The Express.
London, England, 1850-08-05 00:00:00

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

ROUSE OF COMMONS.—BSTIIRDST, AUGUST 3.
The Srasnsa took the Asir at 12 o'clock.
BUBLIC BUSINESS.
SUPPLY.—THE MONUMENTA HISTORICA
BRITANNICA.
The mod a the committee of apply was brought up,
apes which
Ms. HUTT took the oppertaaity of calling attention Mtho want a liberality a tho publication and distrlbutios
tire Wearied week sale/ Maatemeata Histories Britannia,
112=114110 the maary had rid 10,0001 towards seek
the Flee of M ftwaftolanse now charged wee
C too laigk. The had beta fra, a
came, bet that Lica pat& wad almost as a probibuirm to
the eirentaties d the bask gall eta espies hams been sold
of it ; sad at the ranged gam oat of aa edition of 600,
say 46 sepia had berm agora of. Be thought, under
eireassmacee, the book shah! be sold kr themeta
tdtgthe paper sag
printinghea.
Mr. C. LEWIS d *at the 23. k would be band
ealleleady low to plea the work I. the leads el the public
Marge, if not the salami should be takes iato osaWers.
tion.
Mr. HUME thought the price should he so refaced as as
Wag the week the mach of the balk et the people.
He samosted that a espy el the week skald be emit to every
public hbeary.
Mr. BIOTRIZTOS sad Mr. G. Tnoareow matured la
this reggestion. whim It Mr. 0. C. Lawm said had bees to
some meat carried at.
The report Ina the agreed to.
WAYS AND MEANS.—CROWN PROPERTY.
Urn Me motion for briogiag up the mom oa ways and
seas,
Mr. HUME &dared his itsfentiea dWolin the ra
penditure of the public money awe eine* thew ear during
the costa of neat maims and skald espesisily demur to
say vote of supply being Proposed ekes eatielght.
Mr. BROTHERTON also aerated tbe leniency whisk
he had shown to the hoar and the 6oeesusat, as whisk
they bad presumed, br prouactiag debates, sal peados bills
at very late hosts of tho asousing. He ahead ant year
she on the Speaker lamas the chair at 12 o'siock sag aight.
The report was mad to.
()RAND JURY CESS (IRELAND) BILL
FEES COURT OF COMMON PLEAS (No. 2) BILL.
These bills were read a third time sad awed.
NATIONAL GALLERY (EDINBURGH) BILL.

--
This bill awl:pa lilloll/b 0•01111i1WIC
SPITALFIBLDS AND SHOREDITCH NEW STREET
BI
This bill was read a second time, mad referred to a edict
committee.
The house adjourned at 2 o'clock.

Sir Wm. Molesworth has paired off for the remainder of
the session with Mr. Buck, member for North Devon.

gite Orono.

OUTGOING MAILI!...

The mails for Maderia, the Bramls, sad Buenas Ayres, will
to made up this evening.
The mails ail Marnellee, to the Mediterranean,
Ceylon, India, Hors-Kong, ite., will be made up fingYgi
evening of August 7.
The mails for Lisbon. Spain, sad Gibraltar will be made
up on the morning of August 7.
The mails for British North Aunties, Bermuda, and
the United States will be made up on the evening of
August 9.
The West India Idsi:s, excluding Honduras, Nassau. Be-
numb. and Jacruel Domingo), and including Vene•
smile, New Granada, and firer Town (St. Juan de Nicaragua)
will be made up on Auenst 17.
The mails for Havanitals, Honduras, Nassau, Jaemel,
Chili and Pent, will be made up on August 17.
The mails for Gibraltar, Malta, Greene, the lonian Islands,
Egypt, Ceylon, India, and China. via Southampton, will
be =ads up on the 1110,11114 of August 20.
The math for Mexieo will be made up on September 2.

SION WATER, AT LONDON =IDOL.
Tan Day—MaN..IM.2S. ARnaaaa lib
To. owl, —Noma& 12, ..... Afierasea. U.. D.

LONDON, MONDAY, AUGUST 6.

