The Sun.
London, England, 1860-07-12 00:00:00

THE SUN, LuNDON, THURSDAY

the masters' speculation. An act of parliament was
shortly afterwards passed, appointing an officer
called "The Accountant-Oeneral,Coutt bf Chancery,"
who Was to perform the duties which up to that time
had been performed so indifferently by the masters.
Other acts were passed whereby certain rates and
duties were levied throughout England and Wales

for the specific purpose of makinc, fTood to the
suitors what they had lost and in 1738 the suitors'
cash lying unemployed in the hands of the Accoun-
tant-General, having again become considerable,

an Act of Parliament was passed, authorising the
investment of a sum of £34,900.

In this sum we have the origin of "The Suitors'
Fund," and through investments made under Par-
liamentary authority from that period down to the
present time, the stock purchased with suitors' cash
is now represented by £2,613,360, and forms the

first portion of" The Suitors' Fund."
It is not proposed that any portion of this should
be touched. But in the year 1768, an Act of Par-
liement having been passed directing that the sur-
plus interest arising from the stock to which we
have just referred should be also invested in stock,
in the investments made under the authority of this

act we have the origin of the second portion of
" The Suitors' Fund," which now consists of the

above-mentioned £1,291,629 ss. 6d. stock, which
the commissioners very properly call the " Profit"
Fund, and propose should bo one of the three funds
applied for the purposes of the new courts.

The second of the three funds, that of £201,028
23. 3d. stock, forming part of what is called " The
Suitors' Fee Fund," is easy of explanation. It ap-
pears that the fees paid by the suitors to the officers
of the Court of Chancery were, by an Act of Wil-
liam IV., directed to be paid to " The Suitors' Fee
Fund account," and after the payment of certain
salaries and compensations out of it, the annual

