learned friend in all these points as facts, | fourteen independent Courts of Decision but in the inferences from them they were sitting at the same time. Mr. Cullen totally differed. He would maintain, that had said, in his evidence, that, at the in proportion as the questions of Bank- same time, the same Commission of Bankruptcy were of importance, in the same rupts had four matters under its considerproportion was it necessary to have a Court ation. One was, to choose the assignees, which was presided over, by Judges of one the proof of the debts, one the proof great learning, and in the same proportion of trading, and one he knew not what; but was it necessary to revise, to remodel, and all tending to confound the judgment. to make a radical change in the whole And how were these Commissioners to be system. To use the language of the remunerated? Why, in a most peculiar Committee of 1818, in proportion to the manner, which gave them an interest in importance of the subject, was the neces- damaging and prejudicing the suitor, in sity, that there should be a complete order to pay the Judge. The interests and change in the Courts, and in their prac- duties of these Judges were in direct optice. These Courts of Commissioners, it position to each other. They were paid was well known, were sub-divided into 20s. each, at every meeting, and therefore fourteen, and these lists had not to defend the greater were the number of meetings the them any analogies, with respect to any greater was the pay of the Judge, and the other Courts whatever in this kingdom. greater number of meetings the greater First as to the appointments of the Com- was the delay in the division of the funds, missioners. It was notorious and past all and the greater in every respect were the contradiction, that if the present Lord injuries to the suitors. It was impossible Chancellor should appoint as a Commis- for these gentlemen, in many cases, to ensioner of Bankruptcies, a gentleman of tertain an opinion that was not thwarted only one year's standing at the Bar, no man by their interests. It was the same with could with justice attack that appoint- respect to the solicitors and the mesment; because, as his learned friend had sengers-the interest of all was, to delay justly said, his predecessors, both Whig the division of the funds, the early division and Tory, had done the same thing. of which was the very object of the BankWas it decent to the mercantile people rupt-laws. The Commissioners might be of England, that any young gentleman, all honourable men; "so are they all of ever so great promise, but as yet of no honourable men;" but that was no reason performance, should sit in judgment upon whatever why they should be placed in a case, or upon a class of cases which such a situation that they could not do were admitted to be of the greatest im- their duty but at the expense of their own portance, both with respect to the very interest. It was too much that such a large sums they involved, and to the diffi- system should be allowed to remain in culties of understanding and deciding opposition to all principles, and in defiance them? This alone was a state of things in of every analogy with other Courts. If a contradiction to the establishment of any gentleman of great talents, industry, and Court which possessed the respect of the acquirements, received his early appointcountry. Another peculiarity in these ment of Commissioner, what was the conCourts was, that they were the only Courts sequence? The very moment at which he now existing of which the Judges could at arrived at any proficiency to perform his the same time be practising Barristers. duty as a Judge, the remuneration of a There had been one example to strengthen Judge for it averaged only 400l. a-year, this, but that very example had led to the became too contemptible for him to attend destruction of the Welsh jurisdictions. to the duties of his office, and he would He would now ask, how did the system be found practising in Westminster-hall, work? Fourteen different lists of gentle- or at Lincoln's-Inn, to the desertion of his men were all acting independently of each duties in Basinghall-street. This fact was other. In the superior Courts, by means within the knowledge of every man, and it of the conferences of the Judges in the was impossible to deny it. From a jurisHouse of Lords, by means of their being diction so prone to error-from a deposibrought together in Courts of Appeal, a tory of errors like this-it would be conuniformity of decision was within the reach ceded that there ought to be some mode of of every Court. Not so was it with respect readily correcting what it did. Was this to the Commissioners of Bankruptcies, for the case? It was his duty to state, that

