fession in Scotland. He hoped the hon. and learned Lord would endeavour to make the Bill more conformable to the feelings of that profession, or, if that were impossible, that he would withdraw it. MR. BLACKBURN deprecated a division in the absence of the Scotch Members. the exclusion of unfit persons from the tention of precipitating or withdrawing the service of the Crown. Whatever difference Bill. It was a Bill of very great imporof opinion may exist as to ulterior measures tance. which it may be thought prudent or wise to MR. LOCKHART had never known a adopt, surely it cannot be denied that the Bill pressed through with such haste. provisions of the Order, which has recently It was impossible the people of Scotland been brought into force for the first time, could know anything of its provisions. afford a guarantee for the merit of persons MR. COWAN bore testimony to the reappointed in the different public depart-pugnance with which the Bill was regard. ments, inasmuch as by prescribing a cer-ed by a considerable part of the legal protain amount of qualification they will prevent any one from entering the service of the Crown who does not possess that requisite degree of attainments. I cannot but think that the Order in Council to which I have referred gives a practical proof of the efforts made by Her Majesty's Government for securing the efficiency of administrative departments, and goes much further in that direction than any of the very general recommendations which are offered at meetings out of doors. I will not trouble the House any further upon the subject. I will only state my conviction that so far as any measures for the advancement of the cause of administrative reform are concerned, the measures adopt- Amendment proposed, to leave out ed by Her Majesty's Government go as far" Monday, 25th June," in order to add as it is in the power of any one to embody the words " this day three months," inpractically the suggestions which have stead thereof. been made. With respect to ulterior measures, I may add that they remain open to further consideration, and that their adoption can only take place after careful and THE LORD ADVOCATE did not at anxious consideration." all wish to take the opinion of the House VISCOUNT GODERICH moved the ad- on the Bill then, as he wished to take the journment of the debate. Motion made, and Question put, " That the Debate be now adjourned,' The House divided:-Ayes 240; Noes 29: Majority 211. Debate adjourned till Monday next. COURT OF SESSION (SCOTLAND) BILL. THE LORD ADVOCATE stated that he should postpone the third reading of this Bill to Monday week, in order to give more time for the people of Scotland to express their sentiments upon it. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be read a third time upon Monday, 25th June." MR. CRAUFURD hoped the hon. and learned Lord would withdraw the Bill. MR. F. SCOTT agreed with the hon. Member. The Bill was hurried through to its present stage, and he hoped the hon. and learned Lord would withdraw it. THE LORD ADVOCATE had no in MR. ALEXANDER HASTIE said, his constituents were opposed to the Bill also. MR. JOHN MACGREGOR said, all the communications he had received on the subject were so strong that he should move that the Bill be read that day three months. Question proposed, "That the words. Monday, 25th June,' stand part of the Question.' sense of the people of Scotland still further on its provisions. He did not deny that the Bill had elicited a considerable difference of opinion. One part of the legal profession was against it; the other, the Faculty of Advocates, was for it. The object of the Bill was to remedy the evils arising out of the absolute right of choice given to suitors in the courts in Scotland seventeen years ago. The inconvenience created by their exercising this right was so great that, while one division of the courts was overtaxed with work, the other division was quite unemployed. In fact the delay almost amounted to a denial of justice, and demanded a remedy at the hands of the Legislature. He did not say he was bound to press the Bill this Session, but he thought it was a subject which required a remedy as soon as possible. He therefore hoped that the House would let him take the Bill on the Monday week. MR. MALINS said, that if the House went to a division he would vote for the Bill, although he thought it better that it should not be proceeded with now. MR. F. SCOTT thought the suitor would be placed at a disadvantage by the Bill. The Faculty of Writers to the Signet were unanimously opposed to it. MR. CRAUFURD said, the Bill would be all very well if the Court of Session were constituted like the English Court of Chancery. The object would have been attained by a joint court of appeal, but it was not wise to place it in the power of the Clerk of Session to partition the business. It would be better to postpone the Bill until next Session. MR. COWAN thought the people of Scotland deserved a little more consideration than could be given to their interests at that hour of the morning. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Third Reading deferred till Monday, 25th June. The House adjourned at a quarter before Two o'clock till Monday next. HOUSE OF LORDS, Monday, June 18, 1855. MINUTES.] PUBLIC BILLS.-1a Assizes and Sessions. 