The Sun.
London, England, 1858-10-18 00:00:00

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE
PROMOTION OF SOCIAL SCIENCE.

LIVERPOOL, OCT. 16.
This morning the concluding meeting of the con-
gress was held in the Concert Theatre—Lord J.
RUSSELL presiding.
The noble lord announced that the Lord Chan-
cellor of Ireland had not been able to obtain the
Government document necessary to his leaving Ire-
land in time to attend the meetmg, but he had sent
his paper, which he (Lord John) would now read.
The paper was read as follows :
THE IRISH LORD CHANCELLOR'S ADDRESS. '

a.. .
In proceeding to open the section of jurispru-
dence, I have gratefully to acknowledge the honour
conferred upon me by the committee in selecting
me to be president of this, the first department of
soeial science. The place which has been assigned
to jurisprudence cannot but magnify mine office; it
assuredly furnishes a conclusive and crowning tes-
timony in favour of a separate and responsible de-
partment of administration for the affairs of public
4ustice. You are aware of the address to her Ma-
jesty the Queen, which, by the judicious and effi-
cient support I received from the noble lord, the
president of this association, was caried in 1857, by
a unanimous resolution of the House of Commons,
and to which a very favourable reply was promptly
returned to the house—a reply most gracious and
truly responsive, but there the movement ceased.
Lord Bacon has wisely observed that " propositions
have wings, but operation and execution have
leaden feet." We must melt them, if they will not
move. The same great authority has said that " the
establishing of good laws makes a whole nation to
be a well-ordered college or foundation." It is there-
fore a matter of great public consevence that our
laws should be kept in harmony with the progres-
sive spirit of this free nation ; they ought to bear
the impress of the age in which we live, and be
truly worthy of the public justice of a wise and un-
derstanding people. The progress of a people in
the great onward movement of humanity might be
supposed to lead to the reduction rather than to the
increase of their laws ; it might be expected that
men would be constrained by laws written in their
minds and hearts, so as to dispense with many po-
sitive commands and prohibitions. Thisis relatively
true. But, on the other hand, the conventional ar-
rangements of a growing civilisation call for the
frequent interference of authority, and in meeting
the demands of new CombinatiOns of society, and in
adapting the ancient laws to the growing wants of
an inventive age, a great work is to be done in the
department of jurisprudence, a work worthy of being
well and. wisely done ; not to be done at any time
under sudden pressure or impulse, for then it may
' be ill-considered and improvident; nor ever to be
done in the niggard spirit of a stingy concession,
for then it may rather minister to discontent than
to social improvement. It must be done generously,
efficiently, and responsibly. The present chaotic
condition of our laws, I must, at the outset, say is
a grave reproach to so great a nation. In saying
this I do not mean to suggest that we have not
good laws ; on the contrary, I am satisfied that we
have many which are not unworthy of their connec-
tion with that universal law so beautifully described
by. Hooker—" Her seat is in the bosom of God, her
voice the harmony of the world." And let me say
further, and I say it with a thankful and hopeful
spirit, that in the last 30 years much, very much,
has been done in the great work of law amendment;
in the repeal of obsolete and apocryphal enactments ;
the improvement of judicial procedure, both by in-
creasing the speed and reducing the cost of obtain-
ing justice ; in the establishment of local courts, and
the awakening public attention to the gradual im-
provement of our entire system of jurisprudence.
Much of this has been brought about by the energy
of those master spirits (I speak both of the living
and dead), not ministers, but high-priests of justice;
men who, in the good providence of God, have been
raised up from time to time, and have imparted liv-
ing power and loftier views, and clearer intelligence
to public opinion ; to that which, in the end, must
test and discriminate, and separate the true from
the false, reject what is unsuited for immediate use,
but absorb what is in keeping with the Sensus Com-
munis-7-that nourishes the real life and accords with
the inherent laws which govern the progressive de-
velopment of society. Of these master-spirits one
is here amongst us, Henry, Lord Brougham ; and if
I say of him in this place what I have said of him
in the House of Commons, it is because this is
stereotyped in the deep conviction of my heart. He
has sped his eagle flight against the dazzling blaze
of science with an eye that never winks, a wing
that never tires, an eye not dim, nor his natural
force abated ; with -all the honours of his long and
useful life, in which he has won so many battles in
the cause of jurisprudence, we have him now, with
the unabated energy of youth and the natural expe-
rience of age, helping forward the work of this
great National Association,
Prcesentes tibi viventi, largimur honores.

