The Sun.
London, England, 1850-09-23 00:00:00

in-Chief to treat them with unnecessary and
injudicious indulgence. - Events have demon-
strated the advantages secured by the appoint-
ment; and now that Sir CHARLES NAPIFR has
fulfilled not only general expectation, but his own
comprehensive intentions, he is about to resign his
great powers into the hands of his distinguished suc-
cessor, Sir WILLIAAr Gomm, and to return to Eng
land covered with new distinctions, both as a discipli-
narian and as a military administrator. We doubt
not that hi 3 welcome home amongst us will be to the
full as cordial as his brilliant career might justify
him in expecting, and that his sword at least mqy be
laid aside without any fear of its " rusting inglo-
riously."

Lord BROUGHAM imputes the delay of seventeen
years which has taken place in the passing of the
County Courts Bill to the fact that in this country
there is no Minister to mature measures of reform,
superintend the administration of justice, and direct,
initiate, control, and carry into effect schemes for the
amendment of the law ; and indeed the mode in which
the Bill recently passed was introduced into Parlia-
ment, and dealt with by the Commons, Lords, and
Ministers of the Crown, is in itself a strong argu-
ment to prove the necessity which exists for some
such responsible public functionary. " The Bill of
1833," remarks the Noble and Learned Lord, in his
letter to Lord DENMAN," which I endeavoured to pass,
and only lost by a majority of one in the Lords, is at
length the law of the land. Its history is a little sin-
gular, and shows how capricious and uncertain our
legislation is on the most important cf all subjects ; and,
I am clearly of opinion, capricious and uncertain be-
cause we have not a Minister of Justice." The Bill
was introduced into *the House of Commons by a
Member unconnected with the Government; and it
passed the Lower House without the clauses giving
concurrent jurisdiction to the superior courts and an
appellate jurisdiction, which had formed parts of
the Ministerial Bill of 1833. These clauses were
inserted by the Lords at the instance of Lord
BROUGHAM, and they were afterwards agreed to by
the House of Cammons. Now it must be admitted
that a measure of such vast importance to the commer-
cial community and the legal profession ought to have
been introduced by a Minister of the Crown, every
clause being fully weighed, and carefully drawn, in-
stead of being left in an immature form to the chance
medley of a Parliame.ntary Committee. What is
everybody's business is nobody's business ; and
it is obvious that many useful measures are now
marred, or altogether lost to the nation, because there
is not in England, as there is in most of the other
countries of Europe, a Minister of Justice. The
whole system of pleading in the superior courts loudly
calls for extensive alteration. Its prolixity and tech-
nical refinements—its delays—its uncertainty—its de-
feats of justice—its sacrifices of the real merits of
causes to rigid or subtle rules, and as a consequence
its incalculable expense—involving the vanquished
often in ruin, and leaving the victor, like the Cartha-
genian General, to say, " another such victory and I
am undone !"—all demand the most vigorous and
yet judicious treatment. " The law's delay" was
reckoned as one of the almost insupportable evils or
human life in the reign of ELIZABETH, and it cannot
be denied that cheap and speedy justice is still far
from being attainable at Westminster Hall. It
is known that a large portion of the Bar have been
for some years desirous of a change of system.
One recommends the abolition of special demurrers,
the arguments on which fill our modern reports,
another advises the total abolition of written pleadings,
a third points out how, by a modification of the ex-
isting system, justice can be administered in the
superior courts at a cheaper rate even than in the
new tribunals. The fees taken in the courts at
Westminster by masters, marshals, associates
judges' clerks, criers, and ushers, tend most consider-
ably to enhance the costs of law suits; some of these
offices might be dispensed with altogether, and the
fee's in the cases of the others ought to be very
materially reduced. The practice of the courts, too,
might with great advantage to the public be revised,
simplified, and cheapened. Now, why is it that
these changes, obviously so essential to the interests
of society, have been allowed to remain unac-
cemplished ? Is it not because there has
been no one individual vested 'with authority,
possessing the qualifications for such a task,—
eminent talent, enlightened by the principles of
jurisprudence, great exprience in the practice of the
law, and matured judgment—charged with the duties I
of Minister of Justice? Lord MANSFIELD, whose
dictum that the substantial rules of pleading " are
founded in strong sense, and in the soundest and
closest logic," is often quoted by the disciples of
WENTWORTH, CHITTY, and STEPHENS, admits, in the
same sentence, that they were often made use of as
instruments of chicane; would it not be a labour
worthy of the highest ambition to devise some means
to retain all that is valuable and practically conducive
to the ends of justice in the system of pleading, and
yet to provide against its being perverted to the pur-
pose of injustice and chicanery ? Lord BROUGHAM,
in concluding the letter which has suggested these re-
marks, with a spirit which reminds us of days that
are past, alluding to the dignity of such a work, ob-
serves—

