than (at the close of the session) the members of parliament can devote to the correction of an important and wise one; and then the small doctorings of which alone time permits, and the compromises which must be made to meet the doubts and fears of weak brethren, and the dislike and opposition of the strong, enfeeble and pauperize even well-conceived measures. It is literally in the multitude of counsellors and their crude efforts that the folly of the nation is annually established. The strength of the Houses is wasted by a quantity of necessary local legislation, and by a quantity of unnecessary general attempts obtruded by the ignorant and conceited. But, says Lord Brougham "The greatest obstruction to the conduct of business in the two Houses of Parliament, particularly in the Commons, arises from the reluctance to fetter discussion, either by rules binding upon the members, or by restraining the speakers in their addresses. Besides the question before the House, and on the merits of which a speech must always be regular, there are many questions in debating which great latitude is taken, so as to introduce topics quite foreign to the subject-matter itself. Thus, upon a motion for adjournment, although the only matter in question is whether there shall be an adjournment or not, it is the inveterate habit to introduce any subject on which any speaker desires to be heard, however foreign to the question of adjourning. Now, the motion to adjourn. either the House or the debate may be made at any time, and may be repeated any number of times. Then, as the rule is absoluté, that, except in committees, no member shall speak more than once in any debate, he may evade this rule by moving an adjournment, and could only be prevented, by the general uproar it would probably occasion, from speaking again upon the question, under colour of supporting the motion to adjourn. Yet this is really the only abuse of the motion to adjourn, which has hardly ever been committed. Upon this motion, often repeated, speeches are made and divisions had, sometimes for the avowed purpose of defeating a measure supported by a vast majority, sometimes in order to delay its progress. It is to be observed that obstructions of this kind, indeed of every kind, arise from the rights of a minority, however inconsiderable. If but a few persons league themselves together, they may occasion as great a delay as if they composed a numerous and powerful body. The mere prolixity of speech is far from being the only cause of obstruction. The number of speakers is a very great cause. There are many members so insignificant, that, beyond a few of their own connections, they are wholly unknown except to their constituents. But they desire to speak, first, because they would court those constituents, or impress them with a notion of their importance; next, because they consider that they gain general reputation by their speeches. It is, therefore, undeniable that the two causes of this excessive speaking-the speaking of members whose talents, information, or personal importance, gives them no claim to be heard-are their return to Parliament by bodies of electors, and the report of their speeches in the daily papers. Thus, the combination of small parties the determination to resist whatever proceeds from certain quarters, especially the government, in whose hands soever it is placed the desire to make their support of consequence, which, insignificant in itself, may be of moment when the great parties are equally balanced-and the countless number of endless speeches, without any merit, by persons of no mark, has of late times made the House of Commons a byword as a place of talk and not of work, the caricature of a popular assembly— 'Where policy is busied all night long In settling right what faction has set wrong; That yields them chaff and dust-and nothing more." * 66 What has been the result? Lord Bacon relates that one day after a long and ineffectual session, Popham (afterwards Chief-Justice, but then Speaker of the Commons), coming one day to Queen Elizabeth, she said "Now, Mr. Speaker, what hath passed in the Commons' House' and he answered, If it please your Majesty, seven weeks."+ With us above six months of the session passed away, not rapidly, but with lingering pace, and these were consumed in doing very little, and saying very much. Several bills were sent down from the Lords, very carefully prepared, upon most important subjects; but there was no time for taking any notice of them, and they were postponed till the end of the session approached, when others had been sent from the Lords, also of great moment; and of the whole, some were hastily rejected, others as hastily adopted, but never really discussed. "It is indeed hard to say whether the six months of talk or the six weeks of work-work of questionable value, talk unquestionably of none -redound less to the honour of the illustrious assembly-illustrious, indeed, but whose vigour has thus proved less signal than its renown. Happily, the impotence wherewithal it has been stricken is not constitutional, and, being accidental, admits of a sure remedy. Whatever of the chief evil, useless debate, arises from the claims, real or imagined, of constituents, or