The business of this section is directly connected with
the improvement of our laws—their amendment,
their administration, under our judicial system ;
and as there are certain subjects of great practical
importance which have obtained, as I may say, a
right of pre-audience, I think I may properly and
with advantage proceed to direct your thoughtful
attention to one or two of these that are peculiarly
interesting to us at the present time. In the last
session an act was passed for constituting in Ireland
the new court, to be called the Landed Estates Court.
In the year 1849, under the auspices of our noble pre-
sident, the Encumbered Estates Court was estab-
lished. In 1852, the present Lord Justice of Appeal,
whose practical wisdom and sound sense may well
be classed with a high order of genius, came to the
conclusion that it was not only anomalous but un-
just to withhold from a decretal title in the case
of a sale of land under the order of the Court of
Chancery, the conclusive character which has been
given to a sale under the order of the Encumbered
Estates Court. A bill was subsequently introduced
by the present Attorney-General for Ireland and
myself to give effect to this opinion, which has
had to go through the stages and seasons of seed
time, growth, ripening, and reaping—but at last,
the recent act of the Attorney-General for Ireland
—" monumentum sere perennius"—hasprovided " a
local habitation and a name" for a court in which
every owner of land in Ireland may have his title
certified and. made indefeasible. An admirable
code of procedure for the working of this court has
already been prepared, and I believe it will furnish
a satisfactory solution of the difficult question which
has for some time attracted public attention, viz.,
how to simplify the transfer of land, with complete
security of title, and without disturbing the settled
foundations of property. This is a subject upon
which we can now happily bring together the
teaching of knowledge and the testimony of expe-
rience. We have thoroughly tested the working
of the system now stereotyped in Ireland, and we
have the valuable and elaborate report of the recent
commission for England, which was presided over
by my esteemed friend and colleague, Mr. Walpole,
under whose watchful superintendence and by
whose assiduity the report was completed. In deal.
ing with the laws of property in a country whose
social system is consecrated to order and freedom,
we must proceed with cautious circumspection. It
is', doubtless, an easy matter to talk vaguely on
making land a commercial commodity, and dealing
with broad acres as with bales of merchandise. The
practical solution is quite another matter. The
question was put to Lord St. Leonards when he at-
tended as dwitness before a committee of the House
of Commons, of which I was the chairman. He was
asked by a very zealous reformer, " Why can't you
deal with land as with railway shares ?" "So you
may," replied his lordship, " if you choose to ignore
all the uses'of land in our social system, blitifthese
are to be presorved,the difference and the difficulty
exist in the distinctive nature and use of the things
compared." In truth, the common course of society
fuinishes the most intelligible explanation. When
itidustly or providence has accumulated capital, an
investment in land is generally sought, not for
commercial gain, but for social repose—for
the position and the privileges which belong
to fixed property. Land has its local limits ; it is
not capable of extension. Comm
its Commerce is co-extensive
with the wide world. Land has its system of tenan-
cies, its various easements, subordinate estates
and interests, its incumbrances and charges, its local
duties which accompany its acquired rights. Its
code of laws is more or less incorporated with the
delicate arrangements of family life. Is there any
subject which ought to be touched with a more
cautious hand ? Can we then preserve the settled
uses of property, and yet provide liberally, in the
present exigencies of society, for the wants which
arise out of the changes which naturally, if not ne-
cessarily, result from the increase of commerce and
the growth of manufacturing industry ? Can this
be done safely and satisfactorily ? Tne legislature
has already conceded to railway companies the right
to purchase land, and render their title indefeasible
by lodging the purchase money in a eourt of equity.
The notoriety of the transaction and the supervi-
sion of the court were supposed to be a sufficient
security for the rights of persons not privy to the
sale. Public convenience thus required, and the
Legislature thus conceded, what has become a Par-
liamentary title. Again, in Ireland it became a mat-
ter of great public policy to have encumbered estates
purchased by solvent proprietors, who might be ex-
pectedrght
s oftoproperty,
discharge
and therefore it was of great con-
se -pence in each case of a sale to clear the title and
free the property from its charges. This led to the
gradual formation of a suitable procedure, by means
of which titles were subjected to a sufficient scrutiny,
to enable the final conveyance to be made with an in-
defeasible title, and this has been found to be as saf©
'in practice as it was desirable in theory. The con-