Star.
London, England, 1827-02-28 00:00:00

had found fault with the manner in

'con of Chancery remaioed in the same state--no
diminution of the immense arrear, which wet* disgrace
In the country, as well as ruin to the suitors. The
Chancellor had tried two experiments; they had both
fa
ila,i—and now he was willing to try a third, which
would fail also. He would tell the Right Hon. Gent why
he did not propose to remove the bankruptcy from the
Court of Chancery; the reason was, it was too profit-
,,bie;—if it had not been so profitable, it would have
gone long ago: The Commissioner: said very little
swot the bankrupt business, which was so profitable to
* Coon of Chancery. The reason was, the Chancel•
kg was himself a Commissioner, the others also were all
;Awn, and his Lordship has all the patronage of the
la, and is besides a very pleasant Gentleman. Who
toold refuse to agree to him? he had no doubt the
Might Hon. Gentleman was taken in as well as the rest.
great laugh). The Right Hon. Gentleman had
kept back the real features of the case—he had kept the
dozen foot out of sight. He did not use the term
doyen foot unkindly—(Great laughter.) He was
toofident that a man of one-third of the abilities of
tad Eldon, with plain common sense and decision,
(told get through all the arrears in the Court of Chan-
ainy, which this Bill would never effect. Was it to be
sad in the nineteenth century that there was no man in
*country fit to execute the high trust but the Noble
Lard? He was confident that the only means of expo-
ang the business of bankruptcy would be to separate
it from the Court of Chancery. if Ministers were
afraid to depend on thetalents of those who voted with
them, he begged them to turn their eyes to his side of
the House. The Court of Chancery was an important
object to every man in the country, none of them could
know bow soon they might be brought into that
Court, from which they could never escape.—(Laugh-
ter.) Nothing proposed to be done by the present
Bill that the Lord Chancellor could not have done of
his own authority, if delay was not the object. Every one
whoread the public papers must know the state of the
Court. A Solicitor told him, that he had had a cause set
down for judgment in the paper fifty times. Another had
told him, that after having a cause in the Court five
years, he advised his client to refer it, as it was nut
likely ever to be decided in Chancery. He did refer it,
and it was settled in five months. In another cause be
bet; a person to take 20,0001. instead of 25,5001. for
which he bad a decree, rather than risk an appeal. An
eminent Solicitor had proved before the Commission,
that it was a common termination of suits in Chancery
for the Solicitors on both sides to unite in application
to the Court to have the property in dispute divided
between them, in part payment of their cost (Hear,
hear.)-We were very sparing of money in the present
Bill, but he understood that anotherVice-Chancellor was
to be appointed. Lord Hardwicke had 41: manyßills filed
in his Court as the present Chancellor, but Lord Eldon
said he had not so many motions. Let the bankruptcy;
business be separated from the Court of Chancery, and
that would at once diminish the motions. He should
not object to the bringing in of the Bill, but he pledged
himself to persevere in endeavouring to obtain a Parlia-
mentary enquiry into the teal causes of the ruinous de-
lays in the Court of Chancery.
Mr. D. W. HARVEY would not venture to say
that there was no use in a Court of Equity; but he
would say that it was better to be without one, than to
have one framed like the present Court, which, among
its other evils, usurped the usages of the Courts of
Common Law—(Hear). The Report of the Corm-
missioners had disappointed the Profession and the
Public. The two great evils of delay and expense were
but triflingly remedied, for out of the 180 clauses in the
intended Bill,to be founded on the 180 propositions of the,
Commissioners, there was no one that facilitated the pro-
ceedings, and only two that lessened the expense. But
even these were no saving to the Public, for the Masters
were to be compensated for the loss of this Bd. fee;
and the 20,0001. per annum, paid to the Masters, saved
in this way, was to be spread over the thousands of sui-
tors to this endless Court. The whole system of Bank-
mptey Commissioners ought to be broken up and re
modelled. The Commissioners (70, at .5001. per annum)
were more intent on making fees, and seeking perquisites,
than upon administering justice, and were either imp
perienced young men, for whom 5001. per annum was a
pretty annuity ; or stultified old men—the refuse of the
profession. There ought to be five competent Judges
appointed, at a salary (without fees) of 50081. per
annum; and the country would be benefitted, and
the supply of much of the Chancery evils cut off. The
Court of Exchequer ought also to be broken op ; at
present it was a nursery of old women--(Hear). Judges
ought to be appointed competent and learned in Equity,
to whom the real property and bankruptcy business of
the Chancery should be referred. The Vice-Chancellor
alto ought to have a separate jurisdiction. The Loici
Chancellor should have an appellant (but not an origi-
nating) power over all their proceedings. At present
he was weighed down by the mass of business, making
from 151. to 201. on each bankruptcy, pocketing and
netting from bankruptcy fees alone about 28,0001. pa
annum.

