contra dictions as those to which Ism about to allude, and those to which I have referred. I have heard the Hon. Member for Colchester say, in the course of a very able speech— a speech which gave tokens of much talent, information, and research—" that it was unjust to impute to the man what properly belonged to the system, and that while he found fault with the system, be only found fault with the man for continuing it." And then he summed up all in this emphatic sentence—" Though his decisions are slow, they are sure, and the security of them amply compensates for the delay in giving them forth." This Hon. Member was followed by another, who is not a lawyer, but a merchant—the Hon. Mem ber for Midhurst (Mr. J. Smith) and his opinion of the Lord Chancellor was this, that " no man in England had so much to do, and that no man In England had done so much." He was followed by the Hon. and Learned Gentleman, the Member for Wincbelsu, whose sense of justice compelled him to speak of the Noble and Learned Lord, in the following terms, "In the whole course of my experience, and that has been very great, of all the Judges under whom I have acted, I sever met one so satisfactory as the Lord Chan cellor, became of his exemplary patience, his great sr banity and the singular decision with which he is en abled to detect the slightest fallacy—and if he have a fault, it is the fault of an earnest desire to admi nister justice impartially." Thus I have taken the cha racter of the Lord Chancellor from the mouths of his political opponents, pronounced in the debate of this very night—and I do cordially rejoice if this panegyr:c be j9t, if the character of the Lord Chancellor, in his judicial capacity, have been correctly stated—that I have the consolation to reflect that I did raise my voice against the appointment of a Commission, the object of which would have been not to examine or improve the system, but to criminate the man. I thought the Commission that was appointed was an honest one. The Hon- Learned Member has informed me that it was of those who were the immediate dependents Lord Chancellor, arid that they were, therefor form it. I should have been ashamed 4 I p " . ••a f 11/' 11011. 111:1a composed nu of the low, ant imput,lkto