from the publication of speeches, cannot possibly be cured by any change in the election of members, or any restriction upon the report of their speeches; but it does not follow that the evil must therefore be endured. The conduct of business may be so regulated as both to prevent useless motions made for mere debating's sake, and to shorten debates upon all subjects. That some remedy has become absolutely necessary, if the character of parliamentary government is to be maintained, no one can affect to doubt. If the history of the session were confined to the fate of the measures which interest us peculiarly in this Association, the inefficacy of the representative body, as its proceedings are conducted, would be sufficient to demonstrate that the necessity is urgent. But the whole measures of the year, as well the ordinary as the extraordinary business, the necessary equally with the optional and accidental, come within the charge universally made by all men of every party, the only difference being upon the degree in which the evil is confessed to exist, and the plans suggested for removing it. "It must further be observed, that the evils adverted to have not been now for the first time complained of, or of recent occurrence. The subject forced itself upon the reluctant consideration of the House twelve *Cowper, Expostulation. + Bacon, Apothegms, 250. years ago, when it was referred to a committee presided over by the present Speaker, and which had the great benefit of his predecessors' testimony and opinions; and some years later another inquiry was conducted by our able and excellent colleague, Sir J. Pakington. Both these bodies examined the matter to a considerable extent, and obtained important information as well as suggestions; but neither showed any remarkable boldness in dealing with the subject. They appeared to shrink from any proposition which involved a material change in the standing orders; yet the facts which they have left on record must needs lead to those alterations, so much dreaded by them, in the manner of conducting business. Lord Eversley's opinion must have been known to the committee of 1848. He retains it fully at the present day, and the report plainly adopts it, that at the root of the evil is the great mass of private business which exhausts the members in the morning, and leads to their absenting themselves from seven to ten o'clock in the evening; so that they are put upon moving adjournments in order to have an opportunity of being heard, and on such motions to deliver their speeches, which they had no opportunity of making before. Beside this effect of private business, stated by Lord Eversley, it is liable to another objection: it is extremely ill performed, from the inexperience of the members and their ignorance of law, especially of the rules of evidence. One great and manifest improvement, therefore, would be the adoption of the resolutions laid before the Lords in 1845, and again this year, upon the plan suggested by the Duke of Wellington as long ago as 1834, and then acted upon to the extent of altering a bill, and providing that a joint committee of the two Houses should examine the whole facts, and that their report on them should be conclusive, leaving each House to deal with the bill in all other respects at its pleasure. This was the happy suggestion of that great man, the first Captain of the age and one of its first statesmen. He did me the honour of asking my aid and co-operation in working out the details. We proposed our plan, which was applicable to all bills as well as the one under consideration; and we again brought it forward in 1837, when I proposed the new standing orders, he being of opinion that we should endeavour to carry our more effectual measure; and when told that we should be defeated in the committee, to whom the matter was referred, he said, 'Never mind; let us try, and, if beaten, we can retreat upon the lesser plan.' We were beaten; the lesser plan was adopted. It forms the rule of both Houses, the Commons having for some years refused it, but afterwards passed it with a material improvement." Another point adverted to by Lord Brougham, is one to which we have frequently drawn our readers' attention. His lordship observes "But a further curtailment of all legislative labour is to be obtained from the more careful preparation of bills before their introduction into either House, instead of keeping all secret till they are brought in, and thus launching them, with all the defects produced by ignorance, oversight, and want of skill-defects which might be remedied by previous consultation with able and learned persons acquainted with the several subjects." VOL. X. NO. XIX, Lord Brougham then makes another suggestion- "After reducing the business within a narrower compass, and relieving members from the labour of committees, the diminishing the number of stages through which each bill must pass, and thereby excluding needless debate, and removing the pretexts for debating, seems absolutely necessary." Again "Some further restriction upon motions of adjournment seems quite necessary; and can any one doubt that it would be safe to forbid all repetition of such motions when more than a certain proportion