The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-11-09 00:00:00

revenue

We understand that Lord Granville Somerset, Mr. Glad-
stone, Mr. Bingham Baring, Mr. Milnes Gaskell, and Mr.
Pringle, have undertaken to conduct the inquiries above re-
ferred to. Lord Granville Somerset, who will preside over
the commission, took a leading part in the investigations on
which the reductions made by the Duke of Wellington's
government in 1828, 1829, and 1830, were consequent. It
is probable that the commissioners will visit some of the
principal outports for the purpose of examining personally
into the mode of conducting business.
The object of the second commission, which the Lord
Chancellor proposes to institute, will be to examine into the
forms and modes of proceeding in the courts of equity, with
a view of rendering the system less cumbrous, and the pro-
gress of a suit less tedious and expensive.
We have reason to believe that Lord Langdale, Mr.
Pemberton, and Mr. Wigram, who has been recently ap-
pointed Vice-Chancellor, have undertaken to lend their
invaluable services for the conduct of this investigation,
which, like the other, will be carried on without any charge
to the public.

The preceding announcement, we are sure, will be read
with sincere satisfaction. Perhaps there is no very great pe-
cuniary saving to be made by the suppression or consolida-
tion of the offices connected with the collection of the reve-
nue ; but saving is not the sole object; another and at least
equally important consideration is the feeling of the public,
who revolt not so much at the actual amount of the total
yearly levy of taxes, as at the proportion of that levy which
is withdrawn from the national services by the expenses of
collection. The impediments, too, which various branches
of commercial dealing not unfrequently sustain from the ope-
rations of fiscal regulation, are infinitely irksome to men of
business, and the removal or modification of them, as far as
may be practicable without loss to the revenue, will be a
boon very highly valued by all parties connected with the
foreign trade of the country. The direction of the inquiry
is committed to a nobleman eminently qualified, by his offi-
cial experience, to conduct it with sagacity and judgment ;
and the whole measure, unforced as it has been by any par-
liamentary outcry, affords a most satisfactory earnest of the
government's sincere desire to administer the public affairs
for the public good.

The other of the proposed commissions, that which has
been instituted for the purpose of examination into the pro-
ceedings of courts of equity, holds out the prospect of advan-
tages still more important. The delays and expenses of those
proceedings have for centuries been a curse to the country,
and a slur upon its jurisprudence. The names of the com-
missioners, two of them presiding over courts of equity, and
the third, the ablest and most eminent man whom the bar of
those courts has boasted in our time, are sufficient guarantees
that no half considered, headlong changes will be attempted ;
but we trust, from their enlarged views and elevated posi-
tion, that they will feel themselves entitled to treat the sub-
ject boldly, and to recommend a large re-casting, not, in-
deed, of the principles which regulate the decisions in Chan-
cery, but of its general procedure—for instance, by an effec-
tual curtailment of pleadings, by a devolution upon the mas-
ters of a variety of duties and powers now vested only in the
suprior judges, and by an extensive substitution of parole
evidence for affidavits and written depositions.
Sir Robert Peel's reforms are not of the kind which fill
the pockets of reformers. The revisions here contemplated
tend on the contrary to the retrenchment of patronage and the
reduction of expense; and if they repay their authors, it will
be only in the approbation and respect of the public.

COURT CIRCULAR.-MONDAY

THE QUEEN DOWAGER

The official account of her majesty's health received on
Saturday was as follows:

" The Queen Dowager slept at intervals during the latter
part of the night, has been less harassed by her cough, and her
majesty is somewhat more comfortable this morning.
" Sudbury-hall. Nov. 5. " D. DAVIES, M.D."
Lady Peel and Lord Fitzalan were among the earliest in-
quirers at Marlborough-house, her majesty's town residence,
on Saturday, to learn the state of her majesty.
Earl Howe, lord chamberlain to the Queen Dowager, for-
warded an account of her majesty's health from Sudbury-hall
on Satnrday to her majesty and Prince Albert, to her royal
highness the Duchess of Glocester, and the other members
of the royal family. The account was received soon after 10
o'clock at night.

The bulletin issued in the morning at Sudbury-hall was also
received at Marlborough-house. The following is a copy .
" Her Majesty the Queen Dowager remained in a state of
great feebleness the whole of yesterday, but has rallied a
little this morning.