TEE tenor of the report of the committee on Irish
Savings Banks will be sufficiently obvious to our
readers from what appeared in our parliamentary
report on Saturday. This committee, it will be
remembered, was appointed last April, in oppo-
sition to government, but having been appointed,
miListers managed to get upon it a large pro.
portion of officio.' and other friendly members' who
throughout the inquiry have certainly struggled hard
to prevent the threatened exposare. The evidence,
however, has been overwhelming, and all the efforts
of the commA•ee have been unable to save the officials
from some degree of condemnation.
In thi course of the present session we have had
=ulna to disclose the culpable mismanagement of
savings banks concerns by the National Debt Com-
missioners. Anxious is this committee hu evidently
been to shield these Commissioners and all their offi-
cer', a more thorough condemnation than that con-
veyed in their report it is really difficult to conceive.
They state that where the Commissioners ought to
have stepped in and to bare 'net-cited their powers to
prevent loss to poor depositors, they did not do so,
partly from a misgiving as to the effect of an exer-
cise of their authonty, and partly from an unwilling-
ness to run the rick of throwing discredit on the in-
stitutions. "Nevertheless," soy the committee,
"it seems titer that if the Commissioners

had noticed publicly the irregularities in fur-
nishing the accounts, or if either in 1838
or 1843. the commissieners had closed their accounts
with the defaulting institutions, the losses of the de-
puking would have been less than they eventually
have been." If the Cube-street (Dublin) Bank had
been stopped in 1838, the depositors would have re-
ceivtd 16s. 6d. in the pound ; and if in 1845, the loss
would not have exceeded Ls. in the pound. But the
Commissiocers, the authorised guardians of the de
poeitors, knowing the deficiency, nevertheless allowed
this back to go on, until it was obliged to stop in
1848, with 904 assets, and no leas than 65,0001. lia-
bilities!
But this is not the extent of the Commissioners'
wrong doing. It is absolutely proved, in the cue
of the Dublin Bank, that, by their officer, they ad-
vised aed counselled the back to go on ! The
first discovery of a deficiency in this bank
was made in 1831, when the registrar, a Mr. DeNNE,
absconded. Mr. TIDD PRATT wu then sent over to
examine the claims on the establishment, and without
properly acquainting himself with the condition of the
bank, he absolutely went the length of advising that
it should be kept open, and of stating to the poor
depositors that from " his experience in matters oon-
Laded with savings backs" there was no cause for
them to fear! The amount deficient in 1831 was
18,000/. In 1838 the bank reported to the commis-
sioners that they owed 23,0001. Still the commis-
sioners allowed them to go on. The real deficiency
at that time exceeded 36,0001, and it increased until
it amounted to 65,0001, the commissioners still acting
upon the report of Mr. TIDD PRATT in Ib3l, which
report "recommended the bank to be kept epee."
We cannot but feel," say the committee, "that,
as regards she depositors, who are chic, fly of the poorer
elan, A DIFFERENT COURSE WOULD HATE PRE-
VLSTED THE LO3B OP ALL THEIR RAVINGS."

What is to be done now ? The committee have
recommended, in the first plow' the institution of
criminal proceedings against the registrars or stare-
taries, 31e,srs. JOHN and Jowls E. Iluours. But
these criminal proceedings will not recover for the
poor depositor. the 66,0004 of which the culpable re-
missness of the National Debt Commissioners has .n!

fend them to be deprived. " The committee, there-
fore, influenced by the consideratiou detailed in the
preceding paragraphs (i. e., by their sense of the
Commissioners mismanagement) recommend theme f
tAs depositors to the favourable consideration of her Mo-
p,sty's gorerninent." In other words Mr.enstiezu.osof
the lixeuanuna must put hie band into the public
parse for this 65,0001., or the larger part of it. Well,
this is very considerate to the poor depositors, who
are objects, no doubt, of great pity and compassion.
But did the committee consider the cue as it stands
between the public and the National Debt Commit.
sioners ? The public did not recommend that the
bank should go on, but the commissioners and Mr.
Tim) l'itArr did. Surely those who advised the
=enures which have occasioned the loss ought t, bear
at least some part of the responsibility. Why
should poor John Ball be saddled with the
consequences of these people's culpable re:Disuses p
The committee admit that if the commissioners
had done their duty, they "would have prevented
the total loss of all the savings" of the poor in this
bank ; sad yet having thus condemned them they not
only permit them to escape, but absolutely inflict
these puoishmente upon the public, as it they alone
were guilty of the error.
In the Trielee and Killarney eases, the committee
make no recommendation. "These eases," they my,
" have no peculiar featurnistrongly differing from
those of other banks which have suffered from the
dishonesty of actuaries." The committee appear to
thick tbst in these cases there is sufficient remedy
as against the bank trustees. But what an example