2 Insurance on Lives Abatement of Income Tax Continuance; Cinque Ports. FEES IN COUNTY COURTS, AND SALA RIES TO COUNTY COURT JUDGES. LORD BROUGHAM, rising pursuant to notice, to call the attention of Her Majesty's Government to the subject of County Court fees, said: I need not remind your Lordships that this is a subject of great importance in connection with the administration of justice in County Courts. I am aware that, according to the usual practice in your Lordships' House, the notice of an intention to put a question, on such a notice as I have given, has been made use of merely as the means of making a statement; but I most willingly waive my right to do so on the present occasion, because I have so often brought this matter before your Lordships that any lengthened statement on the subject would be not only superfluous but tiresome. I consider it quite unnecessary to go over the same ground again-the more so as no answer has been given, or even attempted, to my former arguments. The facts are therefore admitted, and the only observations with which I shall trouble your Lordships, apart from the immediate subject of my notice, shall be in answer to the assertion ordinarily made that these County Courts are merely small debts' courts, that the amount of business in them is limited, and that they are, therefore, of subordinate importance. That, however, as I shall easily prove to you, is not the fact. Upon the passing of the Act brought in in 1845 by my noble and learned Friend behind me (Lord Lyndhurst), which was a part, but a most important part, of the original Bill brought in by me both in 1831 and 1833, the amount of business done in the Superior Courts was reduced from 120,000 causes in the year to an average of between 80,000 and 81,000; and on the adoption, in 1851, of what is commonly called Mr. FitzRoy's Act, which extended the jurisdiction of the County Courts, and raised the maximum sum to be sued for from 20l. to 50l.-the Bills of 1831 and 1833 having gone as far as 1007.-it has been ascertained that 40,000 out of these 81,000 causes involve sums of 50l. and under—that is, sums to which the County Court jurisdiction, since 1851, applies. Such being the fact, I hold it to be utterly preposterous to treat these County Courts as small debt courts, when one-half the cases tried in the Superior Courts refer to those sums which can be sued for in the County Courts. Since the jurisdiction of these courts was extended by the Act of 1851, the number of causes tried there has amounted to 450,000, and of these, from 12,000 to 13,000 are for sums varying from 201. to 50l. The extension of this jurisdiction was a most important step; but, I am grieved to say, it was vehemently opposed in the House of Commons by a learned Friend of mine, now Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and then Attorney General. Nevertheless, the opposition of that learned person was offered in vain; he was defeated, and the Bill passed your Lordships' House without any opposition whatever on the part of the noble and learned Lords forming a portion of the Ministry at that time, and thus an indication was afforded that the opposition offered to the measure in the House of Commons was not the opposition of the Government. With respect to the County Courts "fees," as they are most incorrectly called for it is not against the fair fees taken by the practitioners of the courts, but against the taxes levied by the Government, that com I will now add, or rather remind your Lordships of one or two examples to show the effect of this oppression. In one case, where the amount sued for was between 137. and 14., the attorney's fees and charges-the honest charges, as contradistinguished from the taxes-amounted to 27. 16s., while the court fees or taxes upon the cause were 4l. 18s. 6d. Think of taxes to that amount being imposed upon the recovery of a debt of 137. In another case, where the amount sued for was 14l. 3s. 6d., the taxes were 71. 5s. 9d., being above 51 per cent upon the debt. In a third case, where the sum sued for 187., the taxes amounted to 101., and the last instance I shall refer to was a case in which the sum of 51. was sued for under the Optional Clause, in which case the taxes were 8l., being not 17 nor even 70 per cent, but amounting to 160 per cent upon the sum sued for. I am sure I need go no further to induce your Lordships to concur with me in the hope that this shame, this scandal upon the administration of justice in England, should be removed as speedily as possible. In all other countries such a system has been abandoned, and I think it is high time it should cease here. My Lords, I wish now to say a word or two in reference to the salaries of the County Court Judges. I admit that at one time I held the opinion that a different salary should be paid in different County Courts. I leant to this view when I first brought in the County Courts Bill in 1831, and then in 1833; but since that time, upon mature consideration, my opinion has been changed. I believe it to be most injudicious-the most inconsistent with the judicial office, and with the due administration of justice -to pay these learned persons, as it were, by the piece, according to the amount of work done, for it is manifest that the same high qualifications, the same degree of learning, talents, industry, integrity, and high sense of honour are required in all cases alike, whether the duty which each Judge has to perform be greater or less. I affirm, my Lords, it is contrary to the nature-I will not merely say to the dignity-of the judicial office that such a state of things should be allowed to continue, and that these Judges should be paid either by fees or in proportion to the work done, or to the average amount of business brought before their respective courts. The tests adopted by the Treasury, in the exercise of their discretion, plaint is made they amount to 270,000l. a year. Now, look at the Superior Courts. The fees taken in those courts-where not only causes of moderate amount, in respect of which the County Courts have concurrent jurisdiction, are tried, but causes of a much larger amount, the parties to which are, therefore, much better able to pay these taxes-the fees taken in the Superior Courts are restricted by a recent arrangement, partly statutory, to 50,000l., instead of 270,000l., and the salaries of the Judges