The Sun.
London, England, 1865-02-11 00:00:00

BANK OF IRELAND (CONSOLIDATED FUND).

The house next went into committee, when
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER moved the
following resolution—" That the remuneration to the Bank
of Ireland for management of the public debt in Ireland be
paid out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Ireland from and after April 6,1865."
The resolution was agreed to, after some remarks by Sir
H. WILLOUGHBY.
COURTS OF JUSTICE BUILDING.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL then asked leave to bring
in a bill to supply means towards defraying the expenses of
providing courts of justice, and the various offices belonging
thereto, and for other purposes. He trusted the time had at
at last arrived when courts of justice would be provided
worthy the dignity and honour of the country. (Hear.) It
was a common saying that questions of considerable im-
portance took a considerable time for discussion before they
were adopted, and he believed this was one of them. It had
been thirty years before the house, and he might remind them
that the first person who introduced the subject as a matter
of great public convenience and economy was no lawyer,
but the veteran reformer and economist, the late Joseph
Hume. In the year 1836, after the destruction by fire of
the Houses of Parliament, he took notice of the then existing
condition of their courts of justice, and urges' that it would
be for the public convenience if all the courts of law were
built in one neighbourhood. The question had also been in-
vestigatedby three several committees of that house—one in
1841, another in 1845, and the third in 1862. ARoyal Com-
mission was also issued in 1860, consisting of Sir J. Cole-
ridge, the late Sir G. C. Lewis, Vice-Chancellor Wood, the
present Queen's Advocate, and other eminent persons. They
examined the whole question carefully, and made a report
which was of a most satisfactory character, recommending
a measure which he (the Attorney-General) hoped he would
nowfor the last time propose for the adoption of the house.
As to the nature of the evil, the actual accommodation now
given was in all respects insufficient for judges, for barris-
ters, solicitors, jurors, or witnesses. It was a loud and con-
stant complaint for the last 30 years, and especially at the
present time in the case of the Divorce Court, where for
want of accommodation witnesses were obliged to walk up
and down for hours and hours together on the flags in West-
minster Hall. The same want of accommodation existed in
the equity courts at Lincoln's-inn. There were two Courts.
of Appeal, three Vice-Chancellors' Courts, and that of the
Master of the Rolls in Chancery-lane, which were totally
insufficient for the purposes for which they.were intended.
They had become since additional Vice-Chancellors were
appointed absolute hovels without any accommodation
whatever. (Hear.) Things were not much better at
Guildhall, and this want of accommodation, together with
the dispersion of the courts in various localities, and a
separation from the various offices, created an amount of
inconvenience which could hardly be understood by the
house, and should be put an end to as soon as possible.
The solicitors were in a worse position than the bar, owing
to the dispersion of the courts, and when they were concen-
trated legal business would be done more rapidly, and conse-
quently with greater economy. He supported this opinion
by quotations from the report of the commissioners of 1860,
showing that everybody would be benefited by the concen-
tration of the courts, the bench, the bar, the ,solicitors, and
the officers of the court, as well as the public at large. In
litigation nothing was more important than the saving of
time, and the present dispersion of the courts led to an enor-
mous waste of time. The remedy of course was obvious.
The courts and their offices must be brought together into
immediate proximity with the chambers of barristers and
the offices of solicitors. The right hon. gentleman cited nu-
merous authorities of the highest order in favour of the con-
centration of the courts, and observed that there was a
wonderful unanimity in the legal profession on this point,
for'they knew where the shoe pinched. Two sites had been
proposed. The first was the-whole site of Westminster Hall.
That idea was abandoned for want of room, and on account
of the distance from the Temple. The other was known as
the Lincoln's-inn-fields site. When this was first proposed
in 1841, the idea was to erect the new building upon the
open space in Lincoln's-inn-fields. Lord Campbell and
others objected to this, as blocking up one of the lungs of
London in a part of the metropolis which could ill afford to
lose an open space for the free circulation and purification
of the air. The centre of the square was too small, especially
if they wanted to bring the offices there too, besides which
they would have had to make extensive alterations and im-
provements, so that the site would have been as expensive as
that which it was now proposed to purchase for £500,000 or
£600,000. The site ultimately selected was called the Strand
site,l a large space of 71 acres, covered with houses of the
c e r yh-71 a
tire, to
corner e I e moe
of
'
oofwcehstapossible description, between Bell-yard, on the west
so-lane,
-hstircehetr:ins
the Strand down
ho
en
will
of
the space from the Strand to Carey-street on the The
northw
be taken. This site will give plenty of room for w courts and offices. The cost of the proposed building all
the
had
been over and over again considered, and he thought
house might safely rely upon the estimates as nowughtthe
fur-
nished. As valued by two different gentlemen
rately, the sums given were £675,000 and £678,000 respec-
tively.sepa-
Valued again by Mr Pennethorne, it was stated at
£703,000, the cost of the site. The cost of the buildings
would be £750,000, making a total cost of a million and a
half. This was a considerable sum of money, but it would
be well spent in the way proposed. One of the evils of the
present system was, that it kept up the separation between
law and equity. If they would assimilate law and equity,
and give to courts of both law and equity such powers as
all courts ought to possess, they must bring the courts
themselves together. They required to provide for a sum
which might be taken at a million and a half, of which
£900,000 would be provided by a million stock sold out at
£9O from a fund in Chancery called Fund B in the report
of the commissioners. The Government, on enquiry, found
that by the rents now paid for offices, they would save
£llO,OOO by the change. £400,000 is to be advanced by
the
Treasury on terms of repayment spread over 50 years, at
31 per cent. interest, by means of a kind of prudential fund
f
formed by small fees payable on the proceedings of these
courts. Those Chancery funds of which he had spoken
were two in number. The first, the surplus fund, consisted
at the present moment of £1,300,000 stock ; the second was
the siuplus fees fund of £201,028 stock, being a million
and a-half of stock. Nov had they a right to take this
stock ? He thought there was no doubt of this. Its history
Wasr simply this. The house was aware that the Courts of
,quity administered a vast amount of property. As might
13° expected, the greaterpart of that consisted of money and
not of 1.
--nu• ; and by far the greater portion was invested in
stock on account f
• to them., and was 0 .suitors, and a portion of stock belonged
be. That fund Waasssecure as anything in the country could
1863, it was no less
constantly increasing, and in October,
y growin
• stantl than x 51,292.000, and it had been con-
g and increasin
That was the suitors' g, and was expected to do.
stock, and he had nothing to do