The Sun.
London, England, 1865-06-28 00:00:00

ADMIRALTY ACTS REPEAL BILL.

On the motion for going into committee on this bill,
Mr. HENLEY hoped the bill would not be proceeded
with at that moment, as he had certain observations to
offer upon the bill.
The order for committal was postponed until to-mor-
row.

The committee on the Dockyards Ports Regulation Bill
was postponed until to-morrow.

_ .
The Lords' amendments to the Union Chargeability Bill
were considered and agreed to.
The Lords' amendments to the Lunatic Asylums Act
Amendment Bill were considered and agreed to.
Ths sitting of the house was then suspended.
At six o'clock the house resumed.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR AND THE LEEDS
BANKRUPTCY COURT.
Mr. LONGFIELD said he did not know how far he was
in order in prefacing the question of which he had given
notice by making a statement of facts. He would, how-
ever, endeavour to compress the observations he had to
make into as narrow a compass as possible, in order that
the house and the country
might be in a position to un-
derstand the reasons which had induced him to bring this
subject forward. (Cries of " Order.")
The SPEAKER interposed, and said that it would not
be competent for the hon. member to make any introduc-
tory statement unless he made some motion. In the pre-
sent instance there was only a question on the paper.
Mr. LONGFIELD said that such being the case he
would put himself in order by moving the adjournment of
the house, and though that was an unusual course, and one
which he himself had never before taken, he thought the
unusual circumstance of the case justified him in pursuing
an unusual course of proceeding. Those circumstances
were, unhappily, rather too notorious. It appeared that a
member of her Majesty's Government, holding the very
highest station that could be held under the Crown, had
now, within three months, given occasion for two separate
investigations into the purity andpropriety of his conduct,
and on both occasions his conduct has been very familiar.
In each case, having, in the course of his judicial functions,
found out that certain offences had been committed, he
took advantage of those offences to force out of their
offices the persons who held them, and, taking advantage
of their detection, he made a profit to himself by appointing

