The Sun.
London, England, 1831-09-01 00:00:00

COURT OF CHANCERY.

The LORD CHANCELLOR came dot at half-past nine
o'clock to deliver some judgments which he had appointed
fin• this morning, and to conclude his public sitting prior td

:he lon.z vacation. The report of the judgments, from

want of time, we shall not be able to give till to-Motro* ;

but the following gratifying statement, which his tordr,hiFt
made on taking his leave of the Bar and the suitors, we

are anxious to take the earliest opportunity of publisl.ing.
His Loansint, after having gone through his paper,
said, it is a great satisfaction to me in taking my leave of

the Bar, and of the suitors, to know that I have been able
to dispose of all the arrears of the business of this Court
and that there are no appeals and no petitions, no causes
now unheard except those that are not ready, and which
have been put upon the files of the Court subsequent
to List June. It is a very great relief to the Court—it

will be a very great relief to the B ar—it will b., a very
great relief to prof ssional men, as I know it will be a
very great relief to the suitors—fir them to feel thlt they
shall have their business henceforward regularly going on,

not encumbered by arreara, and not having their minds op-
pressed with the harassing prospect of never getting through
their business. In the course of next term the benefit of all
this will be felt, and it will be found that the time
has -been well bestowed, which we have been lately oc-
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cupying, though it may have pressed bard upon the Bar,
upon suitors, and upon other professional men, who have
ben anxiously attending the Court. It has pressed hard
also on the Court, but I have been willing to bear that
pressure, knowing well that the puliie will feel the full
benefit next Term. It was said to a great man, the most

illustrious of all my predecessors, that Le allowed the pres-
sure of business upon him to be more than he could hear ;
to which he repliid, the duties of "life are more than life,"—
memor,dde words to he had in everlasting remembrance by
all men who serve their country. The kindness and atten-
tion I hays received from the Bar are such as to require my
most grateful acknowledgments, which I now respectfully
ffer.

I bib leave to sold, that I have now the most sanguine
hopes of being able to relieve his honour the ice• Chancellor
from hearing the greater part of such causes as have been
heard by him since the year 1813. The appeals which
have disposed of within these few months have been 120 ;
108 of those have been fully argued and decided—indeed
all of them, except Miller v. Travers, which stands
for the opinion of the two Judges, who assisted me
in it. I find the time taken in the argu-
ments upon the appeals, the av,rage time being se-
veral hours to each, shews that every one of them
were cases of importance, and that there has been no
short cause beard by way of appeal before me.—
This has been the cause of the length of time that has been
occupied in getting through the long and heavy arrear—
the arrear of years.

When I look into this statement I find also that in
the proportion of six to four, or of three to two,

