The Sun.
London, England, 1861-08-06 00:00:00

THE SUN.

LONDON, TUESDAY, AUGUST 6, 1861.

THE SESSION.

The Parliamentary Session of 1861 has been
brought to a close this afternoon. With how
much accomplished ? Well, after all, perhaps,
about as much as anyone could reasonably have
been led to expect from the exceedingly modest
programme set before both Houses in the Speech
from the Throne at the time of our Legislators
first coming together this year in February. As
we saw then would be the case, the go-by has
been given altogether to the scheme for the reform
of our whole system of popular representation. The
only notable reform, indeed, of any kind that has
been in any way attempted has been a law reform :
and that law reform we now recognise as even at
this moment at the best but partially accomplished.
What the Attorney-General, Sir RICHARD
BETHELL, began so well, the Lord Chancellor
WESTBURY has found himself unable to complete
to his own entire satisfaction. The whole Body of
the law, it is true, relating to Bankruptcy and In-
solvency, has been revised and reconstructed.
But the Head is still wanting to preside over the
newly organised Court of Bankruptcy. No
fault this, however, either of Her MAJESTY'S
Government or Her MAJESTY'S Opposition. The
responsibility of striking out the Chief Judgeship
devolves entirely upon the Select (and Secret) Com-
mittee of the House of Lords—rests exclusively with
the "big wigs," the law lords, principally ex-Chan-
cellors! The noble and learned Lords—while in
the very act of so doing—insisting, nevertheless,
with a marvellous inconsistency, upon not reducing
the present Commissioners (as the ex-Attorney-
General, the present Lord Chancellor, proposed)
from Eight to Five, but deciding peremptorily that
there shall yet remain these Eight Commissioners !
So that the " ecoaomy here is really for all the world
very much like the Irishman's blanket—a bit being
eut off one end, and tacked on the other end imme-
diately afterwards. The public must be spared the
cost of the Chief Judge forsooth—only to that it
may pay the more for the three additional Commis-
sioners ! So reason—upon the plea of economy !
the ex-Chancellors. By those potent, grave,
and—almost by reason of their solemnity—reverend
seigniors" the House of Commons has been
thus denied the luxury of spending another
annual £5,000 by way of salary to the proposed
new Chief Judge of the Court of Bankruptcy.
Encouraged probably to this fresh evidence of shal-
low economy by a recollec'zion of the House of Lords'
refusal last session to confirm the abolition of the
Paper Duties previously- decided upon by the House
of Commons--encouraged probably to this addi-
tional display of shallow economy (based upon the
" penny wise, pound foolish" principle) the law lords
decided in Select (and Secret) Committee upon
saving. £5,000 every year to the country by
rejecting the project fe r the creation of the Chief
Judge of the New Court of Bankruptcy.
It never occurred to tl le noble and learned lords,
probably, that by deducting £l,OOO a-piece from
their own pensions mile ironical censor might
have suggested that the new judge could still be
remunerated with not much injustice, certainly
with a due regard to the general economy in vogue
among the law lords—eve m supposing that their as-
toundingly improbable est imate be correct, namely,
that no more than 14 day: work out of every 365
could be found for the n( :wly-created functionary
so remunerated ! Assured ly the law lords ought to
be about the last persons to enveigh against the
extravagance of awarding ; £5,000 per annum for
the
Chief Judge of the n, 'w Court of Bankruptcy.
And among the law lords none ought to remain so
silent upon a subject of thi. 3 kind than the venerable
ex-Chancellors. Yet it has proved quite impossible,
apparently, for
the law lords, but especially for the
ex-Chancellors, to refrain from this almost unseemly
thowofparsimon3rin rejec /ing• as extravag ant the sug-
gestion that i 5,000 yes a, mum should be set down as
the salary of the chief iudtge, the working udge of
the new Court of Bankruptcy. Nor has this been
in any way a party movss • that the voices
of Lord GRAN WORTH ant N.:::gBROUGIIA3I have
been raised quite as potentially
oeslaoitqlinouns
living
eloquent,
s
that of Lord CHELM a SFORD, a, opposition
together with
these the voices also of that " old man
Lord LYNDHURST, and th at profoundest of
lawyers, Lord ST. LEON ARDS. Exactly 'Five ex-