two members of his own family. One of these investiga-
tions took place in the House of Lords, and was connected
with a gentleman named Edmunds, and that inquiry had a
considerable bearing upon the question which was recently
concluded in the House of Commons. The former investi-
gation had scarcely terminated when another unfortunate
event was adverted to in this house—the circumstances
under which a gentleman of the name of Wilde had been
forced to resign an appointment at Leeds. The Lord Chan-
cellor's son had been promised that appointment, which,
however, was not subsequently made. The matter formed
a subject of discussion in this house, and resulted in a
committee being appointed to inquire into the whole
transaction. It was said that the Lord Chancellor courted
the fullest, freest, and most open inquiry, and the com-
mittee of selection named five gentlemen, certainly of the
highest character and respectability, to inquire into the
circumstances, which cast as deep as possible a slur upon
the administration of justice, and upon judicial appoint-
ments. That committee followed the most objectionable
precedent which was set in another place, and fell into the
very grave mistake of conducting the most solemn inquiry,
which the Lord Chancellor said he wished to be full, free,
and open, with closed doors. They concluded their labours
rather more than a week ago, and their report had been
submitted to members. It now became his duty, and a
painful duty he felt it to be, to bring before the house all
the circumstances detailed in that report, and to ask the
Attorney-General what proceedings her Majesty's Govern-
ment would take in the matter, or whether they would
think it unnecessary to take any further proceedings. The
person chiefly involved in this transaction was the head of
the profession to which he (Mr. Longfield) was proud to
belong some little time ago ; but if two or three more
transactions such as this should take place, he did not know
with what shame the members of the profession might hang
their heads and hide their faces when, instead of piquing
themselves on their esprit de corps, and the high character
borne by its members, and on their profession being an
honourable one, they found the person whom they ought
justly to look up to and revere as the head of the profession
tainting and polluting in its very source the administration
of justice by more than suspicion of corrupt and gross
practices in favour of his family. (Hear, hear.) He (Mr.
Longfield) proposed to go through the report of the com-
mittee and to call attention to the dates of the different
transactions, interspersing an observation now and then,
for the purpose of connecting them with one another.
The house would then see how grave the matter had
become, and why the public imperatively demanded that
the earliest possible notice should be taken of it in this
house. The Government, he believed, could have no rea-
son, political or otherwise,- in screening the offenders from
justice, and if that justice could not be meted out in the
strict measure of the law, the Government could have no
object in not meting out to him the same measure of jus-
tice which he himself insisted upon being meted out to
those who, untried and unconvicted, were beneath his
power. (Hear.) He would now come to the commence-
ment of this melancholy, dark, and discreditable transac-
tion. The Lord Chancellor appeared to be a great law re-
former in bankruptcy, and passed a bill relating to tho sub-
ject in 1861. He seemed to have slumbered and slept over
it, for there were no very lucrative appointments to be
made, all the places which were valuable having been
filled up by his predecessors ; and the office of chief judge,
the appointment to which ho was anxious to have, having
been rejected by both Houses of Parliament. In the year
1864, however, he awoke very disagreeably from his
lethargy, and found in truth that everything was going
wrong everywhere in the Bankruptcy Court and all the
courts over which he had control throughout the country.
In particular there were grievous complaints from Leeds
as to the impropriety of conduct on the part of some of the
officers of the Court of Bankruptcy there. The paper num-
bered 295, referred to in the report of the Leeds Bank-
ruptcy Committee, contained some documents which gave
the first insight into the origin of these transactions, and
he (Mr. Longfield) would trace them date by date to their
conclusion, and the house would then see what the happy
conclusion would have been but for the scandal in another
place ; and they would also see the way in which this
nobleman fell a second time into the same unfortunate error
of ignoring guilt that he might profit by the guilty. On
the 6th April, 1864, Mr. Miller, the Registrar of the Court
of Bankruptcy, who was the intimate friend of all the
Bethells, addressed the following startling communication
to Mr. Wilde, of whose eyes and health they bad already
heard ; "By direction of the Lord Chancellor I lately trans-
mitted to Mr. Commissioner Ayrton the accounts of the offi-
cial assignees and messengers of the Leeds Court, with a view
to an investigation of them, and in a letter dated the 27th ult.
Mr. Commissioner Ayrton writes as follows ; I have not yet
looked into the accounts of the official assignees ; but, on
opening the large paper returns made to you, I see the words
"Submitted to, and approved by, Mr. Commissioner Ayrton,
on the Bth April, 1862.—H. S. Wilde, Registrar." The fact
being that I never saw that sheet, or the accounts it refers
to, till I received it from you.' lam now directed by the
Lord Chancellor to ask what explanation you have to give
of this very grave offence. On the 9th of April Mr. Wilde
wrote a reply, and, as he heard no more of the matter, ho
deemed it satisfactory. In the middle of April another per-
son appeared upon tho scene, and ho regretted to add that
