The Sun.
London, England, 1836-04-29 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 1836

lode to the Bill for the abolition of imprisonment for debt. My
Lords, it is my intention, at the earliest possible moment, after
I have found time to consider the details of this Bill, to bring
it under your Lordships consideration. By ,the Machinery of
this Bill, if it he carried, a good deal of additional' work will
be thrown upon the Court of Review, and I therefore con-
ceive that your Lordships will agree with me in thinking that,
at least until the fate of this Bill is finally decided—and as I
intend to bring it forward as soon as possible, that period can-
not be far distant—it would not be wise to precipitate at the
present moment any alteration in the existing establishment
of the Court of Review.—( Hear, hear, bear.) My Lords,
there is another suggestion which has been made, which I am
disposed to view very favourably, and which I trust will also
meet with the approval of my Noble and Learned Friend near
me. My Lords, it has been suggested that very great in-
convenience continually arises from having the equity juris-
diction of the Court of Exchequer existing as a separate sys-
tem. That it is not only inconvenient in itself, but that it ne-
cessarily interferes with the other departments of the Court,
since that Court has become a Court doing so much business,
arid invested with so much importance as a Court of law. My
Lords, it is necessary on this point that we should inquire what
is the extent of the business done by this Court as a Court
of equity. I have already stated the progress of business in
the Court of Chancery ; the returns from which this statement
was derived contain also a statement of the number of bills
filed in the equity side of the Court of Exchequer. As I
have stated, the average number of cases before the Court of
Chancery for the last three years, has been 1,300, there
having been a gradual increase iii the business before that
Court for a number of years past. The ,returns from the
Court of Exchequer are from the year 1820 to the present
time; and, unlike those from the Court of Chancery, exhibit
no increase, but on the contrary, a slight decrease. The
average number of cases before the equity side of the Court
of Exchequer, in the period I have mentioned, appears to be
but 120 a-year, while that before the Court of Chancery is
1,300. My Lords, what has been suggested on this subject is,
that the equity jurisdiction now performed by the Court of
Exchequer should be tranferred to the Court of Chancery;
to which it more properly belongs, but, as your Lordships
will at once see, this cannot be done in the present state of
the latter Court, unless some further judicial aid be given to
it. Here, however, it is suggested that the machinery now in
existence for the purposes of equity in the Court of Ex-
chequer, which is now kept in operation for transacting the
business of 120 cases year, will, if the proposed change be
male, cease to be required at that Court; and the question is,
therefore, whether it cannot be made available for the dispatch
of the thus increased business of the Court of Chancery? This
is a point which well merits consideration. My Lords, if
what I am now about to submit to your consideration should
meet with your assent, and that of the other branches of the
Legislature, its beneficial effect will be to make a great altera-
tion in the Court of Chancery, by furnishing it with the means
of carrying into effect its duties with more facility than it has
hitherto had the power of doing, by leaving it in exclusive
possession of its head, whose undivided attention will thence-
forth be applied to the business before the Court; and I can-
not but think, that until we have had full opportunity of see-
ing how the additional facilities thus afforded will enable the
Court of Chancery to get rid of the arrears of business be-
fore it, and to dispatch new cases, it will be hardly advisable
or expedient for us to make any of the further alterations
which have been suggested.—(llear, hear.) With this feel-
ing, in what I shall have the honour to recommend to your
Lordships, much of that which has occupied the attention of
the public, and much of that which many distinguished and
Earned individuals have suggested as expedient, has been
omitted. At the same time, my Lords, those parties who
think that more ought to be done upon this subject, who con-
ceive that the plan suggested is not equal to what they look
upon as the necessity of the case, must, I think and hope,
agree with me that, at least as far as it goes, it is a decided
improvement on the existing system—( Hear, hear)—and is a
considerable advance towards promoting the final rrsult which
their view of the case leads them to desire.--( Hear). Your
Lordships will admit that it is, at any rate, safe not to do too
much in the first instance ; and that having once set on foot an
improvement, which it is .anticipated will be satisfactory and
efficient, not to take additional steps until it is found that the
first attempt has failed in producing the desired object.—( Hear. )
My Lords, I am sanguine as to the entire success of the
rneasure I am about to propose, for I conceive that when we
have decided that there shall be a judge at the head of the
Court of Chancery whose time and talents shall be solely
