The Sun.
London, England, 1857-02-11 00:00:00

mealy find its way there. With respect to the decision of
disputea which involved doctrinal points—disputes which
threatened, he would not say the disruption of the church,
:but to disturb its peace and union—he suggested that
these unhappy cases should he sent, in the first instance,
before a tribunal composed of competent persons to ob-
tain their opinion on these points, which opinion was not
to bind the declaims, but to convey information to the
Judicial Committee. Under the present law, also,
clergymen who conscientiously separated themselves
from the Established Bhurch and performed the service of
Protestant dissenters, were liable to be brought before
the diocesan within whose diocese they exercised the c ffice
of dissenting parsons, and to be dealt with by him in the
same way as if hestid belonged to the Established Church.
Holy orders were he knew considered to be indelible, but
if some provision could be introduced which, without in-
fringing on the principle of the indelibility, would give
relief in this respect to persons who separated from the
church, it would be a most wise and tolerant addition to
the bill. (Hear, hear.) He thought that common jus-
tice and expediency also reqnired that the expense! to
which bishops were put in prosecuting violations of
ecclesiastical discipline should be made good from Use
common fund. He was aware that in one case a right
reverend friend (the Bishop of Winchester) had to pay
between 5,0001. and 6,0001. as costs, not one farthing of
which could he by possibility recover. The inevitable
tendency of this was to prevent prelates from per-
forming their duty in respect to these cases. With regard
to the Marriage Bill ho was sorry it did not go farther
than it did, though as far as it went it was it, the right
direction. To take away from the wife the right of ap-
pearing in court, o• s -ing heard by counsel, whiLit the
husband in seeking for a divorce might be ruining her
character, was an injustice as crying and cruel as any
that a sated within the whole compass of the world. This
should be remedied ; but he hoped the right of action in
these cases of criminal conversation would be taken away
altogether. Seduction should be treated as a public
offence, and not as a private injury. He would cot
dwell on the state of the !aw as it affected the property
of married women, because he intended to introduce a
bill on that subject himself. (Hear.)
Lord WENSLEYDALE (who was very indistinctly
heard) said that the present was not the proper stage in
which one could make np his mind in regard to the de-
tails of the bill. He was per'ectly aware that some
clauses would reqeire further consideration. With re-
gard to the Testamentary Jurisdiction Bill, it was a great
advantage t i have only one court of probate instead of
the numerous petty jurisdictions which at present ei-
isted. It was also a great improvement, and a chief
merit of the bill, that no iew officers were to be created,
and that no large compensations were to be paid. These
were substantial advantages conferred by the bill, and in
what-respect it could be amended they would be better
able to say when they carne to consider its details.
The Bishop of OXFORD said that the bill which his
noble and learned friend sketched in the conclusion of
his speech, was not on the same subject-matter as the
Clergy Discipline Ac!-. The act dealt with persons who
bad remained in the church, and it would be batter not
to incorporate with that act provisions relating to those
who bad left the church, but to deal with the subject in
a separate measure. He trusted that the other mea-
byres that bad been sketched oct would be brought for-
ward seperate from the Church Discipline Bill. He hoped
the Lord Cnaneeilor would well consider the principle of
confining the decisions of the Privy Council to the legal
part of the question, without any reference to the theo-
logical. The latter part ought to be left to an ecclesi-
astical court constituted for the purpose. At present
the decisions of the Privy Council Committee had the
aspect of spiritual decisions. This ought not to be the
case ' • and the addition of more assessors to the court
would only increase the evil, for it would be impossible
to avoid the imputation that certain bishops had been
selected in order to secure a certain decision.

Lord CAMPBELL said—ln the case of a question
whether a clergyman had in his sermon contravened the
doctrines of the Thirty-nine Articles, the whole question
would have to be determined by the bishops, and the
decision of the Privy Council would be of no effect.
The Bishop of OXFORD explained. The doctrine of
the church was not to be found in one single article, but
to be gathered from a comparison of the whole. The
spiritual court would determine the particular doctrine ;
the Privy Council would be responsible for the decision.
The LORD CHANCELLOR did not think that there
would be any greater difficulty in having three or four
bishops sitting as assessors than in having them sitting
in a court by themselves. They would be appealed to by
the Judicial Committee, as the judges were when sum-
owned to their lordships' house. It should be remem-
bered that the question to be decided was always a legal
question— whether a party had violated the law. He
thought the inconvenience would be much less from hav-
ing the bishops sitting as assessors ; but be would give
the suggestion his consideration. With reference to the
observations of Lord Brougham, as to the judge of the
proposed court, he would remark that the judge would
only have one function to perform—to say whether he
was satisfied with the verdict, or whether there should
be a rehearing. He preferred one of the Vic.-i-Chanci-1-
fors as a judge, because he was always io L A
common law judge might perform the duty just as wed ;
but he was out of town for halt the year.
Lord BROUGIIA.M—Why not a vacation judge
The LORD CHANCELLOR said he had been a va-
cation judge, which his noble friend tad not been, and
he knew that the time of a vacation judge was most
fully occupieif —frequently from 10 o'clock till 6 or 7.
He could not admit that b,cause the Vice-Chanceil irs
might not be familiar with nisi hriui proceeding-,, there-
fore they were nr,t fit for this ';ffice.
The bills were then read a first time.
IMPROVENIENT OF NEW ACTS.

