The Sun.
London, England, 1854-08-08 00:00:00

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

HOUSE OF LORDS—(YESTERDAY.)
BILL OF EXCHANGE BILL (No. 2).
Lord BROUGHAM presented a petition from mer-
chants of the city of London, praying the house to take
up the consideration of this measure early next session.
He said, a conference was held in the month of Nov.,
1852, composed of delegates from all parts of the coun-
try, and from all the great trading towns in England,
Ireland, and Scotland, and which led to the appointment
of a committee, and there was no subject which more
occupied the attention of the members of the conference
and the committee than the assimilation cf the law of
England to that of Scotland, with regard to the sum-
mary process on bills of exchange and promissory notes.
That had been the law and practice in Scotland for 120
years, and under it the mercantile community of that
country had greatly progressed. It was at the request
of these respectable men, and he might say, as their
organ, that he presented a bill to their lordships which
they favourably received, read a second time, and which
they afterwards referred to a select committee, there
teing some doubt at one time whether it should form
part of the Common Law Procedure Bill. It was sent
to the House of Commons on the 2d of June, but he
lamented that after the principle of the bill had been
affirmed in that house by a majority of 50 to 30, on Fri-
day night the course was taken of not pursuing the bill
on account of the late period of the session, and the
state of public business. He had no complaint to make,
however much he might lament the result, but the
ground of its being postponed was said to be that they
had in the House of Lords adopted a rule that none of
the bills which were sent up to them should be read after
a given day, namely, the 25th July, and in consequence
a bill which did not reach their lordships till the 4th of
August, could not pass this session. Therefore they
would not pass this bill which was sent down to them
on the 2d of June, because their lordships would not pass
a bill. which did not come to their lordships' house till
the 4th of August. They had given the House of Com-
mons two months to consider a bill, but the House of
Commons would not allow them a single day. (Hear.)
The bill in question made considerable changes in the
law, and could not be passed without due consideration.
But there was another interest opposed to this (the Ex-
change bill), and that was the interest of persons, who
having accepted bills, or endorsed them, had rather not
pay them when they became due, and they said, " what
' a horrid thing it is to compel a poor man who has only
put his name to a bill at three months, not to allow him
three or four months longer before he is made to pay."
The law applicable to bills of exchange in Scotland was
not confined to that country ; it was the law of.the whole
mercantile world except England ; and in Holland the
law went further still, for in that country the momenta
bill became due the person, goods, and lands of the ac-
ceptor were liable to be taken in execution by the holder.
And that was the law of this country 600 years ago.
Notwithstanding, however, there were some persons
who laboured under what he would venture to call a
monomania on the subject of currency, and they were
called the Brummagem school. They considered that
anything that tended to diminish the amount of cur-
rency was an evil ; they did not care about the value of
it. This bill increased the value of every bill and pro-
missory note' in the market. " Oh," said these currency
doctors, "that does not much signify ; the strong point
is to have an immense mass of currency." And ac-
cordingly he found that one of these worthy persons
who was labouring under a delusion, and who was an
object of compassion, discovered that the reason for
this bill was, not to carry out the opinion of the great
mercantile community, of the delegates from all Eng-
land, Scotland, and Ireland. No such thing ; but they
said the bill was to create a job—not the job of making
debtors pay their debts to their lawful creditors, but
somebody, they said, wanted to appoint a registrar.
A NOBLE LORD—Who said that ?
Lord BROUGHAM—The currency doctors in the
other house, and if his noble friend looked at Saturday's
journals he would find who it was that made this charge.
Who wanted this bill, and who asked for it ? His noble
friend, the member for the city of London, presented a
petition in favour of it, signed by 309 of the first houses
in the city, of London. There was no attempt to palm
it upon the public. What if there was nothing thought
of in respect fo the office, what if it was not only true,
but it was impossible it should be true that this bill
originated in any such desire, or any conceivable or
imaginary interest connected with the desire to appoint
such an officer. This bill was presented by him to that
house, and read a first and second time, and referred to
a select committee without anything in it respecting a
registrar. It was intended that the three courts, the
Common Pleas, the Queen's Bench, and the Exchequer
should appoint each a master in each court for the pur-
pose of registering the protested bills. But when the
bill was in select committee it was found it would not
do to have an officer of each of the three courts acting as
registrar, but that it was necessary to have one officer
who could be at his office all day to register these bills,
and the committee made the alteration. In the various
measures that he bad had the honour of proposing for
the amendment of the law, he, with his colleagues, had
been exposed to no inconsiderable obloquy. By one
class they had been charged with going too slow, and it
;had been said they were mock reformers ; and by another
:class they were charged with carrying all before them,
with endeavouring to sweep away all land marks by
wholesale changes of the law. By some they were
said to be acting as slumbering 'volcanoes, sending out
nothing but smoke and noise ; but, nevertheless, as long
as they were favoured by Divine Providence with the
means of rendering some help to the cause of improve-
ment, they must continue in their course, but their lord-
ships might be perfectly assured that no charge was
more groundless than that of being too rash and too
headlong. But when they were charged with such an
odious job as altering the law for the purpose of creat-
ing a place to be given to some favoured individual, all
he could say was, that without blaming the individuals,
who, no 'doubt, believed what they said, but had been
imposed upon by others who knew the truth ; but to
suppose that this charge should operate upon them, that
they should feel anything but contempt for it, that it
should in the slightest degree abate or accelerate their
progress, or cause them to deviate one hair's breadth to
the right or the left was absurd.
Falsus honor juvet et—
but he begged pardon for speaking to these doctors in
what was an unknown language to them. He would
speak to them in English.
False honour charms and lying slander scares
Whom, but the false and cowardly.
Lord CAMPBELL said he would not allude particu-
larly to currency doctors, or any other class of the com-
munity, who stood in the way of improvement, but ex-
perience taught them that there were always obstacles
to improvement. There was no doubt it would be an
improvement that the commercial law of the three United
Kingdoms should be the same. Having the honour of
presiding over the Queen's Bench, he had frequent oppor-
tunities of knowing that men who had accepted bills did
not pay them, but when they were sued pleaded a number
of pretences, and when the day of trial came there was no
attempt at defence. At the last Guildhall sittings there
were 16 undefended causes of this character. There wasi;e
no reason why the commercial law should not be the
same in England as in Scotland, and as it wasEdward in every
die
vetrly
other commercial country in the time of law.
The Re hoped that this bill would beco3becomea‘.
The LORD CHANCELLOR assured his nob le and
learned friend (Lord Brougham) that, as far as they were
individually concerned, the Government gave all the sup-
port in their power to this bill, and it was only in conse-
quence of the gentleman who had charge of the bill—
in concurrence with a mercantile gentleman—thinking
it would be better to withdraw it that it was withdrawn.
He could only say that he hoped it would be introduced
again, and that it would be carried, With regard to
the Common Law Procedure Bill, he hoped that it would
be in that house I:either that night or to-morrow, and
that they would be ready to give it a favourable recep-
tion.

