the University of Cambridge and the Recorder of London. They had made their little straw nest with great care, when the Government came like a cuckoo, and laid the egg of local taxation in their nest, expecting them to hatch it. The fact was that the Government had got into difficulties with hon. Members opposite, and they seized upon the unhappy Bill in order to get out of them. So the Bill has disappeared, and that is the end of the chapter of law reform for the Session of 1872. It has been finally closed to-night by the funeral oration pronounced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Locke) said the other night-"Why don't you try to do something?" I think everybody must see why nobody should try to do anything in the present state of affairs. Is it not perfectly obvious that the first thing done with any practical proposition upon subjects of this magnitude is to endeavour to laugh them out of the House of Commons? Such a course succeeds, and it saves the trouble of considering difficult questions. But it is idle to say that these are speculative opinions. We have the opinion of the Judicature Commission, formed of the most eminent lawyers, of members of both branches of the legal profession, solicitors as well as barristers, and they have unanimously condemned the system of legal administration in this country. That has been lying on the Table of this House for three years. The Commissioners recommended that we should do away with the extraordinary higgledypiggledy system which now prevails in our jurisprudence, and they recommended the establishment of a Supreme Court of First Instance. They also testified to the fact that we have the ablest administrators hampered by the worst system that ever cursed a country, and that we have the greatest expenditure in our legal system to produce the most unfortunate results that are anywhere to be found. Having got the Reports of the Judicature Commission as to the Courts of First Instance, as to the Courts of Appeal, and as to the County Courts, what have we done? Nothing. Are these the dry details which the Chancellor of the Exchequer says that people may have too much of? And what are the efforts that have been made to carry out law reforms? I can VOL. CCXII. [THIRD SERIES.] hardly call what took place in the House of Lords an effort, for nobody expected that to succeed. The Government should come forward in a different spirit to that they have evinced this evening, and bring the ability that they can command in their Law Officers to bear, so that they may deal with a question of this magnitude, for they would at least have as much chance of carrying such a measure, as they have of carrying some of their other measures. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that this question of appointing a Minister of Justice cannot be dealt with apart from the question of the position of the Lord Chancellor, and no doubt it cannot; but this Motion deals with only one part of a great question. I know quite well that all efforts of private Members have failed and must fail; and all my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton hopes to do is to stimulate the House to protest against the existing system. I know the question of a Minister of Justice cannot be settled except by dealing with the position of the Law Officers, including the Lord Chancellor, which like many things which have come down to us from antiquity, is wholly indefensible. That the head of the judicial Bench should go in and out of office with the Government; that there are men whom we would choose for the office who are excluded by its conditions; and that it involves a mixture of incongruous functions are matters the reform of which no amount of ridicule can long postpone ; and it is only by attracting public attention to them that any pressure can be put upon the Government to deal with them in a practical way. I feel that any scheme dealing with the present question, to be at all satisfactory to the country, must be far larger in its scope than that embraced in the Motion of my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton. It must comprehend not only the reconstruction of the duties of the Law Officers of the Crown, but those of the Lord Chancellor, and probably of the Judges themselves. I look upon it as a matter highly deserving of consideration, when there are acknowledged delays, causing infinite mischief and expense, the cause of infinite injustice, and I think that I and those who take a similar view should protest, as far as in us lies, against the continuance of such a state of things. The question of the appointment of a D • Minister of Justice, so far from being a | be to the flooding of the House with subject fit for ridicule, is one, I think, measures of law reform, to the exclusion which is of a very serious and practical character. More ought, I believe, to be done to separate judicial from political action in that House, and the present state of legislation is, I cannot help thinking, a scandal to any civilized Assembly. Statutes are passed Session after Session of a character so conflicting as to astonish, I will not say lawyers, but men of common sense. There is a Commission employed in repealing the statutes; but, like Penelope's web, as the Commission is trying to unravel the web at one end it is woven at the other, so that the Commission pant after Parliament in vain. I am not prepared myself to deal with the question with the thoroughness which I could desire; but I cannot sit down with entering my earnest protest against matters of such consequence being treated by a responsible Government in the tone in which they have been treated this evening. MR. SERJEANT