applied to the business of that Court, there can be little or
no doubt but that in a short time lie will succeed in keep-
ing down the appeal list, and will effectively dispatch all the
original business of the Court.—( Hear, hear). My Lords,
if this hope be realized, and if the person at the head of
the Court of Chancery shall succeed in keeping down the
business of that Court, as far as that Court is concerned, the
object is attained.—( Hear, hear). Upon the course to be pur-
sued in the dispatch of appeals in this House, I will repeat,
that if your Lordships shall sanction the proposition for keep-
ing open this House throughout the year, as a court of appel-
late jurisdiction, the evils which are so severely felt will be
speedily and satisfactorily remedied.—(Hear, hear.) With
respect to the Privy Council, no objection exists, except it be
the want of a permanent head to the Council ; which objection
may be obviated in the way I have already suggested. The
general result would be this, that the Lord Chancellor for the
time being would be at the head of all the ultimate appellate
jurisdiction of the country, by presiding at appeals in error
before the House of Lords, and at appeals before the Privy
Council. By these means, by providing for the Court of
Chancery a judge whose sole duty it shall be to attend to its
important duties, and by the House of Lords sitting in its ap--
pellate judicial character, notwithstanding any prorogation or
dissolution of Parliament, in order, like all other Courts of

justice, to be always accessible to suitors, all the objects which
I have stated in the opening of my observations will be
amply fulfilled. My Lords, for the important purposes I have
mentioned, two Bills have been prepared, an outline of which
I will now proceed to lay before your Lordships. The first
of these Bills is relative to the administration of justice in
the Court of Chancery. It provides, in the first place, that
after the appointment of a judge to be at the head of that
Court, to be appointed according to the provisions of the Bill,
the Lord Chancellor shall cease to exercise the jurisdiction in
that Court. It then gives power to his Majesty to appoint the
said judge for that Court, under the style and title of Lord
Chief Justice of the Court of Chancery ; and that all forms
and appeals heretofore addressed to the Lord Chancellor,
shall, for the future, be addressed to the Lord Chief Justice
of the Court of Chancery. The Bill then provides as to the
precedency and salary of that judge. The Bill is now in blank
as to both the one and the other of these points, but I appre-
hend that your Lordships will conceive that- the head of a
Court so important as the Court of Chancery ought to be put as
nearly as possible on a footing with the Lord Chief Justice of
the Court of King's Bench.—( Hear, hear.) The Bill then
proceeds to provide—and the difficulty we have had in satis-
factorily arranging this point has been the sole cause of my
delay in bringing forward the measure—the Bill then provides
or the separation of the processes of the Court of Chancery
from those under the Great Seal. The provision is, that all
writs in respect to processes from the Court of Chancery
shall be passed under a seal, to be called the Court of
Chancery Seal, instead of under the Great Seal as here-
tofore, but that all others shall continue, as now, to be
passed under the Great Seal. The Bill then proposes an
apportionment of the officers now attached to the Great
Seal between the Court of Chancery and the Lord Chan-
cellor, and makes regulations as to fees and emoluments.
Some of the officers must necessarily be attached to
the Lord Chancellor, and the others can remain attached to
the Court of Chancery. The Bill further provides that the
Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Chancery shall be ap-
pointed during life and good behaviour, and shall be removable
upon an address from the two Houses of Parliament. This,
my Lords, is the outline of the provisions of the first Bill.
Thu second Bill relates to the appellate jurisdiction of this
House, and provides, that in order to facilitate the dispatch of
appeals before your Lordships, that your Lordships shall sit for
the purpose of hearing appeals in error, notwithstanding any
prorogation or disSoltition of Parliament. It further provides
that the Equity Judges shall be subject to summons before your
Lordships, in the same manner that the Common Law Judges
now are ; and that the Fame power of summoning shall remain
in your Lordships, notwithstanding any such prorogation or dis
solution of Parliament. It further provides that the Lord
Chancellor shall be present at all sittings of the Privy Council
to hear appeals, with the proviso, however, that in the Lord
Chancellor's necessary absence, the Lord President shall haVe
Power to appoint any other Member of the Judicial Committee
to take his place.—( Hear, hear.) My Lords, I have now put
you in possession of the extreme grievances arising from the
overgrown state of the Court of Chancery. Your Lordships
have now before you the very important question to consider,
whether the suggested plan does not appear efficient to improve
to a satisfactory extent the administration of justice, and the
two ultimate appellate jurisdictions of the country, and of that
Court by which questions involving much of the property of the
country have to be decided.—( Hear, hear.)