The LORD CHANCELLOR moved to refer the
second report of the statute law commission to a select
committee, in order to consider the propositions in that
report for the adoption of means to improve the manner
and lengt:tee of current legislation. The statute law
commission was one whose duty it was not merely to
o noolidate the statute law, but to devise means for ob-
taining simplicity and uniformity in modern acts. In
their second report, presented last year, they expressed
the opinion that a great advantage would be derived from
a better supervision in the progress of hi 14 through Par-•
liament—(hear)—that, in truth, a great portion of the,
evils of our statute book arose from the language of acts
being unnecesaarily verbose, and that WI; were passed
without due consideration of the mode in which the exist-
ing law affected them, and in which they affected the
existing law. That was the case when they were origi-
nally introduced ; the evil was still more aggravated by
Alterations innutnerahle being made in them in their
progress through Parliament. The introducer of a bill
was often troubled with applications from a variety of
parties, and when he found that he could c 'ncidate op-
position by adopting some new clauses, he was apt to do
so, and material alterations not contemplated at the time
were made. He proposed that an officer shonld be ap-
pointed, with a sufficient staff—at least one or txo per-
sons under him—whose duty it should he to attend to all
bill: that were referred to him, and to report exactly w bat
the stale of the eels, kg lase was, and how the, proposed
alterations weld I aff_ct the existing law. With that ad-
vantage, me:nbers might :Pore satisfactorily come to a
decision whether measures ought or ought not to pass. It
would be pre-eminently part let the duty of such officer,
aft- r a bill had been Ihroegh committee, to xainine it,
and report immediately to the house what had been
done by the committee The most discreditable mid
takes were made for want of some such supervision.
Only in the very last session of Parliament (and be took
',baffle to hirnsslr, for the bill came more less under his
o n cognisance) a County C.mrt: Act was passed,which
said that the judges should receive the salaries) mentioned
in the schedule. They were enumerated in the schedule,
and sums set against their names ; but by some over-
sight, the readies of tso were omitted. The bill passed
the other house in tbat form ; and it came back to their
lordebips with nil opposite the names of two of the
judges ; and as that house had no power to remedy it,
questions of money belonging to the House of Corn
mons, it pearled in that form. That was a most ridicu-
lous oversight. Ile knew not how the Treasury had
dealt war, those persons, whether they had assumed that
they ewe to hare the same salaries as their colleagues
or not. (A. laugh.) He was ashamed to say that in the
same session an act had been passed for improving the
Scotch Bankruptcy Acts, in which certain proceedings
were to he carried on according to the Urns in the ecl-
elule set forth. But there was no schedule at all. (Hear )
Toe reference, no doubt, had been put in in committee.
In 1851 On 1852 an act was passed, which was to come
into force on the last day of next Trinity Term. It
passed in Trinity Term, so that it referred to Trinity
Term in the next year ; and it was necessary to pass
another act to set it right. Besides these blunder.,
there was a very inconvenient mode of thrusting clauses
into bills with which they had no connection whateve.
In the 20:;h Geo. 11. a b 11 was passel for the better
col-
lection of the duties upon windows ; and in that act
was introduced a clause, "Be it enacted that, w herev, r
in any Act of Pa,l amp, t nient.onei, it
shall he deemed to include `Vales and Berwick-
upon-Tweed." Net- long ago, Lord St. Leopards
had complained that a certain bill referred to &g-
-and only, this oil enactment having escaped his atten-
tion. That was an anomaly that ought to be remedied.
At present there was a ma-s of legislation passed every
year, of which a very small portion consisted of acts that
were to be a pers.anent guide of conduct, the rest con-
sisting of local and personal acts, acts relating to certain
departments of the government ; and all thse formed
part of the statute-book. According to an observation
made by Mr. Coulson, that applied to no less than four-
fifths of the legislation of the year. Therefore, it was
proposed that the bills ghoul I be classed, so that those
which were permanent rules of conduct should be sepa-
rated Irons the rest. These again would be subdivided,
according as they releted to England, Ireland, the United
Kingdom, or the colonies ; so that our yearly legislation
might not be that confused mass which it was now too
apt to be. With a view to introduce this amendment he
proposed that both Fouses should refer bids to select
oehitifittees, empowering those committees to communi,
e with each other. The great etject would be to
have th 6 'ama officer attached to both houses, so as to
reduce the e
two honses.lS""' and
prevent collision- between the
trussed that this was a move in the
right direction ; and thcugh it might not seem a very
important measure at first, he hoped that, in its imme-
diate and ultimate operation,
it would lead to the very
best results.
Lord CAMPBELL
db.adra
fl.reat pleasure in giving his
to the Prof" e emus..
support The state of the bills
now passed was most discreditable •
other judge; wag a.pgereat portion
of his time and that of
l of r
the
attinertTiacnthetadrnyciige.
to reconcile their contradpi::,;(n)ssa.
greatest benefit from the
lor being carried into effect.
,Formerly he found that
bills were frequently committed to the law officers of the
Crown, the judges, and other persons not members of
that house, in order to report upor. their legal effect.