The petition was then ordered to lie on the table.
BENEFICES AUGMENTATION ACTS REPEAL
BILL.

The Com Mons amendments in this bill were considered
and agreed to.
LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTIONS
BILL.
This bill was read a third time, after some amend-
ments proposed by Lord MONTEAGLU had been agreed
to_

CHANCERY RETURNS.
Lord BROUGHAM moved for some returns in
reference to the Court of Chancery, which returns were
ordered.

THE BRIBERY BILL.
Upon the order for the third reading of this bill,
Lord REDESDALE said that one of the provisions
of the bill was, that in prosecutions there was power to
order payment to prosecutors of the costs and expenses
that might have been incurred. He wished to know
from what fund the payment Was to be ordered ?
Upon this question being put, the Duke of NEW-
CASTLE referred to the bill, and subsequently went to
consult some gentlemen who were
standing near the
steps of the throne. He, however, seemed not to have
arrived at a satisfactory conclusion ; and afterwards a
conference took place of some minutes' duration between
the Lord Chancellor, the Duke of Newcastle, and Lord
Redesdale.
The matter dropped without any answer having been
given publicly to the noble lord's question.
The Marquis of CLANRICARDE thought it most
desirable that this bill should be made as perfect as pos-
sible in the prevention of bribery ; and if they did not
make it effectual, they must speedily have recourse to
some other measure, or resortto the system of the ballot.
He did not think that the proposition he was about to
make could be objected to by any person who was sin-
cerely anxious totally to put dywn bribery. It was
clear that if they allowed to voters any payments at all,
they would open the door to bribery. Travelling ex-
penses in some districts amounted to an enormous sum,
and there must very great difficulty in checking those
expenses. How could any man say that the payments
made to voters had really been spent in travelling
expenses ; and a voter might be represented as being
in the most distant part of the kingdom, and
yet he might in reality travel only 50 or five miles
Again, it was common to charge the most expensive
mode of travelling, such as post or first class, and then
for the person to travel by second or third class. He
might be told that this mattter had been considered in
the House of Commons, and the proposition to disallow
travelling expenses had been rejected by a majority of
two to one. Again, he had heard it said that they would
disfranchise a large number of electors if they did not
allow travelling expenses—(hear, hear, from Lord Redes-
dale)—but if that were so, they must disfranchise some
voters, for they must, in fact, disqualify many voters by
bribery. The disallowing travelling expenses, and so
disfranchising voters, might be good if they had uni-
versal onffrage, but now they had fPf property qualifica-

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