Lord LYNDH U R ST wished to understand whether it was
intended that appeals from the Vice Chancellor and the Master
of the Rolls were in the first place to be made to the Lord
Chief Justice of the Court of Chancery, or directly to the
House of Lords ?—( Hear. hear.)
The LORD CHANCELLOR said the Bill provided that
such appeals should be made in the first instance to the Court
of Chancery.
Lord LANGDALE could not but observe that the Bill of
his Noble and Learned Friend would still leave political and
judicial functions of the greatest importance united in the Lord
Chancellor.—( Hear, hear.) Moreover that it would have an
appellate jurisdiction and an original jurisdiction united in the
hands of the Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Chancery.—
( Hear, hear.) That it would have a court of appeal between
the original hearing in equity and the appeal to the House of
Lords. All these were points of grave importance.-Hear.)
Lord A BINGER coincided in the objection taken as to
continuance of the union of political and judicial functions in
the Lord Chancellor. He would, however, beg to say a few
words upon what had been observed by the Noble and Learned
Lord who brought it in, in reference to the equity business
of the Court of Exchequer. The equity sittings in that Court
were confined to two days in the week, and the consequence
was, that as suitors found it extremely difficult to obtain a
hearing, the business before the Court had very considerably
fallen oil. The Court of Eechequer, as a common law
Court, had, since the Bill which he (Lord Abinger) intro-
duced in the other House, wheveby the monopoly previously
enjoyed by a few individuals in the business before it was
broken up, and solicitors from all parts admitted to practise
there, become as competent a common law Court as any
other. There was no reason why equal efficiency should not
be communicated to the equity side of the Court of Exchequer.
Lord WYN FO RD was quite certain that the objection
of the Noble arid Learned Lord opposite in reference to ap-
peals to the Court of Chancery would, if acted upon, save the
suitors great expense and incenveninnee.—(Hear, hear.) He

quite agreed, too, in the objection respecting the continued
union of the political and judicial functions of the Lord Chan-
cellor. With these two exceptions, he was bound to say that
the Bill received his cordial approval.—( Hear. )
The Duke of WELLINGTON said there was one thing
he did not clearly understand, and this was, what was to be-
come .of the House of Lords—of the jurisdiction of the House
of Lords—after Parliament should be prorogued or dissolved ?
—( Hear, hear.) Was it intended that the jurisdiction of the
House of Lords was to be exercised in the absence of the
House, or was the body of the House to sit as a court of appel-
late judicature after his Majesty shall have thought fit to pro-
rogue or dissolve Parliament ?—( Hear.)
The LORD CHANCELLOR said the plan undoubtedly
was, that for the purpose of hearing appeals in error, the House
should sit notwithstanding any prorogation or dissolution, but
for that purpose only.
Viscount MELBOURNE said he had understood his Noble
and Learned Friend on his right to express his feeling that

he could not entirely concur in-the measure, an opinion re-
sponded to by the Noble and Learned Lord opposite ; but
when they came to state the general ground upon which they
differed from the measure, it was the that the Bill left the
union of the political and judicial functions of the Lord
Chancellor presiding in that House untouched.—( Hear.)
Now he would only beg leave to observe (as was understood)
that while the measure as now proposed had been framed so
cautiously as to admit of any future alteration which their
Lordships might deem necessary, had such a change as that
pointed at been introduced in the first place, it might have
been difficult, if objected to, to recede, and to return to the
state of things which now existed.—( Hear, hear.) The Bill
had been framed with the greatest care, and he trusted that it
would receive their Lordships' assent.—( Hear, hear.)
The Bill was then read a first time and ordered to be
printed.
The House then adjourned.