SHERLOCK said, he thought the delays and mischiefs which had been spoken of could not be of a very urgent nature, seeing that the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) would allow such evils to continue until the present Law Officers retired. He also wished to remind the House that the present Law Officers of the Government had no personal pecuniary interest in the Motion, because the hon. Member for Brighton did not attempt to interfere with them, and the alteration proposed would only affect their successors. It was said that it was part of the duty of the Law Officers to be the Advisers of the Crown; but so long as these appointments were party appointments, it could not be expected that the professional views of the Law Officers should not be regarded with some jealousy. The hon. Member for Brighton had admitted that there was too much legislation already, and there was therefore a general concurrence in the view that there was no pressing necessity for law reform as contrasted with measures for which the demand of the country was louder. If the question at issue was one involving the appointment of a Minister of Justice, the observations of the hon. Gentleman might, be important; but as it was his Motion would lead to no immediate practical result, except, perhaps, it might Mr. Vernon Harcourt of other business. MR. STAVELEY HILL said, he was prepared to admit that there might be some convenience in the establishment of a High Court of Appeal and in the removal of certain antiquated modes of procedure, but doubted whether any practical advantage would result from the presence in Parliament of a Minister of Justice. As far as the first part of the Preamble of the Motion of the hon. Member for Brighton was concerned, he maintained that it was not proved that any inconvenience arose from there being in Parliament no Minister of Justice; and as for the second part of the Preamble, that there should be in the House some one able to give his undivided attention to the various legal questions affecting the administration of Public Business, he asked whether, on the other hand, it was not necessary to have in that House, for the purpose of conducting the business of the Government, persons of the greatest eminence at the Bar, and who could command the attention of the highest Courts of Justice in conducting the business of the Government in the Courts of Law? Another part of the business of the Law Officers was to advise the Government, and if any hon. Member rose to ask a question as to an Act of Parliament on a proceeding in a Court of Law, Ministers of the highest talent might give an answer; but everybody knew that the answer would come with much more force from a lawyer accustomed to deal with such matters. There was nothing in the present system to prevent law reforms being carried out, for what would be the use of the Law Officers of the House if they could not give their attention to the various questions affecting public business? They must have two persons of the highest powers, able to conduct the business of the Government, so far as all legal matters were concerned; and a field of choice was likely to be left open as long as so many distinguished lawyers were ready to sacrifice emoluments in order to secure the honour of a seat in that House. MR. HINDE PALMER said, that no hon. Member in that House more felt the necessity of law reform than himself, and if by voting for the Motion of the hon. Member for Brighton he thought ments introduced into clauses in the passage of a Bill through the House often left the clauses less clear than they were? He opposed this Motion as one which would do more harm than good if adopted, and while doing so he strongly protested against being characterized as one who disregarded the advantages of law reform. MR. STRAIGHT said, he must confess he had felt some difficulty in clearly understanding the object of the Motion, and he attributed that difficulty to the ungrammatical structure of the proposition itself. If the meaning was that the offices of Attorney and Solicitor General should be abolished, he certainly could not support such a proposal; and if it was meant that a Minister of Justice should be appointed, he must say that was a very large question, which would require a much wider discussion than could be given to it upon the present occasion. A great deal had been said about law reform; but why did not those who spoke so much about it take the trouble to bring forward some measures of law reform? It was very easy to make long speeches before Social Science meetings; but why did not the advocates of law reform do something to show the House what they really wanted? After all that had been said by his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. V. Harcourt), it really was very natural for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to be somewhat jubilant, having made a bargain by which the public were gainers to the extent of £12,000 a-year. Probably the public were all of one mind on the subject. The Attorney and Solicitor Gene that he should be promoting law reform, he should not hesitate to support the motion; but he regretted he could not do so, for he saw nothing in it calculated in the slightest degree to advance law reform. Although favoured with a position in the most gracious Speech from the Throne, as a subject in which amendment was greatly required, yet the reason why measures of law reform were not carried into effect was on account of the disinclination of the House to entertain measures of that description, because hon. Members thought that there were other measures of a more practical character which ought first to