The Sun.
London, England, 1844-05-13 00:00:00

MOUSE OF LORDS.

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Their Lordships met at Five o'Clock.
Messengers from the Commons brought up several
Bills, which were read a first time.
The Earl of MINTO gave notice that he should
to••morrow move for a return of the services of her
Majesty's ship Queen while in the Mediterranean.
The Common Law Courts (Ireland) Bill passed
through Committee, and was ordered to be read a
third time on Friday.
The Common Law Courts (England) Bill also
passed through Committee, and was ordered to be read
a third time on Friday.
The Marquis of NOR MANBY postponed till to-
morrow his question relative to the appointment of
Mr. Gray to the Magistracy in Ireland.
Lord WHARNCLIFFE postponed his motion with
respect to the new Houses of Parliament till Friday
next.

Lord LYTTELTON presented a petition from
Worcestershirq against the union of the sees of St.
Asaph and Bangor.
RAILWAYS.

The Earl of MALMESBURY said he had not
quite understood, from . the answer which was given
by the Noble Earl, the President of the Board of
Trade, on Tuesday last, to the Noble Earl opposite
(Earl Fitzwilliam) respecting railways, whether
the Government intended to sanction the propositions
which were contained in the report which had been
made to the Government on the subject of railways,
which propositions involved very important principles.
The object of the first of these propositions was that
the public should be protected against paying too
high rates of passage, and the next was that the
profits on all railways should be limited to 10 per
cent., and that in certain cases the Government should
take the management of the railways. All example
in his opinion proved that it was inexpedient to place
such matters as railways under the manage-
ment of the Government of the country.
The speech of the Noble Lord had made a great im-
pression on the country; and he would ask whether
the Government purposed taking those matters, in
connexion with the railways, under their own
surveillance?

Earl DALHOUSIE was sorry that the Noble
Lord did not put the question before the House at an
earlier period. With respect to the right of the
railway companies to take a certain rate of profit, he
thought that the Noble Lord opposite ought to have
moved for a Committee to consider it. With regard
to the other question, in the event of a dividend not
reaching ten per cent., he thought that Government
should be at liberty tp purchase the lines under cer-
tain restrictions.

AiteitifeW;ords from Earl DALHOUSIE,

Earl FITZWILLIAM said, the point to whiCh he
wished to direct the attention of the. Government was
the recent survey which had been completed
of the United Kingdom in the establishment of any
particular line of railway.
The matter then dropped.
Lord LORTON said that after his return from

Italy he had seen that the Noble Marquis opposite
represented that he (Lord Lorton), Lord Roden, and
others, recommended Mr. O'Brien to the situation of
a stipendiary magistrate in Ireland. Mr. O'Brien had
distinguished himself peculiarly in the development
of some of the seditious publications which caused
so much mischief.

The Marquis of' CLANRICARDE did not wish
to throw the slightest imputation upon the character
of Mr. O'Brien, but still he she .uld say that he could
not at all see the propriety of appointing him as a
magistrate. The gentleman_ had some -property in
Roscommon, and then he (tb e Marquis of Clanri-
carde) had not the slightest objection to his being
appointed a magistrate, but he ertainly should strongly
protest against Mr. O'Brien being made stipendiary.
The Noble Lord opposite setmed to misunderstand
him. His (the Marquis of Clanricarde's) arguments
were not directed against Mr. O'Brien, but against
her Majesty's Government.
CRIMINAL LAW.

Lord BROUGHAM said that in rising to address
their Lordships on the subject of the criminal
law of the land, for the discussion of which
their Lordships had been summoned, he could
not avoid feeling very great anxiety, and some
apprehension, when he contemplated the very
great importance of the subject, much more
than he felt the difficulties that might surround the
task which he had imposed upon himself. He had to
state, its extenuation of the offence of putting himself
forward to begin this discussion—first of all that he did
so most reluctantly, for he had held himself away
from the subject, as the Noble and Learned Lord
on the Woolsack well knew, and he had often ex-
pressed his unfeigned disinclination to grapple with it
—that he had done all in his power to induce the
Noble and Learned Lord on. the Woolsack, with
his longer experience, with his greater capacity, and
his powerful influence, both with the Government
and their Lordships, and in the profession to
which he and his Learned and Noble Friend belonged
to, take this important task upon himself, but he had
refused. But. he (Lord Brougham) had no reason
to think that his-Noble and Learned Friend would
be adverse to the proposition with which
he was about to conclude, and he_ had no reason to
apprehend that any opposition would be shown to it by
the Government. The measure which he was about
to explain had originated in the seven reports of the
Common Law Commissioners, afterwards the Crimi-
nal Law Commissioners. That Commission was
appointed to enter fully into the consideration of
the criminal law of the land, with a view to
its being digested into one general code. He would
ask how much longer were they to remain with the
criminal laws scattered over so many statutes—to re-
main diffused among so many books, and floating
as it were, only in IVestminster Hall ? How much
longer were they to suffer the criminal law to re-
main thus diffused, thus locked up—that criminal
law :which they ordered, and commanded every
one of their subjects at his peril to disobey ?
It was at his peril to be ignorant of them. It was at
his peril through ignorance to disobey them. He knew
that many persons entertained prejudices, in his opinion,
utterly groundless against all attempts at digesting
the law of England—at making that law a written
text, instead of locking it up in the traditions of the
common law. Lord Mansfield, when at the bar, had
said that it was always better that the common
law should remain unwritten, because, said Lord
Mansfield, while it remains unwritten law it works it-
self pure by rules drawn from the fountains of Jus-
tice. He (Lord B.) approached these formulas with
veneration. He wished to qnaff of their streams, and
pluck some of those flowers which grew around their
margin— _

Juvat integr, os accedere fontes
Juvat que novos accedere flores.
Of the streams which flowed from those fountains he
wished them to quaff; and he asked them with him to
cull those new flowers. It did not follow that be-
cause the law was not wholly reduced to writing,
they were therefore not, encumbered with writ-
ing or printing. There were thirty-two quarto
volumes of public statutes, besides three times as
many private Acts, containing 30,000 printed pages,
and this was independent of the common law. Now,
let them look at the common law, on which Lord
Mansfield laid so much stress. It consisted of
the decision of the judges, who had to make
up their minds in nine cases out of ten about
conflicting decisions, and to apply their own
sense of what they knew to be the law, although it
might not be reduced to writing or clothed with the
authority of judicial authority. What was the
number of volumes of these decisions relating
only to common law, and excluding the courts of
equity which had accumulated since the year 1786,
the time when Lord Mansfield left the bench,
There were 160 closely-printed volumes of common
law reports, beside ten volumes of Nisi Prius decisions
proceeding from the three courts of common law in
Westminster Hall alone, without reckoning the Courts
of Equity or the Courts of Ireland ; and it was necessary
that the judges and the lawyers should be familiar
with this mass of printed matter painful to mention,
and frightful to contemplate. He held in his
hand a volume of three hundred closely-printed
pages, containing more print than the whole
of the code Napoleon, and what did their Lordships'
think it was ? Peradventure, it was a digest of the
whole of the common law ? No. Peradventure,
it was an index to the whole of the 160 volumes of
reports ? No such thing. It was an index to the
reports of the courts of Westminster-hall for one single
year, 1842. A digest of the reports for the last 90
years consisted of 8,000 closely printed pages, and all
those who had ceased to be students were bound, if
they could, to make their own, by purchase, all these
volumes, and to try to read them if they dared.
(LEFT SPEAKING.)