of those present had not supported the first proposal?" We must extract one more felicitous passage from Lord Brougham's address. He is speaking of the Criminal Law Bills which fell through last session, and of the impossibility of parliament as a body performing the function of draftsmen "The debating some hundred clauses of a code, in a House of some hundred members, comprising lawyers in either kind, barrister and attorney; recorders of boroughs; corporation justices, giving ear to the town clerks; chairmen of sessions, and other magistrates; country gentlemen, instructed by their solicitors; bankers and merchants, with sons at the bar; dilettante law reformers ;-presents to the mind such a picture of endless proposal and objection, cavil and comment, that the bare aspect is enough to induce slumbers in the least somnolent, or confuse and turn round the steadiest head." THE CONCENTRATION OF THE SUPREME COURTS OF LAW AND OFFICES. The commissioners appointed to consider the above important subject have made their report thereon. It is too long to reprint here, but it will be found (and it is worth finding by those who by chance have missed seeing it) in the Law Times or The Solicitors' Journal during the month of July last. The commissioners recommend, we are glad to see, that the site of the courts should be fixed between Lincoln's Inn and the Strand, as we have before described,' and still heartily approve of. It may be acquired for about £675,000; and an equal sum would probably be required for the erection of the courts and buildings. Altogether, one million and a half would be spent; and if the building be appropriate (and not a set of blunders such as are most public edifices), it would be a million and a half well spent. The Suitors' Fund (as in the article below cited, is urged) is reported to be the proper source whence the money should be obtained. Wood, V. C., alone has some scruples of conscience as to the employment of the funds. These scruples seem to us to be based on a radical misapprehension of the nature of money, credit, and investment. 1 L. M. & R., Vol. VI., p. 353, for February, 1859. Ibid. FALSE ECONOMY IN PAYMENT OF WITNESSES IN PROSECUTIONS. One of the events of the quarter (we hope it was pregnant with future reform) occurred in connection with the above subject. At the last assizes held at Liverpool, the following important presentment of the Grand Jury was read in the Crown Court, before Mr. Baron Martin, by their foreman, Mr. Egerton, M.P., "as the result of their observation and experience, as magistrates of the county and as grand jurymen, of the effects of recent measures of economy in the payment of witnesses in prosecutions: " "The grand jury for the southern division of the county of Lancaster, at the August assizes, 1860, desire to state their opinion, that the reduction in the scale of allowances to witnesses at sessions and assizes, made under an order of Secretary Sir George Grey, bearing date February 9, 1858, has produced, and is likely to continue to produce, a most important influence upon the administration of justice and the state of crime. "The scale of allowance in force, previous to the above order, may be described as recognizing the general principle, that all persons attending under recognizances to give evidence in criminal prosecutions, should receive reasonable compensation for their necessary expenditure, and to some extent, and in certain cases, for their loss of time. "The scale was, no doubt, in some cases abused, by the granting of excessive and improper allowances, and the grand jury is of opinion that measures for the prevention of such abuses would have been proper and desirable. "But the scale sanctioned by Sir George Grey proceeds upon a principle which is entirely opposite to that of the previous one, and which may be described as being, in substance, that a uniform and low scale of payment, not more than fairly adequate to the wages of an unskilled labourer, should be adopted in all ordinary cases, with a higher one in the case of members of the profession of the law or of medicine, and a lower one in the case of the police. "The full effect of the new scale was not immediately felt, as its character did not at once become generally known. Its practical result is now clearly found to be-and those members of the jury who habitually discharge the ordinary duties of magistrates are painfully aware of the fact that there is, in the great majority of instances, a decided and increasing disinclination to forward the administration of justice, by aiding in the apprehension and conviction of offenders, inasmuch as every person so doing now subjects himself, not only to trouble and inconvenience, which probably he might be very ready to undergo, but to a direct pecuniary loss, which, in many cases, is a very serious one to himself and his family, and that such should be the case is generally felt to be grossly unreasonable and unjust. "Persons who are robbed are now in many cases most reluctant to prosecute, inasmuch as prosecution only subjects them to a certain serious loss in addition to what they have already incurred; and, with all persons whose general or special duty it would be to aid in the detection of |