The Sun.
London, England, 1830-04-05 00:00:00

land and Scotland have always aimed at monopoly.
Mr. Douglas remarks that the projected improve-
ments for Scotland are hardly worth mentioning.

" Scotland," he says, " neither wants, nor will be sa-
tisfied with any project for still further concentrating the
administration of justice in the capital. The reform in the
administration of the law which Scotland really requires,
is not the farther concentration of great and still more
costly Courts of Law in Edinburgh, but the restoration to
their pristine constitutional vigour, and the further im-
provement of the Provincial Courts of Scotland, so as to
bring cheap and speedy justice home to the doors of the
people. This demand was loudly proclaimed by the public
resolution of the Law faculty of the second city for pupil-
!ation in Britain, speaking the sense of Scotland in 1807,
when Lord Grenville proposed to reform the Scottish
Courts; and again, in 1814, when the Jury Court was
introduced."

Lord Althorp knows well what disingenuous me-
thods of opposition to his Local Courts were re-
sorted to by the lawyers in the House. In short, the
I3ar will ever look with jealousy on all schemes of
improvainent which are not identified with their own
En en op oy. The practitioners in Edinburgh are as
keen as their brethren in London. But let us hear
Mr. Douglas

" In Scotland we have retained, if we have not yet
sufficiently improved, our Local Courtg. In England, on
the contrary, with unimportant exceptions, the whole ad-
ministration of justice originates and centres in the Sul

preme Courts at Westminster. The great practical incon-
venience of this departure from the ancient English plan
of Local C.urtn in very imperfectly attempted to be reme-
died by the Nisi Prius Sittings at CircuitA, for the neces-
sity of witnesses, agents, arid counsel attending for many
days on the Circuit is scarcely less expensive than a trial
in London. The great number of remainets, or causes left
over untried at the Assizes, with the loss of the cxpence of
counsel and witnesses, and the chance of losing evidence
before the next Circuit, besides other obvious imperfections
of this most costly and clumsy substitute of the ancient
Local Courts of England, is the subject of loud lamenta-
tion by the best English Law Writers, who regret the
suppression of these very Courts, which we have had the
letter judgment or fortune to retain, cherish, and im-

prove."
Mr. Douglas observes justly, that " the perma-
nent sittings of Local Courts, with very short inter-
vals, ensure greater quickness of dec;sion than can
ever be hoped for in a distant Court, with short
sessions and long vacations ;" that accumulation of
business and perplexity and delay are the conse-
quence of the monopoly of all causes by a Supreme
Court, to the exclusiofl of Local Courts; and that
" the superior economy of judicial proceedings in the
subordinate Courts" is of the utmost consequence,
if we do not wish to deter every prudent person
from attempting to redress his wrongs or enforce his
rights by the aid of law. We wish Mr. Peel could
be induced to read the following most important
statement of Mr. Douglas :
" Betwixt the very-highest and very lowest class there
still remains- an immense mass of intermediate causes of
unavoidable resort to law ; questions of possession, con-
tract, enforcement of rents, and other debts in agricultural
districts; the infinite variety of important personal ques-
tions arising out of extended commerce and manufactures,
which are every day disposed of by the Local Courts of
Scotland, so much to the satisfaciion of the public, that
the proportion is tri%ial beyond conception of appeals for
the review of the Superior Courts. _ _

" This infrequency of appeal in the vast number of
causes is so decisive of the importance and utiiity of our
system of local judicataje, that it deserves a little illustra-
tion from details which have been collected from the most
authentic sources.

" In the course of four years the annual average of
cauFes instituted in the Burgh Court of Glasgow varied
from 1,300 to 1,700 annually. Decrees or Final Judg•
molts, from 795 to 1,460. Extracted for Execution
from 650 to 1,250.