surplus was directed to be invested and placed to a
similar account. The investments are now repre-
sented by this sum.
The income of this fund, as well as the income of
both portions of " The Suitors' Fund," is at present
applied towards the payment of the salaries, com-
pensation, and allowances of the officers of the
Court of Chancery ; and the commissioners give
the accounts for the two years 1858 and 1859, from
which it appears that in 1858 the income was in
excess of the expenditure by £8,683 ss. 11d., and
in 1859 by £3,042 17s. 7d.
The third fund propose,' to be taken by the com-
missioners (the £88,254 ss. ld.) has arisen from the
fees paid by the suitors in the common law courts,
and which have been paid over to the Treasury,
after deducting all the annual salaries and pay-
ments chargeable upon it.
The commissioners, after having explained the
nature, and traced very elaborately the history of
the Suitors' Fund, next enter into the question
whether any rights will be violated by the appro-
priation of that part of the Suitors' Fund which
they propose to take, for, as the report says, " upon
the applicability of the Profit' Fund the contro-
versy substantially turns."
The first point submitted to the commissioners
seems to have been, that as this Profit Fund has
arisen from the investment of suitors' money, upon
principles of justice and upon the principle of a
trustee being compelled to account for his trust
money, the Court of Chancery should account for
the profits made. The commissioners report, how-
ever, that "there is no foundation for the argu-
ment." They say, "The court can in no proper
sense of the term be considered in the light of a
trustee for the suitors," and they explain that in
the absence of any applications for the investment
of such monies the court is in the position of a mere
stakeholder. Apart also from the question of the
position of the Court of Chancery as a trustee, the
commissioners show that the employment by the
masters, prior to 1725, of these monies having been
recognised as part of their official remuneration,
and the investments subsequent to 1725 having
been made only under the authority of the legis-
lature, who directed the modes in which they
should be applied, no claim to this Profit Fund
by the suitors can be substantiated. Another
objection is thus stated by the commissioners :
" But it has been suggested to us that although
individual suitors may have no property in Fund
B" (the fond in question), " and no right to inter-
fere with its appropriation, yet that the collective
body of suitors have just ground for objecting to its
application to any purposes other than those by
which they as a body are immediately benefitted.'
This argument seems to have met with the sup-
port of the Vice-Chancellor Sir William Page Wood,
but the conclusion of the remainder of the commis-
sioners, that if this fund is not the property of the
suitors and cannot be claimed by them, they are
unable to perceive on what reasonable grounds the
discretion of Parliament should be fettered as to
the mode of its future application, seems most con-
sonant with common sense.
The third and apparently the last objection made
was this :—" That by the abstraction of this fund
the court wilt, to the extent or the laconic of about
£i9,000. per annum, be deprived of the power of re-
ducing the fees paid by the suitors. This suggestion
sounds rather hypercritical, for if it is conceded
that the suitors have no legal right to the fund in
question, either as individuals, or as a collective
body, it seems difficult to understand how they can
have a moral control over the fund, and the com-
missioners report :—" That the benefit to the suitors
from such a remission of fees would be as nothing
compared with the boon they would obtain from
the proposed scheme, by reason of the greater
economy and despatch with which it would enable
their business to be transacted."
No other arguments than those we have men-
tioned as having been raised against the appropria-
tion of the first of the three funds are raised against
the appropriation of the second—the £200,000 stock
—and as to the third fund—the £BB,2s4—the
commissioners remark that it is " wholly free and
unappropriated."
The report lastly proceeds to show in what man-
ner the three funds may be made available with a
due regard to the present charges upon them.
As to capital, it has been shown that this has
arisen from the surplus income of the stock repre-
senting the suitors' cash. This stock amounted in
October, 1859, the report tells us, to £2,613,360,
purchased on an average under 87 per cent., and as
is the event of the Court of Chancery becoming
bankrupt, and the securities all realised under £B7
the suitors would look to the " Profit" Filth] for
indemnity, the commissioners propose that Parlia-
ment should guarantee their indemnity. They
show that precedents abundantly justify such en-
gagements on the part of the state, and the amount
of risk incurred appears to be of a nominal nature.
As to income, the dividends arising from the
chancery funds proposed to be withdrawn appear
from the report to amount to £45,000 a-year. We
have seen that in 1859 the income arising from
both portions of the Suitors Fund and from the
Suitors Fee Fund only exceeded the expenditure by
£3,000, and assuming this to be an average result
(although we believe the expenditure in that year
to have been unusually high) it would leave a de-
' ficiency of £42,000.
Against this the report shows that we. should
have the following annual sums to set off : £2,000
for rent of offices used by the Court of Chancery,
and which would be saved on completion of the
new buildings. The surplus of the fees paid over
to the Treasury by the common law officers, and
which have amounted on the average of the last
six years to £14,000 and upwards; 16,000 for
buildings occupied by common law officers, and
which would also be saved, and the surplus of the
Court of Probate and Admiralty fees, amounting
respectively to £7,000 and £12,000 per annum.
These sums, it will be found, reduce the deficiency
to £16,000.
This sum the commissioners are of opinion should
be made good by the public, by means of an annual
payment out of the Consolidated Fund, and they
recommend either that the Consolidated Fund
should pay into the Court of Chancery such a sum,
not exceeding £40,000, as should be equal to the
dividends on so much of the capital withdrawn from
time to time for the purposes of the new buildings,
or in the event of Parliament refusing its consent
to any portion of the sum required being made a
permanent charge, however small, upon the State,
that the sum to be annually paid from the Consoli-
dated Fund should be reduced from year to year, as
the existing compensation annuities fall in, until
the deficiency caused by the absorption of the two
Chancery funds should be mane good. But the
deficiency even of this £16,000 Will be temporary.
The compensation annuities amount it appears to
the enormous sum of £70,000; and in reference to
them the commissioners say, " It is computed that
these annuities will diminish at the rate of £2,000,
and taking the net annual contribution from the
public funds to be £16,000 at the commencement,
it will wholly cease in eight years, while if the
anticipated increase in the fees received by the
Probate Court take place, the charge on the public
will be extinguished in less than half that period."
The commissioners conclude their report by stat-
ing that, without having gone to the expense of
minute surveys, they estimate the total cost of the
proposed new site and buildings (allowing £150,000
for contingencies) at £1,500,000, which they say
would be about the produce of the funds they pro-
pose to take.
We have entered apparently at some length into
the consideration of this elaborate document, but
we have in truth done little more than was neces-
sary to make the proposals of the commissioners
intelligible. No more important a subject could
have been referred for investigation, and more im-
portant results could hardly have been obtained. It
reads as if £1,500,000 treasure trove, which had
been lying in some unknown depths, had been sud-
denly dragged to the endue and laid bare to the