engage their attention. He made these remarks because, after the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Oxford (Mr. V. Harcourt), he should not like it to go forth that any one voting against the Motion was desirous of obstructing law reform. He did not regard the hon. and learned Member's criticism of the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer as fair, for he did not think that the Chancellor of the Exchequer intended to cast the slightest ridicule on law reform. What he understood the Chancellor of the Exchequer to ridicule was the imbecility of the proposal of the hon. Member for Brighton for the accomplishment of the law reform which that hon. Member desired to effect. That he understood to be the tone and spirit of the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who, far from attempting to ridicule progress in the way of law reform, was well known among law reformers for his desire for the improvement of the law. But what was it that the House was really called on to do by the hon. Mem-ral, perhaps, were not quite of the same ber for Brighton? It was to place an obstruction in the way of all those measures of legal reform which would be facilitated by altering the mode of paying the Law Officers by means of fees, and among the measures impeded by that mode of remuneration was the reform of the Patent Laws, a subject upon which he would not dilate upon the present occasion. The hon. Member for Brighton wanted a Minister of Justice, in order that Acts of Parliament might come before the House in a more perfect state than they did. But how was a Minister of Justice to prepare Acts of Parliament so as to prevent them from being imperfect, seeing that the Amend opinion-they had been very quiet during the evening, and their reticence might to some extent be due to that fact. He objected to discuss a large subject like this on an abstract Motion, for he thought in so doing they might be led into a great deal of mischief. He was anxious for law reform; and if at any time the hon. Member for Brighton was disposed to bring forward some practical measure of law reform-such as a proposal to amend the machinery of the law in reference to small debts and the like, or in reference to public prosecutors-he should be happy to assist him. MR. DENMAN said, in common with | Lord Chancellor was supposed to have most of the hon. Members who had charge of law reform; the Home Secreaddressed the House upon this subject, tary advised the Crown as to the exerhe considered the Motion a most un- cise of the prerogative of mercy; and the founded one. It was a complete non Attorney and Solicitor General were resequitur. It recited certain supposed quired in that House to advocate law evils, and went on to propose what would reforms, in the preparation of which be no remedy for them-what, indeed, they might not have been consulted, and had no relation to them, and what would to which they were sometimes strongly be an evil in itself. He, for instance, averse. It seemed to him that the right did not think it was true to say that in- hon. Gentleman had been guilty of an convenience had resulted in that House unusual piece of effrontery in rising in from the inability of the Law Officers to his place and defending such a system; do all they could reasonably be called but that he supposed was explained on to do, looking to the functions they by the fact that the present Government had to perform; and he could not see had been distinguished by a spirit of that those functions could be remodelled perverse parsimony in relation to the to any extent without impairing the high administration of the law. What had position they held, and their usefulness been their conduct in regard to the by reason of holding that high position. office of Queen's Advocate? The ground They must be lawyers of the highest on which the Government of the day eminence, and they must be Members of defended their course in respect to the that House, for it was only by passing escape of the Alabama, which had caused through a Parliamentary training that all these recent troubles, was, that the they could fill the highest situations of then Queen's Advocate was not in a the law with that efficiency with which position to advise them on that occasion. they ought to be filled. It had been However, the Government seemed to said that it was the duty of the Law consider a time when they most required Officers to advise the House in questions his counsel to be an opportunity for savof law; but he must say he had often ing the entire salary of the Queen's Advowished that they had been more reticent cate, and had also cut down the salaries in their opinions, given on questions put of the Attorney and Solicitor General; to them by private Members in that and now they had to go out into the walks House. They were the Law Advisers of the profession for an eminent lawyer not of the House, but of the Govern- to represent them at Geneva. The fees ment, and were responsible for the opi- they would have to pay, and very pronions they gave. He repeated, he could perly, to so distinguished a counsel, not support this most inconsecutive Mo- would, he ventured to say, more than tion; and he did not think the Chan- counterbalance the economy effected by cellor of the Exchequer could be blamed the reductions to which he had referred. for treating it with something like levity. Yet the Chancellor of the Exchequer In these dull times, and in such hot told them that the saving of £12,000 weather, there was no reason why a a-year was to debar the House from man should not speak truth, and laugh considering that Resolution, the recitals while speaking it. contained in which