" The great proportion of causes range from 5/. to
.00/. sterling ; the total amount of the sums concluded
for about 45,000/. sterling ; and judgments were given
for, from 301. to 40,0001. sterling.
" The expense of a final judgment varied from 301. to
101 except in cases of obstinate and vexatious litigation.
_ _

" Parile proofs occurred in a fourth of all the causes
from 280 to 120. From 700 to 1,000 parties or wit-
nesses were annually examined.
" The number of causes in the Sheriff Court of Lanark-
shire, on an average of the years 1821-2—and 3, was
2,660 annually; to that Court the details of the Burgh
Court causes apply mutatis mutandis.
" It appears from the Return of the Lord Advocate, Sir
Rae, to the Home Office in 1823, that in the
years 1821, 1822, and 1823, the number of causes de-
cided-itt the. Sheriffs' Coart of Scotland was 66,232, of
which only 564, or 117th part of the whole, were carried
for review to the Supreme Court. Of the value of the
causes of action, it is of course impossible to form any
thing but an approximation. Upon the above-stated
data, furnished by the Burgh Court of Glasgow, the value
of causes adjudicated ,luring these three years by the
whole Sheliff Courts of Scotland, Would amount to
1,540,000/., or more than half a million a year."
Mr. Douglas tells Mr. Peel to " beware of the
insidious Counsel of the Edinburgh Monopoly Coln-
pall, the College of Justice against, not the esta-
blishment, but the improvement" of the Local
Courts. They will, he says, assail him with the
old interested monopoly cry—don't seek too much
at a time.

" You are too enlightened not to see through such in.
terested advice, too old a politician not to know, that i

the favourable moment for reform be not seized for car-
rying it to a proper extent, the very adoption of a partial
and imperfect palliative quiets the transient gust of public
spirit, and postpones to an indefinite period the most neces-
sary and urgent improvements. You know the true reason
why Scottish Jury Trial refused to !Lord Grenville in
1807, was granted in 1811 ; and that the same reason
prevented Jury Trial from being at once communicated to
the Court of Session. Had that been done, Jury Trial
might have been attached to the Sheriff Courts when
Scotland, in 1807 and 1814, publicly called for it.
Nothing has since been discovered by the experiment of
the Separate Jury Court, but that its expensive form,
chiefly from being confined to the Edinburgh Court, has
excited over
.all Scotland a very general dislike to Jury
Trial as at present conducted.
" It should be in the option of parties to agree to dis-
pease with a Jury in the Sheriff Court, i• all cases where
by the existing law the use of a Jury is not imperatively
enjoined in that Court."
We would recommend the perusal of Mr.
Douglas's pamphlet to all who take any interest in
Scotch Judicial Reforms.—/lforning Chronicle.
The number of the Quarterly Review, just pub-
lished, contains an able article on the subjects of
Banking and Currency, in which much and well-
merited commendation is bestowed upon the Scotch
system of banking, and the benefit it confers. upon
our fellow-subjects of the North are loudly and justly
extolled. To the full extent of these eulogies we
entirely concur with the Reviewer. The best of all
possible proofs—experience, demonstrates that the
Scotch banking system is an excellent system for
Scotland, but we cannot concede without
examination either of the two propositions which
throughout the whole article the Reviewer takes for
granted, viz. that nothing but legislative enact-
ment is required to the establishment of the same
system in England, and that the •grant to Bank-
ing Companies of the privilege of issuing small
notes is one of its essential and inseparable pang.
The merit of a system of banking must be esti-
mated by the degree in which it combines the two
important characteristics of stability in respect to
the Banks themselves and accommodation to the
public. And in both particulars the system esta-
blished in Scotland may justly claim a pre-emi-
nence. The stability of the Banks is guaranteed
by the number of their partners—by the periodical
publication of their transactions and of their actual
state—and by the fact of each partner having really
paid up his portion of the joint capital. The num-
ber of partners in addition to •its more obvious
effect of augmenting the valid responsibility of an
establishment in a pecuniary point of view, is the
most effective guarantee to the public, that its pub-
lished accounts will always be fairly and accurately
made up—the publication of those accounts protects
alike the Bank and its customers from the conse-
quences of rash or inordinate speculations,and deters
the former from extending even its regular and legi-
timate transactions beyond the point which its paid-
up capital will fairly warrant ; the fact that the
capital is really paid up gives assurance to the
public that there is at all times a fund available to
meet any accidental loss which may be sustained;