it was a clergyman, for it should be borne in mind that the
Lord Chancellor had a very considerable amount of ecclesi-
astical patronage. The person he referred to was the Rev.
G. Harding. On the 6th of May, 1861, an arrangement was
made, through Mr. Harding, under which a cheque was given
by Mr. Welch to Mr. Bethell for the sum of £5OO, for the
latter to use his influence with his father, the Lord Chan-
cellor, to procure an appointment for Mr. Welch. Mr. Hard-
ing positively stated that the £5OO was to be paid down,
and that £l,OOO more was to be given, of which latter sum
Mr. Harding was to got a third. The bill, which was drawn
at a short date, was dishonoured, and Mr. Welch finding
that he did not obtain an appointment became dissatisfied.
But the committee elicited an account of a most extraordi-
nary transaction. It appeared that in Mr. Miller's letter-
book there was an entry in Miller's handwriting at the foot
of a page of a copy of a letter which he said had been sent
to Mr. Wilde. Now that was the only letter which Mr. Mi-
ller had himself copied in the book, and the index to the
book contained an erasure and an interlineation, so that it
was manifest to every person who looked at it that this
letter was an interpolation, and that the index had been
altered to give colour to his letter of July. There could
not be the slightest doubt about that. Well, the bill became
due, and the place was not vacant, and communications
passed between Mr. Wilde and Mr. Bethell. And here again
there occurred a miserable discrepancy between the for-
getful principal and the skilful deputy. The hopeless
contradictions between Mr. Miller and the Lord Chan-
cellor in everything that was important in dates were
such that, if they were permitted to continue without public
notice being at once taken of them, certainly the purity of
the administration of justice and of official appointments
must for ever hereafter be despaired of. On the 26th of
July, Mr. Miller, finding it necessary to be a little expedi-
tious, and after communication with the Lord Chancellor,
wrote this letter—" It grieves me much to inform you that
unless I hear in course of post that you mean to apply to
be allowed to retire, I have instructions from the Lord
Chancellor to serve you with notice to appear before him
publicly in open court, and show cause why you should not
be dismissed from your office of registrar. It is said that
your state of health is such that you can have no difficulty
in obtaining such a medical certificate as would entitle you
to retire under the 33d section of the Bankruptcy Act,
1861; and if this be so, I sincerely trust, for your own sake,
that you will see the propriety of relieving the Chancellor
from the very disagreeable, and indeed painful, duty which
is thrust upon him." Mr. Miller stated before the commit-
tee that the first portion of this letter was strictly in accord-
ance with the directions of the Lord Chancellor ; but the
second part he attributed to his over zeal, and said that he
had net written it by authority. At all events, however,
it answered its purpose completely. (Hear, hear.) Mr.
Wilde transmitted a certificate given by Mr. Samuel Hey,
as follows—" I hereby certify that I have been consulted
by Mr. H. S. Wilde, on account of a failure in his sight,
which was a serious hindrance to him in the performance
of the duties of his office. Mr. Wilde first consulted me
in August, 1863. At his age I cannot look for any im-
provement in his vision." He (Mr. Longfield) had not for
a long time past seen a gentleman who appeared to be more
sharp-sighted than Mr. Wilde. (A laugh.) That certificate
was transmitted to Mr. Miller, who actually drew up the
petition for Mr. Wilde's resignation, and he stated that he
laid the petition and all the documents before the Lord
Chancellor. The certificate, affidavit, and petition were sub-
mitted to the Lord Chancellor by Mr. Miller on the 30th
June. Mr. Miller stated that he called the attention of the
Lord Chancellor to the unsatisfactory character of the cer-
tificate. But the Lord Chancellor said, that putting the
language of the three documents together, he considered
there was a sufficient case to allow Mr. Wilde to retire.
Conscientious and kind-hearted Chancellor. (Laughter.)
That was Mr. Miller's version. But what was the Lord
Chancellor's ? The Lord Chancellor made matters worse.
The Chancellor stated he could not remember his attention
having been called to the papers ; but he admitted that the
three papers had been presented to him, and that he ought
in strictness to have read them all. But that was precisely
what Mr. Wilde should have done with his accounts.
(Hear, hear.) Poor Mr. Wilde was dismissed, or at least a
strong hint was given him that he ought to retire while the
Lord Chancellor still occupied the woolsack. The Lord
Chancellor stated that he certainly could not have read the
medical certificate, or he should not have allowed it to pass.
There was a confession for the keeper of her Majesty's
conscience to make, that he had connived at a fraud on the
part of an officer whom he had summoned before him ; or,
at best, that on a sham certificate which he did not ger
through the formality of looking at, he allowed an officer
to escape the punishment due to his detected crimes. They
all know it had been said that a judge who would not
punish would in time connive and at length participate in
Crime. They had here the Lord Chancellor not punishing
but conniving, and he would presently show him partici-
pating. The Lord Chancellor stated he considered he had
no alternative, and he therefore allowed Mr. Wilde to re-
sign and signed the order for his pension. Upon this the
committee remarked " that such haste and want of caution
necessarily gave rise to suspicion that a vacancy in the
office was the object sought rather than justice to the officer
or the public."
Mr. HEADLAM—Read on.
Mr. LONGFIELD resumed—He would read on, as he