The Sun.
London, England, 1824-04-30 00:00:00

LORD •ELDON.

[Front the QUARTERLY Rtlrl NW.]

OBSERVATIONS *on the JUDGES of the COURT
CHANCERY, and the PRACTICE and DELAYS corn.
plained of in that COURT.
Concliided from THE gIIN giyesterday:)
Upon other parts of this Report, shewing different, ,suc-
cessive increases made to the dutiei of the present Chancellor.
(such as proceedings by habeas corpus, &c. &c.) have
not time to dwell ; suffice it to say, that in every minute
ramification, as in the greater branches of business, Lord El-
don's labour has exceeded what was ever before imposed on
Any Chancellor.
•

But there is another great and, important branch of judicial
duty attached to the station of Lord Chancellor which requires
particular notice ; namely, the presiding in--the appellate juris-
diction of the House of Lords.: The accumulation. of undecid-
ed causes in this high Court of Parliament has excited even
more attention than the delays in Chancery ; and we haVelately
seen, that the extent of inconvenience has' been admittetL. and,
attempted to be remedied by the appointment of a Deputy
.Speaker, and the compulsory attendance of certain Lords, in.
rotation, in order to get-rid of this accumulation. In this re-
gulation, (as in the case of the Vice-Chancelloi), the detractors'
of Lord Eldon recognize an adinission, on the part of his col-
leagues, of the delays of his administration ; 'hut it is no such,
thing is an admission, indeed, of. that truth which nobody
but the traducers' have been bold enough to deny-the in-
crease of busihess=but neither his 'Lordship's cOlieagues, nor
any other candid person in any degree acquainted with the facts
of the case, can impute to Lord Eldon any undue delay in the
disposal of this class of business—on this, point, the nature of
the ProceedingS enables us to bring the matter to clear arith-
metical admeasurement, and we shall shew, beyond all possibi-
lity of contradiction, that Lord Chancellor Eldon has exceeded
in diligence of attention, and in rapidity of decision, the most
diligent and the most rapid of his predecessors. ,
• The following statement of the number of controverted ap-
peals and writs of error determined in the House of Lords
by every Chancellor, from Lord Ilardwicke•inclusive, com-
pared with an equal period of Lord .Eldon's administration,
will astonish those of our readers who only know of this mat-
ter what they learn in newspapers and Parliamentary debates;
and will silence, we are confident, all such charges for the
future. -

Lord Harwicke, in 20 years, (1737 to 1756,) 235 cases.
Lord Eldon in 21.1. years, (11101 to 1822,) 469 cases.
Twice the number.

Lord Northington, in 10 years, (1757 to 1766,) 136 cases.
Lord Eldon, in 10 years, (1813 to 1822,) 307 cases.
Three time: the number. -

Lord Camden, in 4 years, (1784 to 1769,) 69 caseF.
Lord Eldon, .in 4 years, (1813 to. 1816,) 214 cases.
Above three tithes the number.
Lord Apsley, in.B years, (1771 to 1778,) 172 cases.
,LOrd. Eldon, in 8 years, (1813 to 1820,) 325 cases.
Above twice the number. •

Lord Thurlow, in 14 years, (1779 to 17920 196 cases.
Lord Eldon, in 14 years, (1809 t 0,1822,) .-453 cases.
Greatly above twice the number.

Lord Rosslyn, in 8 years, (1793 to 1800,),, 122 cases.
Lord Eldon, in 8 years, (1013 to 1820,y 325 cases.

Greatly above twicesthe number,

This detail, extracted from the journals of the Lords, speaks
(to use a trivial, but here the appropriate phrase) volumes; and
we cannot help further observing, as a curious coincidence,
that Lord Eldon has, in twenty years; decided 29 appeals more
than Lords Hardwicke, Northington, and Ctiniden, all together,
decided in thirty-four years ! 'Nor must it be oinitted, that since
the Union the Irish appealshave come in addition to
,the na-
tural increase of the business of the House of Lords. They
are generally questions of great weight, length, and intricacy,
anti we ourselves know of one case, which, after having, in one
form or another, during a period of near .thirty years, passed
through all the Irish Court,
_was decided by the Lords with a
celerity which surprised both parties, and rescued one of them
prom the ruin which a rich, obstinate, and litigious adversary
had almost accomplished.
We ,know that those who cannot refute the foregoing;im-
portant statement as to the decision of appeals, will endeavour
to attenuate Lord Eldon's merit by saying that he has sat a
much longer time for the determination of these appeals than
his predecessor did. We admit it ; it is our case—we praise
Lord Eldon, not for deciding without hearing, but for hearing
with the most exemplary patience, and yet deciding, in fact, so
great a number of the 'most important class of causes. But, on
the other hand, if the pressure of the appeals has forced Lord
Eldon to give up so much more of his time to them, every mo-
rnent'of that time has been taken-Lnot

From toys, nor mirth, nor wine,'
but•from the Court of Chancery, where, nevertheless, he has,
as we have seen, done nearly twice as much business as Lord
Hardwicke.

It, therefore, the undecided appeals have accumulated, the
inconvenience cannot be attrilnited to Lord Eldon, who has
done about twice as much of this elasi of: business 'as was done
by any of his predecessors, and thrice as much as was disposed
of by others.
But we have some other observations to make ivhich will put
Lord Eldon's dispatch of the judicial buiinesa of the House of
. • •J, •
LOrds in a still more striking point of view. It must not be
forgotten that the Lord Chancellor is Speaker -of the House,
not merely in its legal but 'in its legislative and political capa-
city, and that the increased demand on his time on the latter
account must diminish the quantity which he can dedicate to
his legal duties either in Chancery or in the Lords. There is
no record of the number of hours during which their Lordships,
sit, but that the length and frequency of their meeting on the
subjects of public interest have increased, is notorious;. and
there are some circumstances which may enable us to approxi-
mate to a tolerably fair comparison between the Pailiarnentary
duties imposed on Lords-Hardwicke and Eldon respectively. •
We, find by the, Lords'. Journals, that in the year,l7so that.
House sat 52 days, and record of their proceedings is compris-
ed-in 75 pages of the Journal. In 1810 the House sat 94 days,
and, the record- Of its proceedings occupies 402 pages of the
Journal. ln 1750 there were passed 40 public . and 33,private
Acts of Parliament ...—in 1810, 119 of the former., and 334 of
the latter—double the quantity of time (even if their Lordships
sat only the same number of hours in each day) ,and six times
the
.quantity of space, and more than six times the quantity. of
business. We think we may venture, from these premises,
as well as from general notoriety, to assert, that the Chan-
cellor's Parliamentary duties are at least doubled since the time
of Lord Hardwicke.
Before we conclude this head, we beg leave to say a word or
two witb.a view of correcting some nonsense- which has, been
written and some nonsense which has been talked, on the sub-