they permit to be met to these tauten. A
gigantic fraud has oared a less ef no less
than two millions of Savings Bath rs=;
which eft now to be in the
of the Milli& Debt Comedians's, sW";
mate ef miner misdeeds have ocemetoned, as to Owl
Colh4lllloE Me, wins lames to poet &palace. In
the cans the wrong doers are in no way made to
weirs the pub& is salad epos to bear the whole
sagest of loss. Bat where, comparatively speaking,
trill's defalcation have ocnrredis comesquenco of
the Ile=carelesesess of one or other of the ma-
ths committee would pan spa lbs
wileMody of trustees te the lams, and ferns every
ems althea to bear the Meet amosnt of liability.
There is soaresly strict jades la this, however well
sash a course may snit the government convenisece.
The committee conclude by expressing their satis-
faction" at the introdnetiem of a Savings' Bask Bill
by the CHANCELLOR of the Excinatrza It dose
not appear that this bill was ever before them ; that
they ever moldered any one ohne or paragraph of
the measure I that they were ever dewed by the
how to onsider a Moils section of it. This para
Ptherefore, would be a gratuitous pine of im-
lena, most offensive to the House of
there did not autos to be circumstances
with it that render it especially ridiculous. The truth
le, that the Clummizon of the EXCHEQUER himself
was a member of the committee, that he assisted in
drawing up this report, and that the last paragraph
of it received his especial care, attention, and ap-
proval. The case of the gentleman who, constituting a
public meeting in his own pawn, proposed and
unanimously carried a vote of thanks to himself for
his extremely able conduct in the chair, finds its
parallel in the paragraph in which Sir CHARLES
WOOD, forming the committee upon Savings' Barks,
expresses his own extreme satisfaction "that the
CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER has introduced a
Savings Bank Bill calculated to remedy several im-
portant defects in the law." Wten a tradesman is
very much blown upon indeed: he goes into: part-
nership with a "Co.;sad puffs wills double assi-
duity. The Crurecitzon of the Exenectuza, in
paraorship with his "Ca." or committee, tries in
the same way to invite another inspection of his
very damaged wares, which, however, there seems
daily to be less and less disposition, on the part of
the House of Commons, to examine.

WHATEVER may be the opinion formed of the
judgment of the House of Lords in the melancholy
case of " Patterson r. Patterson," it will, we think,
be agreed, even by those who uphold the Lords'
judgment, that for the highest appellate court in
this kingdom, for the last Gant of Appeal from
the common law and equity tribunals of the
realm, to consist of a single judge, be he who he may,
is a very. unsatisfactory state of hinge In no other
country in Europe, or America, does there exist, even
by accident, such an anomaly. Yet, for some time
past, one single law lord, not being &judge, has to all
intents and purposes constituted the House of Lords
on appals.
The law lord in question has nominally bees
assisted by a lay peer or two, and an occasional
bishop; but their attendance, like that of city alder-
men at the Old Bailey, is merely matter of form :
real value to the judicial proceedings they are sup-
posed to hear, their lay or spiritual lordships are, of
course, none. When the law lord who sits as de-
puty speaker magniloquently moves their lordships'
concurrence in the judgment he delivers, his mutes
nod their heads aagentiogly without feeling, and what
is of much greater importance, without having the
smallest responsibility for the validity of their learned
president's opinion or for its consequences on the pro-
perty, the happiness, and the reputations of those
affected by the affirmation or disallowance of the
tippet/.
But to describe the House of Lords as at present
consisting for appellate purposes cf a single law lord
is very imperfectly and inadequately to p?urtray
the delusive and unsatisfactory state of its judicial
beginner. For it consists of a law lord who is
free from any official responsibility as a judge. The
LORD CHANCELLOR has been accustomed at times to
sit alone on appeals from courts other than his owe.
But to preeide over the appellate business of the
Lords is part of the duties of the distinguished lawyer
who holds the Great Seal • and for the mode in which
he performs those duties and advisee their lordships
on appeal', the LORD CHANCELLOR is officially
responsible. Let him be inefficient, hasty, or incom-
plete in the performance of his functions in the house,
and the crown can, and would, withdraw him from •
position for which he would be unfit, by recalling from
his custody the Great Seal. Bat in the ease of a
simple law lord, when he constitutes the house under
similar circumstances, there is no such direct or
effective responsibility; he has neither the favour of
his sovereign nor the dignity of high office ; neither
the patronage of 700 benefices nor a salary of 14,000!.
• year to be deprived of. His pension is safe. The
utmost that he curs lose is—reputation, and it may
already be gone—gone, too, beyond all hope of
return.

