The Sun.
London, England, 1853-03-09 00:00:00

[PRICE SD.

regarded the administration of justice, on the same foot-
iny as the people of England. The most earnest law
reformers in Parliament were members connected with
the profession. As regarded the learned lord's bill, he
would find that the people of Scotland were opposed to
it in the proportion of three to one.
Mr. EWART was surprised at the resolution referred
to by the noble lord as having been adopted atDumfries,
because he always understood that the opinion of the
people in that part of Scotland was hostile to the present
system. It was impossible not to admire in many re-
spects the Scotch law, but that was not the question here.
What they had to consider was a special act of law re-
form, and the question was, why should they have
two judges when one might do, anAl one of those
non-resident ? (Loud cries of " Hear.") He did not
gather from the Lord-Advocate whether it was his in-
tention to allow the present bill to go before a select
committee, so that it might be considered concurrently
with his own ; nor whether it would be competent to
the committee to hear witnesses. With reference to the
remuneration of the sheriffs, he must say the sheriff-sub-
stitute was in many cases very inadequately paid. In
the district with which he was connected as a represen-
tative, great fatigue and labour were undergone by the
sheriff-substitute, and he was, nevertheless, greatly un-
derpaid. In Ireland local judges had been appointed
under the name of assistant-barristers ; in England
County Court judges had also been appointed ' • and it
was desirable that the same principle should be carried
out in Scotland. He would say generally that it was of
importance to establish some degree of uniformity be-
tween the law of the three kingdoms ; and he was happy
to believe that towards this " consummation so devoutly
to be wished," facts as well as wishes were gradually
tending. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. F. MACKENZIE hoped the learned-Lord-Ad-
vocate would not consent to the second reading of this
bill, when that stage arrived, nor to its being sent to a
select committee, there to be considered concurrently
with his own. If the bill went before a committee in
that way, he would find the question involved in the
greatest difficulties. He denied the accuracy of the as-
sertion that the sheriffs depute; were sinecurists in Scot-
land, and he was satisfied that, if the present system of
having two sheriffs was done away with, it would strike
a blow at the civil and criminal jurisprudence of Scot-
land from which it would not soon recover. When hon.
gentlemen spoke of the County Courts in England, he
begged to remind them thet those courts were but a new
experiment, and that it would be unwise to transfer to
Scotland a principle which, for aught they knew, might
at some future time be abandoned in England. (Hear,
hear.)
Mr. FERGUS thought the law and practice of the
two countries should be assimilated in all cases where it
would be an improvement to do so ; but he could not
help saying that a great deal of what had been brought
forward by the hon. member for the kyr burghs was not
improvement, but rash innovation. (Hear, hear.) He
was not an Edinburgh lawyer, nor was he tainted with
the prejudices of the profession, but, from long residence
in Scotland, he was convinced that undoubted advantages
arose from the appeal from the local judge to the judge
in Edinburgh, and he should be sorry to see it abolished.
(Hear, hear.) Whatever was done, he hoped this ap-
peal would still be maintained.
Mr. WHITESIDE said the assistant-barristers in
Ireland were not residents in the counties where they
acted as judges. When they finished the civil and
criminal business that came before them as judges, they
were accustomed to return to their practice in the supe-
rior courts. (Hear, hear.)
Lord DRUMLANRIG said that, with all due defer-
ence to the zeal of his hon. friend the member for Ayr,
he considered he had not acted very judiciously in ask-
ing leave to bring in his bill at the present moment.
The Lord Advocate, in his opinion, had outstepped the
bounds of courtesy in giving his sanction to the intro-
duction of any such bill. There was, no doubt, great
excitement in Scotland existing on this question. There
was a fixed determination come to that some law reform
must be adopted ; but surely it would establish a very
awkward precedent if, when the Lord Advocate had not
only brought in a bill, but had intimated his anxious de-
sire to meet the Scotch members in a body, to listen to
their suggestions, to accept all practical advice from
them, and from other interested parties in Scotland—it
would surely establish a bad precedent if an inexpe-
rienced and new member were encouraged to come for-
ward in so'inopportune a manner, and press on the house
his own independent measure. (Hear, hear.) He was
sure that the Scotch members, if they had been ap-
pealed to in a body, would have supported the Lord
Advocate, had he been disposed to oppose the pre-
sent bill. (Hear.) The Lord Advocate had shown the
greatest courtesy to .all Scotch members, and he re-
gretted the member for Ayr had not had more experience,
else he would have waited till the Scotch members had
met, and until the Lord-Advocate had read his bill a
second time. Alterations might be proposed in com-
mittee. As the member for Dumfriesshire he had seve-
ral suggestions to make. Thtconvener and
_others in
the county of Dumfries had taken a very strnag and able
' lead,in the -call for law reform, and when Oh commis-
sioners of supply met in January last, at which meeting
the resolutions were proposed which he (Lord Drumlan-
rig) had given that night to the Lord-Advocate to read,
and which resolutions seemed so much to surprise the
hon. member for Ayr, there was a unanimous desire ex-
pressed that all parties should wait till after the Lord-
Advocate had brought forward his bill ; they hoped that
bill might be referred to a select committee ; but, what-
ever might be the difference of opinion as to whether
two sheriffs or one should be maintained, or how far an
extension of the Small Debts Court should be carried, he
(Lord Drumlanrig) was certain no body of Scotchmen
would approve of the fact of law reform being so prema-
turely taken out of the Lord-Advocates's hand and. the
case transferred to the mercies of an English lawyer.
(Hear, hear.) He willingly acquitted the hon. member
for Ayr of anything like want of courtesy to the Lord-
Advocate, but he did not think his present step a judi-
cious one, and he also considered the present act a bad
precedent.