were accepted, not only by many in that House, but by the almost unanimous feeling of people out of doors. MR. RAIKES said, that he should give the Motion his cordial support. There had existed some confusion in the minds of some hon. Gentlemen as to what the functions of a Minister of Justice ought to be. He supposed that one of his duties would be to prepare measures of law reform, and to advocate them in Parliament; that he would also appoint the magistracy, and be responsible for its proceedings; and that he would likewise advise the Crown as to the exercise of the prerogative of mercy. At present the distribution of those various duties was very anomalous. The MR. A. W. YOUNG said, he had known the Chancellor of the Exchequer both at the other end of the world and in this country, and he believed that no good measure of law reform had ever been introduced into that House which the right hon. Gentleman had not supported; while in the Colonies he was the most celebrated law reformer of his day. The Resolution of the hon. Member for Brighton would prevent the Government from having the choice of the highest legal talent of the country, a result he, | Is it really true that plans of the large for one, should be sorry to see. MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, for my own part-and I believe I may also say for my Colleagues-I should not be unwilling to go at once to a division on this question, having reference either to the general tone and purport of this debate, or more especially to the answer given by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the speech of the Mover of this Motion. But I certainly should not be content that it should be supposed that we are prepared to acquiesce for a moment in the description given of my right hon. Friend's speech by the hon. and learned Member for Oxford (Mr. V. Harcourt) -a description which I think was very inequitable, as well as very inaccurate. I was glad to see the objection that there was something of humour and wit introduced into the discussion by my right hon. Friend met by a lively protest from various parts of the House. We are not, I think, in much danger of losing the balance of the mind and judgment of the House through the enormous and intolerable redundancy of those qualities: on the contrary, it is supposed by some that the Goddess of Dulness, with leaden wings, is more apt to brood over our deliberations. We have even known the hon. and learned Member for Oxford himself, on propitious occasions, endeavour to bring his artillery of that kind into the field when circumstances favoured. But the hon. and learned Member, in his zeal for law, has a little forgotten justice. As regards the Government at large, were the charges of the hon. and learned Member fair? What is the exact purport of the Motion on which we are called to vote? The practical and operative part of it is "That it is inexpedient that the Treasury Minute should continue in operation beyond the time when the present Law Officers of the Crown remain in office." The hon. and learned Member for Oxford says it is not a fair representation of the Motion to quote these words; but that it is really a Motion that the Treasury Minute should be cancelled in order that the whole subject may be re-considered. If these words, " in order that the whole subject may be reconsidered" be part of the Motion, they are written in invisible ink. But even if these words were there, would they mend the matter? description which the hon. and learned Member desires and which as regards some important plans I think he is right in desiring - would it be true to say that this Minute ought to be abolished in order that the Government may produce those plans? What is the real difficulty in the way of the introduction of measures of law reform? It is not the want of ability or of readiness to prepare them; it is the crippled position of this House-crippled, I mean, relatively to the enormous other demands on its time and attention. What measure of law reform is there that we could have introduced to the House with a fair prospect of doing justice to it by carrying it into law. The hon. Member for Brighton does not adopt the enlargement of the terms of his Motion as suggested by the hon. and learned Member for Oxford. His complaint against the Government is, that we have too much legislation-that we submit to the House measures greater in number and magnitude than can possibly be passed. If that be so, why does the hon. and learned Member for Oxford think it worthy of him to enter into these complaints-unjust towards the Government and futile as regards the House-that we have no measures of law reform passed in this House? He knows that it is the duty of the Government to prepare from year to year, and to introduce into the House, those measures which are the subjects of the liveliest and most pressing public interest, and which, in the view of the public opinion of the country, are most urgently demanded. But more than that, the hon. Member for Brighton has pointed to no great measure submitted to the House by the Government which ought to have been cast aside in order to deal with this question of law reform. Therefore the accusation, whether against the Chancellor of the Exchequer or against the Government, is wholly devoid of foundation. The Motion further suggests that "It would be inexpedient for the Treasury Minute relating to the remuneration of the Law Officers of the Crown to continue in operation beyond the time when the present Law Officers of the Crown should remain in office." Now, that as it stands would land us in a difficulty if it were carried. In the course of affairs it does not usually |