and other officers are paid out of the Consolidated Fund. The suitors in the Superior Courts are taxed to this comparatively moderate amount. I have stated the number of causes tried in the County Courts, out of the whole 450,000, which involve sums of between 201. and 501.; all the rest are for sums under 201., while some are for as many shillings, and the best proof I can give of the kind of suitors who go there, and are oppressed by the extortion of these fees, is the fact that the greater number of the poor people brought there for non-payment of their debts are persons who do not deny the debt, or even dispute the amount, but are brought into court by the creditors who try to obtain what they can of the money due to them. I have the authority of a most able and eminent Judge in one of these courts for saying that, in nineteen out of twenty cases the poor people, the debtors sued in his court, get an order to pay by instalment, to which, in hardly any case, does the plaintiff, the creditor, object. Yet these are the individuals on whom the Treasury plants its long and iron hand for the purpose of extorting from them sums wherewithal to pay the Judges' salaries, and to defray the other expenses attending the administration of justice, which it is the bounden duty of the State to defray. Another of the Judges states that it is no uncommon thing in his court for persons to be sued who are paupers or are receiving parish relief. My Lords, I find that the fees, or, to give them the right name, the taxes imposed by the Government, amount to 17 per cent on the 1,500,000l. annually sued for in those courts, while upon the money actually recovered and paid into court they amount to 31 per cent. But these are only averages; the pressure, of course, is far greater in some instances. When I first brought this subject before the House I gave one or two instances of the way in which these taxes oppress the suitors, and the observations of the noble and learned Lord upon the subject to which he referred in the latter part of his speech, and I feel convinced that very great injustice is done in the way he has pointed out to many of the County Court Judges. My attention has been more particularly called to this subject by a County Court Judge in the district in which I reside, who receives less than the full amount of salary, and who complains, as it seems to me with justice, not that the salaries given differ in amount, but that this difference is not based upon any fixed, distinct, or intelligible principle. There seems to me to be no principle upon which the distinction between the salaries is made. The will of the Treasury appears alone to determine the point, and for the reasons given by the noble and learned Lord I cannot but disapprove of any such distinction where it is founded on no sound principle. I could understand a difference being made in favour of those Judges whose courts were considered of greater importance, and whose judicial rank was looked upon as higher than others, in the same way as a higher salary is paid to the Chief Justices of the superior courts than to the Puisne Judges. But I cannot understand such a distinction in a case where all the Judges are equal, and I can conceive nothing more likely to affect, prejudicially, the independence of the Judges of these courts or indeed of any persons holding judicial offices, than that the amount of their salary should be made to vary ac cording to the discretion of the Treasury. This is a state of things which, I think, should be at once put an end to; the Treasury Minutes on the subject are contradictory in themselves, and the elements selected, upon which this distinction of salary rests, appear to me to be insufficient to meet the justice of the case. Taking the various elements in question, I find that a fifth element is not included by the omission of which an injustice is committed as between individuals of the same status, which I think affords fair ground for com are confessedly nugatory, because they are not according to the facts, and each one of them differs from the other just as all alike differ from, and are inconsistent with, justice. Only think of persons filling judicial offices being told, "Your are to have a salary of 1,2001. a year at the lowest, but there is a further sum of 300l. a year with regard to which it is left to the Treasury to say not only whether you shall have all but any part of it." Accordingly, we find that, of this supplemental sum, the Treasury allows to one Judge 150%., to another 100l., and to a third 2007., so that there may be Judges who receive only 1,2001., others who are paid 1,3501., another class 1,4007., and a fourth class to whom is paid the whole amount of 1,500l. To such an arbitrary and preposterous system I object in toto, and I think your Lordships will agree with me in considering that these differences and distinctions ought at once to cease, and that there ought in future to be one fixed and uniform salary. There are many anomalies in doling out this additional 300l. a year, under the present system, which I might mention; for when I look into the practice of each of these learned Judges I find that in several instances the persons paid most had least to do, and the least important cases, while those who did the most work were paid the least. But I need not enter into further details. It is sufficient for me that the County Court Judges are not paid as all judicial functionaries ought to be paid-out of one fund, and by an equal and fixed salary. I may add, that in making these observations I have not one word to say against the able and learned person who is Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Wilson), and who carries on the official correspondence with the County Court Judges on this subject. He is a gentleman of great eminence and ability, and it is