Mr. FORBES thought the learned lord was not
entitled to find fault with the hon. member for Ayr for
bringing in this bill, seeing he had an undoubted
right to do so. He trusted the bill would be per-
mitted to go before a select committee. If the Go-
vernment refused this they would be much less liberal
than their predecessors were in the case of the Irish
tenant right bills.
Mr. J. PHILLIMORE said the bill of the Lord-
Advocate involved this simple principle :—There was a
judge in the county who heard the case, having the
parties before him, and when an appeal took place he
sent up the papers to a judge in Edinburgh, who did
not hear the parties, but who decided upon the case.
Was such a thing not a monster in jurisprudence ?
(Hear, hear.)
Mr. DUNLOP said, in Scotland they might boast
that while, in England, no man could recover the
smallest debt without coming to Westminster, they had
for centuries enjoyed the privilege of recovering all debts
in a cheap, easy, and simple way. The County Courts
in England were truly a borrowing from Scotland, ex-
tending in some degree the amount of jurisdiction ; and
now they turned round, saying they would confer upon
Scotland the boon of County Courts, as if nothing of the
kind had existed before in that country. (Hear, hear.)
The case was not exactly as it had been put by the hon.
member for Dumfries, that in Scotland two judges were
doing what one did in England. The sheriffs in Scot- ,
land were not only at the head of the police, but had to
hear actions for debt, and almost every other class of
action besides, so that there was an immense mass of
business, and it would be impossible to give to them
anything like the great extent that was consigned to the
County Courts in England. (Hear, hear.) He could
not agree with all that was laid down in the bill of the
hon. member for Ayr ; nor, on the other hand, did the
bill of the Lord-Advocate altogether meet his views.
He limited too much the small debt jurisdiction. There
was, in his opinion, no reason why all sums above the 1
small debt jurisdiction should not be dealt with in the ]
same way. The present system was not what had been '
stated by an hon. gentleman opposite—that one judge
heard the evidence and decided, and that his judgment '
was reviewed by another judge who did not hear the
evidence—for at present neither judge heard the evi-
dence, and it was all taken by examiners and reduced to
writing and then brought before the sheriff. The Lord-
Advocate's bill, however, did away with these written
proofs, and in this respect effected a great improvement.
(Hear, hear.) He should have preferred greatly leaving
to the sheriff substitute the police and the summary
jurisdiction, and that the sheriff principal should have
all the other cases that came under his jurisdiction,
making circuits to the places in which these cases ought
to be tried. (Hear, hear.) It was a fact greatly in
favour of the care and accuracy with which the sheriffs
executed their functions, that out of 14,000 cases not
more than 110 had been appealed against to the Court
of Session. (Hear, hear.)
Lord J. RUSSELL wished, before the disoussien
closed, to say a few words on the
vra generals aprdianncigpelresthin-
volved in the consideration of the question. There was
no doubt that by local administraticoonnnjeuestt
eked with theas
ob-
tained speedily and cheaply, but, if the administration
of
a.P.
tohfejujustdigcee
wweerueldehneteireemlye local, there tuheehr.cituris
decision in
locality, and likewise that, not
grhoeafavtinegetnhtreal
meanscourts of a
iwAeyriengaltwoatyllsosseuphpiglihederbeyoutrheees
country, he would be hardly able to hive his deeec conformity with the opinions of the° most enlightened
judges. On the other hand, if the system were entirely
dispensed by the central courts, then arose the evil of
expense and delay. It was therefore desirable, if pos-
sible,
gteos,coomf
bbointhe
tthheeseadmveatiahtoales,
different modes of effecting this and avoid the disad-
Solicitor-General for Ireland had (emHh
je.eirti,,ohnaeaedu
dr.
t)t?heteTzhliaateraie
adopted in Ireland, where the gentlemen. Po' assistant-barristers continued d
courts at Dublin, and
to the transaction of business in
conformity
appointed
chief
with
equal
weree cotnosequacentitelye alwaysu
--.
principles of the highest tribunals of jhu:ptptii:
mode, and as many thought a most
that adopted from ancient
there was a local judge very
locality, and, to avoid the
connected with a too exclusively
1 persons called
sheriffs-depute, the
de, was
where
times in „Sne.ected with the
much
jciaod
pointed out as
no:inother
evil h©
clocal administration,
de) ,'
reference might be made in the
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ofpracapptiseaeldtli.thtieler