The Sun.
London, England, 1864-02-18 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

TIMES. —The House of Commons never appears
to 83 little advantage as when it is executing the
delicate and invidious task of acting as judge in its
own cause. Assemblies are not free from the weak-
ness of egotism any more than individuals. There
is the same disposition to make the best of every-
thing they do, and to slur over and extenuate faults
and shortcomings, of which every candid person is
more or less conscious when he attempts to estimate
his own conduct. On Tuesday night the great and
important question of the private business of the
House of. Commons was brought before the house
by Lord It. Cecil. The opportunity was ill-chosen.
A motion of the most momentous consequence was
introduced in a thin house, and the possibility of any
satisfactory result was at once prevented by moving
that motion as an amendment to a proposition,
not very important certainly, but to which nobody
had any objection. The debate which followed
the question thus strangely raised did, it must be
admitted, bring out very forcibly the main points
of the subject, and also illustrated very clearly the
real difficulty, which undoubtedly is the indisposi-
tion of the House of Commons to part with any
portion of power or jurisdiction, even after it has
been conclusively proved that it cannot exercise it
for the public good. There was a manifest indis-
position to admit the grievance to its full extent, and
en equally manifest determination to refine away
the proposal for a remedy. The principal objections
to the present mode of conducting private business
are bat too well-known. They are so over-
whelming that the continuance of the system
from year to year is perhaps the very best in-
stance that can be given of that tenacity of life
inherent in English abuses. In what other
country was it ever thought necessary that, before
people could be allowed to execute great public im-
provements, they should prove a complicated state
of facts, and that when this had been done they
should immediately be called upon to prove them
over again before a second tribunal ? What would
be said if no man could recover a debt till he had
obtained a judgment in two independent courts of
law, or obtain relief in equity without proving his
case to the satisfaction of two successive Vice-Chan-
cellors? Then, as to the tribunal, can anything be
more monstrous than that we should go on piling
decision upon decision and precedent upon prece-
dent without making the slightest approach to-
wards settling the principles upon which matters
of such immense importance to the community and
to all concerned are to be decided ? A decision in
a court of law is very often obtained with so
much expense, delay, and vexation that it can
be regarded as little short of an unmixed
evil
,to the litigants, vanquished and victo-
rious. But it is a great good to the community ;
it binds future decisions, and prevents future
litigation by giving those who are in a similar
position to the plaintiff and defendant a rule by
which to guide their conduct. The decisions of a
committee of the House of Commons have no such
effect. Nobody knows on what ground they are
arrived at. The decision of one committee does not
bind another, and often in adjacent rooms contra-
dictory conclusions are drawn from the same state
of facts. As nobody is certain, so nobody need
despair. The decisions of one session are good for
that session and no longer, and the same attempts
are renewed from year to year, to the infinite vexa-
tion and oppression of such persons as are interested
in opposing them. Mr. Massey says, in answer to
this, that even the Courts of Westminster-hall
occasionally differ from each other. They do so.
But how vast is the distinction between the eases !
The differences which exist between Courts are
differences as to the application of well-known
principles of law to a new state of circumstances.
The differences which exist between committees of
the House of Commons are generally caused by the
absence of any law at all. It is not, for instance,
settled up to the present day in what cases competi-
tion gives a right of appearing before a committee
to oppose a projected railway. The House of Com-
mons knows little or nothing of the proceedings of
its commit tees. The committees know just as little
of the proceedings of each other, and each Bill is
regarded as a purely isolated venture, controlled by
no law, and regulated by no principle. On the
members the effec,s of the system is equally unfor-
tunate. They are overworked in the transaction of
business which does not legitimately fall within the
duties of a central Legislature. They are wearied
by speeches from counsel which they cannot cur-
tail , and by examinations and arguments which
they cannot control. It is becoming every day
more difficult to find persons to discharge this
laborious and unsatisfactory duty, and although it
has long been assigned to the younger or less pro-
minent members of the house, they are evidently
anxious to escape a labour from which little is
learnt, and from which neither position nor influ-
ence is gained. This is the state of the private busi-
ness of the House of Commons, and with such
machinery it is about to meet the crushing amount
of railway business appointed for the present Ses-
sion. Surely never were interests so vast so repre-
hensibly trifled with ? The position of a young
civilian in India sent to administer between the in-
habitants such justice as occurs to him is painful
enough, but that is a case of hard necessity, while
our Parliamentary Committees are placed in
nearly equal difficulty without any necessity at
all There is not an evil we have enumerated
for which a remedy might not be found, and
we should have thought that all parties would
be glad to be rid of a system fraught with so much
evil and injustice to all concerned,—to those who
form the tribunal as well as those who appear be-
fore it. This, however, is not the case. If it be
proposed that the double inquiry should be saved
by appointing a joint Committee of both Houses,
endless objections are raised as to their respective
rights and privilegeel If it _be urged that a sepa. -reed to perform the
rate legal tribunal might be to. :4 is the case
duties now intrusted to a Committee,
ef the
' Enclosure Acts, and that the duties ._ .
wit!. be confined to affirming or rejecting ,
House miga. 1- et tribunal it is answered that
the conclusions of tie... ,
.7 1 to be final, the House
if the iteport of the tribne.
re,and if it is not
is deprived Of its legislative p0e.73
to be final, there may be a double inqZ:iry—one be-
fore the tribunal, and one before Parliament, and
thus delay and vexation may ensue. Even if this
were so, we should be prepared to contend that it
would be better and more for the honour of Par-
liament to give up a jurisdiction which it cannot
exercise with satisfaction to itself or the public than
to cling to powers whiett its organisation renders
mischievous. But, in truth, this is not the case.
Parliament ought by all means to retain that part of
its duties in the despatch of private business which
it is well calculated to discharge. It should lay down
clearly and Watch vigilantly the principles upon
which private business is conducted, leaving the
labour of ascertaining facts to some less important
body. Parliament does exactly the contrary of this.
It wastes the time of members in the attempt to mas-
ter and adjudicate upon details which a far inferior
tribunal could dispose of better than itself and it com-
pensates for this over diligence by neglecting to debate
or consider those principles which it above all other
bodies in the country is pre-eminently qualified to lay
down. There are several ways in which this singular
inversion of functions might be corrected. The tri-
bunal might be appointed to take evidence, leaving
the Committee to form its judgment upon the evi-
dence so taken. Mr. Gibson says, indeed, that the
tribunal would not know what evidence to take, but
this objection, if it were valid, would be fatal to our
whole system of administering civil justice, since we
can never be sure that the full court will not hold
that the evidence taken in the inferior court was
addressed to the wrong point. Bat as in a civil
trial the adverse interests of the opposing parties
afford in practice a sufficient guarantee that all
things material to be proved will be proved, so would
it be in proving or disproving the preamble of a bill.
We by no means wish to see Parliament divest itself
of its powers of legislation in private business.
We wish that the question should be sifted and
reduced t 3 its simplest expression before Par-
liament is called upon to deal with it, and that
its interference should be confined to the correction,
either by way of appeal or decision on evidence
already taken, of any error which may have been
committed by the tribunal below. For this duty a
joint Committee of the two Houses is admirably
qualified, and it would not be too much to expect
that for such a Committee the House of Commons
would be willing to spare several of its ablest and
most experienced Members.
POST.—It is gratifying to observe that the French
authorities in Mexico aro accomplishing reforms
which cannot fail to conciliate the poptdatiop,