Mr. H. BANYES assured the Hon. Member, that the
Noble and Learned Loed's fees were but 11. 2s. on each
bankrupt case, and that the income was at the utmost
50001. from bankruptcy fees. He (Mr. Bankes) was one
of those Gentlemen who fell under the unjust anima&
unions of the Hon. Gentleman, helot; a Commissioner
of Bankrupts.
Mr. J. SMITH could bear the testimony of much
personal experience in bankruptcy cases, to the evils of
delay and expense consequent upon their present mode
of proceeding. As to the Lord Chancellor himself, he
was weighed down in the mass of business. He has
more to do, and did more, than any man in the empire
—(Hear, hear).
Mr. BROUGHAM lamented, that there was no
Meru* of the Commission present to answer, if any
answer could be given, to the able speeaes of the Hon.
Members for Colchester and Durham. He thought the
time was now come for doing what his Hon. Friend
(ilr. Williams) had recommended three years ago.—
That was to refer the abuses of the Court of Chancery
to a Committee, instead of suffering them to continue
as such a mockery of juspce as he verily believed was
sever before suffered to exist in any other country on
this earth—(Hear, bear, hear). We were now at the
end of three years, in the same state as we were
at the commencement. Still no man could say he
was disappointed. No min could suppose that the
Commission as it will appointed, could effect any
tefurmation. Even the Ministers, before whom he
was now speaking, had smiles playing on their lips when
they succeeded in forming such a Commission with the
Noble Lord, the crinduct of whose Conn was to be en
quired into, with the Vice Chancellor, the Master of the
bolls, and Masters in Chancery and Commissioners of
Bankruptcy in abundance-4U persons who had been

promoted by him, and looking to still further promo.'
tion. It was said the Chancellor never took the Chair.
He was too able a tactitian to go to the Commission.
beating his breast, weeping salt tears, talking of his
conscience and his poverty, that he would have no
more than a million and a half to leave his family, be-
sides his good name, which was now in their hands. He
did no such thing. He did not make himself so cheap ;
he went but seldom, but all his clients ran with his
eyes. They neither wished to condemn the system nor
the man, and they did neither. It was admitted that
the Lord Chancellor could have made all the
im-
provements suggested by his own order; but it was now
proposed to make the improvements by Bill, and to
give the Chancellor a suspending power. Parliament
was not to venture to legislate without giiing the Lord
Chancellor a power to dispense with all their proceed.
ings. His belief was, and it was the opinion of the
ablest and profoundest men in the profession, that it
was the man, the individual Judge, more than the sys-
tem, that was the cause of the delay and all its miseries
—(Hear.)—No man formed an opinion more promptly,
nor held it faster, but he had an unfortunate infirmity
that pr:vented his making up his mind and acting on
' that opinion—(Hear, hear.)—lt was said he had
more business to do than any man could do; the conse-
quence must be, that what be was not bound to do
at a particular time would be left undone. Besides
all the business of the Court, he had much to do in the
House of Lords, in the Cabinet, with Ministers, and
with his Sovereign, besides having a large fortune to
manage, and much patronage, both legal and clerical,
is dispense, the consequence must be that some ponies
of his business would be neglected, and that would be
the business of the suitors in his Court—(Hear, hear).
In the case of Mr. Norton's bankruptcy, in the year
1820, five creditors, whose debts amounted to 4471.
petitioned the Court of Chancery against the other cre-
ditors, whose debts amounted to 20,000 i. The proceed.
ings on the petition were still going on, the expense was
5,0001. The whole estate was still hung up in Chancery,
and the brief of the Right Hon. the Master of the Rolls
weighed not in the scales of justice or of equity, but in
the scale of the tallow chandler they weighed no less
than 25 pound ',whether troy or averdupois was not said.
(Laughter). Much had been done for the Lord Chancel-
lor; a Vice-Chancellor had been appointed, and a
Speaker in the House of Lords, but still the arrear of
business in his Lordship's Court increased, though in
the days of Lord Thurlow and Lord Loughborough,
arrear was never heard of. Lord Eldon appeared to
be one of those sovereigns who could bear no brother
near the Throne, other wise be would have recommended

the Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and other
eminent persons in the profession, to the honours of the
Peerage. He could now be surrounded by persons in
the House of Lords whescarsistance would prevent the
appellant jurisdiction of that House from becoming a
matter of ridicule. He would however say of Lord
Eldon, that of all the Judges before whom he had ever
practised, Lord Eldon was most agreeable to the prac-
titioner. He only discharged his duty in the observe.
tions he had made, and bore no enmity towards the'
Noble Lord.--(Hear, hear!)
The AITORNEY-GENERAL said, it appeared to
Nat, from all be had heard from the Gentlemen oppo-
site, that, so far from the Lord Chancellor having done
too little, he bad absolutely effected more than it seemed
Nu
for the faculties of any one man to accomplish.
Nis Learned Friend who bad last spoken. seemed to
think, that the amenity of Lord Eldon's manners had
entirely -subdued the Commissioners, and rendered
them perfectly subservient to the views of the Noble
Lord ; but certainly appeared, that his Learned
Friend himself bad fallen a victim to the same sort
of fascination; for, repeatedly, in the course of his
speech, when be was apparently on the point of
making some ill-natured observation on the Noble
Lord, he checked himself, and thus 'hewed that
even he could not make up his mind to say any
thing disrespectful or unkind of the Lord Chancellor.
His Learned Friend had blamed the Lord Chancellor*
for not acting as Chairman of that Commission. Now,
he thought his Lordship acted very properly, in de-
clining any such interference. If he had acted in that
capacity, it would have been immediately asserted that
he had done so for the purpose of overawing the Com-
mission, and that be had neutralized and paralyzed
their exertions. The Commission, he contended, had
kept the pledge which had been originally given.
They had called in the assistance of the most able and
efficient persons, and their labours appeared in these
180 propositions, which had the recommendation of the
Lad Chancellor, of the Vice-Chancellor,(which, as his
learned Friend. had so highly complimented that
Learned Judge, would, he supposed, carry some weight
with it), and of many other eminent Lawyers. The
question, then, was, whether these Resolutions were
such as the House ought to legislate on? He thought
they were. One of the great causes of complaint
was the delay which took place in the Masters
office, because there was no controlling power by
which the Master could compel the Solicitor to pro-
ceed speedily. That evil was remedied by one of these
resolutions, which gave the Master power to compel the
solicitor to proceed within a prescribed time. His
Liarned Friend bad declared that this report was a.
niorickery, that the judgment of the Commissioners had
been seduced by the conciliating manners of the Lord
Chancellor, and that they had in consequence framed a
Report which amounted to nothing. But if his Learned
Friend had read these resolutions, he was inclined to
believe that he would have arrived at a different con-
clusion. His Learned Friend had observed, that no
person had risen to defend those propositions. The
fact was, that the parties on the other side bad not fixed
on any point to be answered. The late Learned Member
for llchester (Mr. J. Williams), whose absence he
regretted, would have found it a difficult matter to
shake the basis on which these propositions were
founded; and he (the Attorney-General) was sure that,
if that Learned Gent eman could not effect his object,
he had left nobody behind who was capable of effecting
it. It was made matter of complaint, that is dispensing
power would be granted under this Bill, enabling the
Lord Chancellor to elter the resolutions as circum-
stances might warrant. Now, according to the consti-
tution r:f all the Courts in ‘Veitminster Hall, the
Judges might Atter the practical rules of the different
Courts when they were bound inconvenie .t. Here there
were 188 resolutions, and if any one of them was
bound not to work well, he knew not bow it could be
altered, unless a power for that purpose were regu-
larly vested in the Coon. It would be absurd, to
think thAt a system of resolutions could be framed
which would never require varying; and. no one
was better able to decide when such variation might be
convenient th..n the individual who presided. over the
Court. The Hoc. and Learned Gentleman opposite