are the number of appeals from his Honour the Vice
Chancellor to those coming from his Honour the
Master of the Rolls—arising, no doubt, from the
great number of causes decided in the Vice-
Chancellor's Court, and from that circumstance only.
It is char therefore, that at least three months of the time
of this Court would have been entirely saved if that ar-
rangement could have been made, which (foreseeing
this) I propounded, but unsuccessfully propounded, when I
came into the Court. I thought that every cause which
was either of some importance in point of value, or diffi-
culty in point of law or of fact, that came before their
Honours the Master of the Rolls and the Vice-Chan-
cellor, almost inevitably fund its away here by ap-
peal—and generally, certainly in the majority of cases,
only led to great expense, great delay, and great
inconvenience, whether there should be an ultimate
affirmance or reversal. I proposed, therefore, that al'
causes of difficulty and importance in point of value, or
from the law as applying to them, should at once be
transferred here and heard by me, as thereby the in-
evitable appeal would be averted. The event has
justified ray prospective conjecture, and leads me now to
form the plan which I shall certainly adopt, namely, that of
transferring at once the bulk of that business into this Court.
Such a result was long ago foreseen by eminent men.
It was the opinion of Sir Samuel Romilly—a most
venerable name—it was the opinion of Sir John
Leech, then a Member of Parliament, a nil of many
others, that the erection of a Court for Honour
the Vice-Chancellor would have, among other things, the
effect of increasing litigation, and that a mass of business
which did not then exist in Chancery,would be added to the
business of the Court. How far that conjecture has been
proved by experience must be visible to all men, since 64
out of the IOS contested appeals, were from his honour
theVice-Chancellor, and which have taken up three months'
constant, laborious, and expensive attendance to all the
parties concerned. If, however, this arrangement
can be made, which I look forward confidently
to accomplishing, I shall then deem it to be my duty
to give to the suitor the full benefit in all difficult and
important cases, of having three Judges instead of one to
hear their causes. If this cannot be done by the law
as it now stands, I trust the Legislature will assist me in
effecting it. My opinion is that it can be done with-
out altering or adding to the law as it now stands.
I have the power at present to ask for the attendance
of any or all the Judges in Westminster Hall, and I know
not why I should not have the power of asking to be as-
sisted by the presence of the Master of the Rolls and Vice-
Chancellor when necessity requires. Other Chancellors have
had the Master of the Rolls to sit for them when absent;
I have never required that, and I trust I never shall ;
but I think I may have the assistance of their Honours
on hearing causes of extraordinary difficulty and import-
ance. The bulk of the cases that are appealed from are
not of extraordinaty difficulty or importance, but in all
cases of that class the suitor shall have the benefit of the
other equity Judges being present.
There are two or three branches of judicature in
which the presence of three Judges is infinitely better
than that of one; first when conflicting facts are to be
discussed, a conflicting evidence to be heard;
a Jury is the best forum for such a case—a
single Judge is perhaps the worst, but three men with
minds variously constituted are much more likely to come
to a satisfactory conclusion than a single individual. The next
is, where any thing like discretion is to he exercised, either
in awarding damages, or saying what costs are to be paid,
which is often a very important, or not unfrequently diffi-
cult and delicate inquiry, as too many cases are brought
and kept up merely for the sake of the costs. The
duty of the Judge there is somewhat like that of assessing
damages, and in the exercise of such discretion it is better
to have three Judges than one. Last of all, where there are
great and difficult and important points of law and equity to
be sealed, it is much more satisfactory to suitors, and to the
profession which cultivates the sciences, to have that law
considered and settled by more Judges than one. These,
then, are the considerations which principally move me to
the adoption of the resolution I have formed. But, at the
same time that I stop the great bulk of business going
before his Honour the Vice-Chancellor, I shall not
deem it necessary tat recommend elsewhere that any
step should be taken at present to terminate his Court,
year of George 111. it was expected
ittboauwgoluildin theen baddingetting through the arrears. Though
we have now got through the arrears, I do not yet
see toy way to that which as an ultimate result
must be deemed highly desirable. His Honour, the
Master of the Rolls, is more sanguine as to the speedy ac-
coniplishtnent of it than I am—but still I do not Ault
out from my mind the indulgence of the hope that I
may see its termination at no very distant period. As
long, however, as that Court shall continue to exist,
I shall endeavour to avail myself in all difficult and
important cases, of the assistance of that most learned
excellent, and able Judge in this Court.
I have said thus much because I thought it fit, before
terminating business, to let the profession know it was not
for nothing that I had imposed on them the hardships
of these long and painful sittings : sittings, however,
tint muchforlathe having
e—
ronly two days later than Lord Eldon
has sat,
sat to the 29th of August, I
have sat only two days longer. At the same time I
admit that though I have sat only two days later than
usual, yet I have eat many more hours in the course of
the day, awl I am aware of the embarrassMents and
inconveniences that this may have caused—l am not
however aware that its tendency has been to abridge argu-
ments in any case, for I am sure I have endeavoured
to show as much patience as any man could possess,
that I might not indicate the slightest indisposition to
hear tl" longest arguments. Even where I have thought
argument superfluous, I have hardly ever stopped
the reply, in cases where I have been in favour
of the side on which the reply was to be made, and still
more rarely have I disposed of cases on hearing one side
only. I, therefore, cannot charge myself with having
got rid of this arrear, and accomplishing this dispatch at
the expence of curtailing the hearing of causes. The best
proof in the world of this is that one of the last I
heard took up eight hours,—the one preceding it
took seven hours, and another immediately before it
took six hours. Three causes therefore took upwards of
91 hours in being argued at the conclusion of the sittings,
which surely is a proof that there was no great desire on my
part to curtail the arguments, or not to hear Counsel.