For the House of Lords to consist on appeals (in
cases, too, either of the largest pecuniary importance
or of the most difficult points of law sad practice as
its appeals usually are), of one law lord being a re-
tired judge, however eminent, is, then, obviously im-
proper, because in that position there is no corre-
sponding responsibility. It is, too, unusual. The
value of law lords hes hitherto been that they have
assisted the CHANCELLOR in these appe ile, by sitting
with him at their audience. But the principle now
being exhibited in the House of Lords is that of a
single law lord, not being a judge, superseding the
CuaNceema and undertaking and performing his
judicial duties in that assembly. This, ,4 e say, is at
variance with the practice of the great lawyers who
have hitherto held the Greet Seal. They all received
aid willingly, gratefully ; but all looked on the trans-
action of the appellate business of the Lords as part of
those personal duties which were not under any cir-
cumstances to be waived. No Chancellor ever felt this
more strongly than the great judge who lately parted,
somewhat reluctantly perhaps, with the seal. Lord
Correeeem, it is notorious, refused to sanction such
a state of things as is now exhibited on appeals in the
Lords, even when illness bore heavy not only on him
but on suitors; and though on two occasions he sus-
pended his rule, and gave his sanction to a single law
lord hearing appeals alone, on the former occasion the
circumstances were special, and on the latter he
limited the sanction to such cases as those in which
consent was given by the parties. His rule was not
to permit the House of Lords to be resolved into a
single law lord not a judge ; he twice made excep-
tions to that rule, but be did so most unwillingly.
To tolerate such a state of things is to place the
people of the United Kingdom, when they sue or are
sued in the common law or equity courts, at a disad-
vantage they are not placed in when they are parties
to proceedings is the ecclesiastical or admiralty tri-
bunals ; and to give colonists and the Queen's sub-
jects in India a substantial benefit over them. For
appeal from the latter courts and from India and the
colonies lies to the Judicial Committee of the Privy
Council, and such a thing as a single law lord con-
stituting it b unknown, and would not be endured for
an hoar. Why, then, should it be attempted
in the House of Lords ? The Judicial Committee
is never attended by fewer than three competent
judges. Why should a single lord be suffered to trans-
act the appellate business of the House of Lords P
Dare is no sufficient reason for the anomaly of the
contrast; what is morn, the contrast itself ought to
have been prevented.
For who is the law lord that now constitutes, single-
handed and single-headed, the House of Lords on ap-
peal.? Lord Baovon*m! Now, Lord BROUOHAK may
be a lawyer as profound as Coax and a genius as mi-
mes! as BACON : he may have the comprehensive
views of a Heanivicen, the learning of en ELDON,
and the rare capacity of adapting legal prineiples to
an altering state of society which adorned Lord
Careitrinem. He may, in addition, know more
Scotch law than the whole College of Se-
nators when assembled in the Parliament House
at Edinburgh ; and he may, Ned's, have an
elegant familiarity with Irish statutes and decision,.
AU these qualifications Lord BROUOHAK may paseiblY
have. Yet, if he have them, it is certain, despite their
possession, that neither the legal profession nor the
general public has much confidence in him as a
judge; and wanting that ocinfidenos and all respect,
he ought not to have been allowed to occupy the
position he his occupied, for the first tine, sines
Lord Tann became Chancellor. To say sore,
however, on this point might bring down on our
printer the wrath of this great man, who sometimes
falls into a great passion with newspapers, which are