4jorisdiction of the House of Leeds was toe et
MK. bit
it was riot Lord Eldon's fault that there was so"
small an attendance of Peers on these occasions, nar
would it, perhaps, be decorous in that House to call
in question the mode in which the other House might
feel disposed to perform their peculiar duties. The
general opinion, both of Wesminster-hall and the pub.
lic, was in favour of the resolutions • and when the Bill
came to be examined in detail, he Chould be happy to
enter into a more particular and minute explanation of
the reasons of the regulations.
Mr. Secretary PEEL then spoke to the following
effect—After the attention of the House having been so
long called to the protracted debate upon the present
subject, it certainly is not my intention to create any on•
reasonable delay in coming to a decision upon it—parti.
cularly, as the luniinous speech of my Right Hon. Friend
has rendered many remarks from me unnecessary. No
roan, under any circumstances, could be more incom-
petent to discuss the 180 propositions of the Commis-
sioners than I could be, even if my leisure permined me
to give them the consideration they deserve ; but I will
fairly own that other occupations-occupations for which
I am more immediately responsible—have prevented me
from giving mach attention to their merits. I, there-
fore, necessarily leave them to be considered .and can-
vassed bythose whose professional avocations enable them
to form more correct opinions than I could possibly do.
But there is one subject connected with this part of the
Report, on which I am desirous of making a single ob-
servation. Every man, whether he be a Chancery
lawyer or not, must be aware of the many difficulties
that exist with respect to titles to property ; and every
man who reflects upon it must regret the many modes
of annoyance, and the many means of protracting de-
cisions, which it is in the power of interested persons to
place in the way of this particular branch of law. The
subject is evidently most worthy of consideration.
There is then one passage in the Report, and indeed it is
the only one of which any man is able to judge, in the
spirit of which I cordially concur, and to which I would
earnestly call the attention of the House. The Cotimis-
sioners state, that no person in any degree experienced in
the practice of theConrts of Equity can be ignorant of the
difficulties and uncertainties that lie in the way of titles
to property; and they venture to submit to his Majesty
the propriety of appointing some competent person, and
at the same time, some person of experience, toexamine
into the state of the law on this subject, with a view to
narrow the expense, and to prevent the delays which
have heretofore encumbered it. In this recommendation

I cordially concur ; but I think the topic ought to be
approached with due caution. Now, I have received
offers of service from several very able and distinguished
individuals,well acquainted With it, and I do not despair,
with their assistance (devolving, however, upon a few
persons, and those as I have said, persons of great
weight and experience) to devise some means by which
those views of the Commissioners may be completely

_ .
met, the expenses materially lessened, and the delays in a
great degree prevented; and I believe the appointment
of such a Commission would meet with the approbation
of the House. I now feel myself called upon so notice
some of the observations of the Hon. and Learned
Gentleman opposite, who has spoken in terms of great
asperity of the Lard Chancellor, and in doing do, I beg
first to say that I am not, any more than he is, under
the slightest persoual obligation to that distinguished
individual. 11, therefore, I attempt to vindicate him
from some of the aspersions which have been so lavishly
heaped on him, I do so because I think myself bound to
do justice to one whose colleague in the Government I
have the honour to be. I hope, at the same time, the
House will bear in mind that the attacks of the Hon.
and Learned Member for Winchelsea, were made upon
that Noble Lord in his absence.