from no spirit of unkindness towards him that I have made these remarks, nor have I the slightest idea of throwing any imputations upon that individual, whose writings were, Iplaint. This fifth element is the distance well remember, strongly recommended to me by no less eminent an authority than the late Duke of Wellington, and I found he had most justly vouched for their merit. What I have said has been simply prompted by a sense of justice, in condemnation of the system, and from a desire to see the evils to which I have alluded removed as speedily as possible. LORD PORTMAN: I entirely concur in which a County Court Judge is obliged to travel, and the expense and physical labour which are in consequence entailed upon him in the discharge of his duties. The County Court Judge, to whom I have alluded, says, that he would not complain if any fair principle had been adopted upon which the present difference in the rate of salaries could rest. But the principle appears to be now rather to pay the County Court Judges "by the piece," as the noble that no distinction in the salary of the and learned Lord has said, than by the Judges ought to rest on such a ground. merits of the individual Judge. This EARL GRANVILLE: It is not necescertainly seems as if the Secretary of the sary for me to remark upon the interest Treasury had looked at the question in a which any subject connected with the light quite different from that pointed out County Courts is sure to evoke, but I feel by the law officers of the Crown. He says myself placed in a somewhat embarrassin defence of the present system, that there ing position on the point referred to by is no want of candidates when a judgeship the noble Lord who has just sat down falls vacant, from which he draws the con- because, not having been aware that the clusion that the mode of proportioning the point was going to be brought before your salaries cannot be open to any great ob- Lordships, I have not been able to obtain jection. But, my Lords, I think this is an any information on the subject, and do erroneous principle to go upon, and is not not, therefore, know the circumstances the proper light in which to view the sub-connected with the Minute drawn up by ject. The proper course is to see that an the Chancellor of the Exchequer and by office is fully paid, and then to find the Mr. Wilson. Still the subject appears to very best man who can be got for the be one well worthy the attention of the office. Now I cannot help thinking that if your Lordships will turn your attention to the Minutes of the Treasury on this subject, which have been laid upon the table, you will come to the conclusion that it is not right or desirable that a body of gentlemen, sixty in number, occupying so important a position as these County Court Judges, should be dependent on the mere whim of the Treasury as to the amount of their salaries. The financial Secretary of the Treasury appears to have treated the matter as a fiscal question without any consultation with the law officers of the Crown. But I hope the noble and learned Lord on the woolsack, and my noble Friend the Lord President of the Council, will take this subject into their most serious consideration, and reflect whether an irresponsible body represented by Mr. Wilson should be allowed to interfere with the independence of these judicial personages and to have the regulation of their salaries. The Secretary of the Treasury talks of an insignificant class of cases tried by some portion of these gentlemen, and calls them insignificant because the amount involved in them is but small, on which account, these Judges are not, he argues, to be paid like the others. Now I cannot see that such cases are less important than those in which the amount involved is larger. The noble and learned Lord opposite (Lord Brougham) and the noble and learned Lord on the woolsack will not, I imagine, allow that any insignificant cases can be brought before the Judges. The ability required in the administration of justice should be the same, whether that justice be dealt out to the rich man or to the poor man-whether the sum sued for be large or small-and I submit Government. With regard to the evil which the noble and learned Lord (Lord Brougham) has so often brought under your Lordships' notice, I am not able to give any distinct pledge that it will be immediately remedied, although, at the same time, I am bound to admit the justice of the greater part of the arguments which the noble and learned Lord has adduced. It has frequently been a matter of complaint that the salaries of Judges of the superior courts should be defrayed by the State out of the Consolidated Fund, while the poorer class of suitors who repair to the County Courts are required to pay fees for the maintenance of the Judges of those courts. I do not, however, quite agree with those who would place the County Court Judges on a level with the Judges of the superior courts, because I think there is great force in the argument that the Judges of the superior courts, employed, as they are, upon the more important cases, are great constitutional functionaries upon whom great constitutional questions often depend, and who are sometimes consulted and called upon to assist your Lordships in deliberating upon questions of the highest and the gravest character. Such a Judge, having general rather than local duties to perform, is in a somewhat different position to that of Judges who administer justice and decide upon cases brought to them in the various districts throughout the country, and the salary of such a judicial person is most properly paid out of the Consolidated Fund, and most properly remains fixed and permanent. I merely mention this as an argument I have heard used, and which seems to me to possess great force, in order to show that this is not a question to be |