"Let us briefly pause to consider of how noble a na-
ture are those efforts to amend the law, which we aro
assiduously pressing upon the Legislature. Assure.lly it
can have no more imperative duty; but also, it is a duty
the rigorous and successful performance of which must
so certainly redound to great and lasting glory that one
is astonished to witness the neglect of it. For whom do
men in all ages most honour? Renowned lawgivers;
and if his ❑ame is ever held in grateful remembrance,
who without the embarrassment of existing but ill-con-
trived institutions, and the obstruction offered by long-
cherished and deeply-rooted prejudices, laid the founda-
tions of a system, how much more transcendant must
be the merit, and how much more brilliant the fame of
those, who, extirpating inveterate error, sweep away
consecrated abuse, and dispelling pernicious obscurity,
make the law a living letter, the protection of right and
the scourge of wrong—the support by a nobler than
Roma❑ charity of its parent Justice! These are the
greatest monuments the rulers of mankind can kayo be-
hind them. When Constantine called Trajan a wall-
flower, because his name as the founder was carved on
so many buildings, Bacon prefers • Adrian's view, whose
mind was to wrestle a fall with time,' in repairing its
ravages. Yet this, the wisest of mankind held a ter less
merit than forming colleges and lectures for education;
and that again seemed to him as nothing, compared with
establishing of good laws, which makes a whole nation
to be a well-ordered college or foundation.' "

Some months ago a Commission was issued by the
Crown to inquire into the practice and pleadings of
the superior courts of law. How much more likely
such a Commission would be to produce good fruit if
it were under the direct superintendence of an effi-
cient high officer of state ! The great work of Chan-
cery reform has been begun : Mr. TURNER'S Bill, the
object of which is to provide an easy, speedy, and
cheap method of obtaining the Courts' opinion on dis-
puted points where the facts are admitted, has passed
this year ; but what a herculean task still remains to
be performed in the Court of Chancery—not to mention
the many other matters that call for the interference
and patient scrutiny of the law reformer ?

"It may be wrong," says Lord Brougham, "to
say, nothing has been accomplished—but it is cor-
!Tett to say that what remains to be done is of
incomparably greater importance; and moreover it is in
many respects exactly what there ought to have been
the
BleaansktrudpitfficLualwtys in effecting. We have amended
wperoceedings in Equity re-
main to be reformed. made provisions,
abridge the stylo of
to secure general
useful, though paltry enouh tha"
our statutes; we have don©'
nothi
angucomposition. We
to
enisdiction for our
miti-
gatedm?feovi7avienthe
superintendence of their structure
have give
appellatesootulhee rwcbonu somewhat
try.
we
Court
have
tc created aRt eedy :we
fxocre
tl
he
Ine.
et
mother
Plantations: we have
the severity of the criminal code:
no security to the public that offenders shall be broughtn
to justice. We have digested the law of debtor and
creditor: the law generally, and above all the criminal
law, remains undigested, both common and statute. It
seems almost as if we had, not perhaps begun at the
wrong end, but certainly applied ourselves to remove
the least urgent evils, and certainly chosen to attempt
the things that were the most difficult, and in striving
after which we were likely to be both the most reluc-
tantly supported end the most strenuously opposed."
The tardy progress of law reform—the fruitless ex-
penditure of 100,0001. in preliminaries for a Digest of
the Criminal Law—the uncertainty and confusion
which is necessarily occasioned by leaving the prac-
titioners of the law and the administrators of justice
to pick up law, " as pigeons peas," from musty folios,
antiquated authors, obscure reports, and contradictory
statutes, instead of placing before them an authorised
code—the chicanery to which the system of pleading,
and more especially of special demurrers, affords a
covert for—the expense, vexation, and prolixity of the
forms of proceeding in the superior courts—the com-
plexity of the rules which tire there enforced—the