Mr. BROUGHAM interrupted the Right Honourable Secre-
tary, by stating, that be was authorised to make what obserratioas
he thought fit, with reference to a Minister of State, notwithstand.
ing that be was of necessity, absent. Surely such an observation as
that of the Right Honourable Member was, may the least, trilling.
Mr. PEEL continued—l do not deny the right so to
do; but I mean, therefore, to conclude, that, for this
reason, it becomes the additional duty of those, with
whom he is associated, to appear for him ; and that this
fact gives me a more perfect right to say what I can
say, in his defence. And when the Honourable Mem.
ber for Durham (Mr. M. A. Taylor) cheers this in.
terruption, I will remind my Honourable Friend (if
he will permit me to call him so) of his having stated
that we should be tender in our attacks upon Solicitors,
because they could not defend themselves, and were not
present to do so. The cases of the Lord Chancellor,
and of the Solicitors, are certainly widely diffetent ; but
upon this principle I act, and only ask the House to
hear my defence of the Noble Lord, because he is not
himself here to make it. At the same time, I will state
that I never denied the right of any Hon. Member to
criminate him if he pleased. First, then, it was not, in
my opinion, quite fair or right of the onourable and
Learned Gentleman to throw that disparagement on
the Noble Lord, because of the fortune be has gained
in the public service. I appeal to himself, in his cooler
moments, to decide if he were justified in so alluding ?
Was it right in him to speak of his fortune as interfering
with the duties of his office ? Or, was it right in the
Hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. D. W. Harvey) to
declare (upon what authority I know not) that this
fortune had been swelled by the enormous annual sum
of 20,0001. accruing from the bankruptfy department
of his duties? I believe a statement of the emoluments
of the Lord Chancellor was some time since laid before
the House, and if my recollection of this statement be
correct, I am justified in saying, it was wrong to assert
that the Noble Lord received such a sum, or any sum
at all in proportion to it. I believe, also, that the Lord
Chancellor has paid, and continues to pay, 2,5001. a
year as part of the salary of the Vice Chancellor, and (I
may,perhaps, be under an erroneous opinion, but I shall,
doubtless, be corrected if 1 am) that the total amount of
the Lord Chancellor's income, including that which
arises from bankruptcies, and from every other
duty that he performs, does not exceed 14,0001.—that
indeed it is estimated at 13,5001. about two thirds of

the sum which the Hon. Member for Colchester asserted
he derived from bankruptcies al .t e. And when you
recollect that this income is derived from the first prize

in the lottery of a profession, yoo will not, I imagine,
consider it as by any means inadequate to the labour
and the time which must be expended in obtaining it.
The Hon. and Learned Gentleman (Mr. Brougham) also
stated, or pes haps I should say intimated, that the Noble
Lord had been guided in conferring offices upon the
other Judges of the country, by narrow feelings and,
'selfish c.snsiderations. I believe the Hon. and Learned
Member was wrong in forming such an opinion-1
believe it to be formed without consideration, or, at all
`events, without proof, and particularly with reference
to the Lord Chief Justice of the Court of !Ling'si

littels. in whose eulogy. as prosonnted by Re
Hon.
and Learned Member, I perfectly agree. Re does,
beyond all question. discharge the duties of hh high
office in a way that would do honour to any Judge
who has at any time held. or at any time may hold it,
and it is therefore that I believe to be altogether with.
out foundation, the idea that the Noble and Learned
Lord has thrown obstacles in the way of his advance-
ment, from any fear of him. If the Lord Chancellor
had been subject to any such fear, it would have been
more likely to have operated aginst a late Noble and
Learned Lord (Gifford), who was of his own Court,
and of whom it would have been more reasonable that
he should have entertained a dread of rivalry; yet was
this Noble Lord preferred by his recommendation to
the high office which be held at his death. Neither
can it be said, that the Lord Chancellor had advanced
this Noble Lord to act as a foil to to his own splendid
talents; for, be it recollected, that, in preferring him,
he preferred a man, who had been held out by the Hon.
and Learned Member himself, as the model of what he
sameld wish a Lord Chancellor to be—who, according
So his own showing, bad a knowledge of his profession.
a quieknenim dispatch. and a disposition to labour,
Miss easeliel in any Judge, and who bad been thus
elewlei br tat Hon. and Learned Member for the
of depreciating the Lord Chancellor, by whose
mews be had been raised to the high station he enjoyed.
The Hon. and Learned Member, in pronouncing sa
proud a panegyric on one who has been prematurely
taken away from us, has pronounced a more true
panegyric on the Lord Chancellor, who promoted
him, and has tbss removed the stigma he attempt•
ed to cast in insinuating or insetting that the Lord
Chancellor was guilty of the pitapat's of obstructing
to the elevation to the Peerage those who were cape-
hie of contending with him, and of being his rivals.
The Honourable Member, in the cour.e of his very
severe animadversions on the Commissioners, went so
_ _

far as to say, that when cestain Members were proposed
to form it, there were smiles upon the faces of the
Ministets of the Crown, as if they despised the object of
it at the moment they consented to its appeiatment.—
I, for one, deny, that there is any foundation for such
a charge. Possibly, when the Honourable Member
for Lincoln spoke of the gravest of his Majesty's Chap-
lains being disturbed in their gravity bay such appoint.
meats, a degree of merriment might have been excited
but that smiles, if there were smiles, were intended to ex-
press a feeling that the Commission was either con.
temptible or useless, I will most strenuously deny, I.
for one, assented to the appointment of that Coos•
mission. in the firm belief that it might be beneficial,
and in thehope that it would honestly discharge its duty.
Be it remembered, that our choice lay between a Corn,
mission moved for by the Hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr.
IJ. Williams), after a speech of bitter and crimina.or y
attack on the Lord Chancellor, and soCommission ohich
had for its object to prevent the delay, and to lessee the
expense which had arisen in this Court. I will not deny
that I believed this delay, and this expense. might have
been lissened and prevented, and I w as, the►efote, ready
to give my vote for the appointment of a Commission
composed of persons whom I thought fitted for the
discharge of the duty which devolved upon them, ands!
persons capable of watching that that duty was per-
tormed. But I never could have consented to the ap-
pointment of a Commission criminating the Lord Chan.
cellar. after having bend the speeches of both the
Mover and the Seconder of the motion by which such
Commission was proposed. Why, the Honourable
and Learned Member has, this very evening; declared
that it was not the system he found fault with but the
man—surely then that object of such Commission was
not to improve the system, but to criminate a man. I
thank Lion that the House did not agree to appoint a
Commission for such a purpose; I thank Got► that the
British House of Commons did mot yield to so degrad-
ing a proposal— a proposal to humiliate the Lord High
Chancellor of England, to drag him from his Court, and
to expose him to obloquy and. contempt. lithe House of
Commons had agreed to appoint such a Commission,
I hope the Lord Chancellor would have known the re-
spect due to his high office, and to his personal charac-
ter, too well to have retained the seals one moment
atter ; that if he had been called to an examination of
so degrading a nature, be would have appeared to ca-
lmer it as a private individual—that he would have in-
stantly abandoned his situation, and have brought the
seals with him to lay them down for ever, before those
who were so constituted his judges. So much then for
the remarks which I have this evening heard passed
upon the character and conduct of the distinguished in-
di►idual who fills the highest judicial office in this coun-
try. And now let me notice the other term► in which I
have heard this man spoken of in this House, this eves-
ing.Di ffie ult indeed it is to reconcile such strange contra-
dictions as those to which Ism about to allude, and those
to which I have referred. I have heard the Hon. Member
for Colchester say, in the course of a very able speech—
a speech which gave tokens of much talent, information,
and research—" that it was unjust to impute to the
man what properly belonged to the system, and that
while he found fault with the system, be only found
fault with the man for continuing it." And then he
summed up all in this emphatic sentence—" Though
his decisions are slow, they are sure, and the security of
them amply compensates for the delay in giving them
forth." This Hon. Member was followed by another,
who is not a lawyer, but a merchant—the Hon. Mem-
ber for Midhurst (Mr. J. Smith) and his opinion of the
Lord Chancellor was this, that " no man in England
had so much to do, and that no man In England
had done so much." He was followed by the Hon.
and Learned Gentleman, the Member for Wincbelsu,
whose sense of justice compelled him to speak of
the Noble and Learned Lord, in the following terms,
"In the whole course of my experience, and that has
been very great, of all the Judges under whom I have
acted, I sever met one so satisfactory as the Lord Chan-
cellor, became of his exemplary patience, his great sr-
banity and the singular decision with which he is en-
abled to detect the slightest fallacy—and if he have
a fault, it is the fault of an earnest desire to admi-
nister justice impartially." Thus I have taken the cha-
racter of the Lord Chancellor from the mouths of his
political opponents, pronounced in the debate of this
very night—and I do cordially rejoice if this panegyr:c
be j9t, if the character of the Lord Chancellor, in his
judicial capacity, have been correctly stated—that I have
the consolation to reflect that I did raise my voice against
the appointment of a Commission, the object of which
would have been not to examine or improve the system,
but to criminate the man. I thought the Commission
that was appointed was an honest one. The Hon-
Learned Member has informed me that it was
of those who were the immediate dependents
Lord Chancellor, arid that they were, therefor
form it. I should have been ashamed

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