the only appeal from the Commissioners of of expense. Mr. Penson, Secretary of Bankruptcies was one, of all others, the Bankrupts under Lord Eldon, had afforded most full of delays, the most overloaded a conjecture of the immeasurable, and of with expenses, and more calculated to de- the almost inconceivable expenses, utterly feat all the ends of justice and objects of wasted and thrown away upon those affiappeal, than any other known to the laws. davits, which were filed for no purpose It was a mere combination of every objec- except that the suitor might have the sation which could exist against the revision tisfaction of knowing that he must have to of a case. He was speaking of the appeal pay 1,000l. or 1,500l. for no purpose upon from the Commissioners of Bankruptcy to earth. Mr. Penson further stated, that in the Court of Chancery. First, was that the bankruptcy of Messrs. Howard and appeal attended with delay? Look at the Gibbs, the affidavits alone amounted to evidence given on the subject. Mr. 1,500 folios, and as eight folios went to Hamilton had said, that he had felt the in- one brief-sheet, there were about 190 convenience to his clients of an appeal to brief-sheets, at 3s. 4d. a sheet, which, with the Court of Chancery, most particularly the expenses of preparing the brief, would when the appeal was from the Bankruptcy amount to 50l.; and as in this case there Court. Before the petition of appeal were five counsel on each side, the solicitcould be heard, the mischief to be provided ors would have to charge this 50l. five against was very frequently committed, times over, or 250l. The other side would and past all remedy. Most cases of bank- have the same expense, so that the amount ruptcy required a speedy decision, and yet would be 500l. This afforded one idea in the Bankruptcy Court, in Basinghall- of the length, breadth, and delay of costs, street, the business was worse conducted of a Chancery appeal. In this one than in the most petty Court in the king- case 1,000l. had been spent on the dom; and if the Court in Basinghall-street bare materials for the wordy warfare were absolutely abolished, and a Court Then came the refreshers, so that infinitely like the Insolvent Court were to be estab- more than 1,000l. would be spent; and lished in its stead, it would be a great ad- this was by no means an extraordinary vantage to the public. The object for case. Mr. Penson had said, that in several which the Bankrupt Court was established cases the expenses of the affidavits had was lost. Such had been the evidence of amounted to 1,000 folios. In another Mr. Hamilton, and now let the House cause eight counsel had been employed, hear what had been the evidence of the and each had been heard at great length. Chief Baron upon the subject of the ex- And what did all this end in?-it ended, penses. The late Lord Chief Baron of as the Lord Chief Baron had informed the the Court of Exchequer, Sir James Alex- House, in an inquiry, where, as Mr. Greig ander, had said, that there was a large ex-very truly said, it ought to have begunpense incurred in the first instance. He had taxed a great number of bills, and the large expense arose principally from the number of affidavits, which contradicted each other as to the facts, and if there was any doubt as to the facts, the Chancellor sent the case to an issue before a Jury. One of the Commissioners of Bankruptcy, Mr. Greig, had written a pamphlet on the subject, from which he would read an extract. Mr. Greig said, that these difficult-point to issue; and how, he would ask, ies had long been a subject of complaint. The uncertainty of such evidence, the conflicting nature of the affidavits, very often rendered a Commission of Bankruptcy a matter of great expense, and the matter generally at issue was on occasions where a Jury must decide the facts. This was a costly, a dilatory, and unsatisfactory mode of coming to a decision. Now he (Mr. Williams) would come to the subject

it ended in an issue to try the facts, which rendered all the affidavits useless. He never knew a case where a man had been in the Court of Chancery with any profitable result, and the case subsequently went to a Jury, that he did not throw aside all his Chancery affidavits, and resort to the evidence of other witnesses. The Lord Chancellor, in fact, always said, that where a doubt existed, he should send the

could a case be without a doubt, in which there were 1,500 folios of affidavits? This insufficient and costly appeal, then, was the only correction that existed to the proceedings of the worst constituted Court in England. Would any man of principle undertake to say, that in a country priding itself upon its jurisprudence, such a system could be tolerated for a moment? and if

his learned friend replied, that Englishmen

had tolerated this, he should then reply, | spoke loudly against the existing system, that that was not enough to satisfy any and called imperatively for a radical change honourable mind that such a nuisance in the constitution and administration of ought not to be removed. His hon. and these laws. But this was not all. The learned friend opposite (Sir C. Wetherell) very cause of this Bill, the very ground of who spoke against this Bill, said, that no its being brought before Parliament, was opinion had ever been pronounced in the requisition of a numerous body of favour of the Court now proposed to be bankers and merchants of the City of established by the gentlemen examined London, assembled last spring, complainbefore the Chancery commission. It would ing of the manner in which the Bankruptbe marvellous if they had pronounced such laws were administered, and praying for a an opinion, for the Court had no existence change. It was that requisition which even in embryo until the beginning of this suggested and became the immediate year. If such an opinion had been pro- foundation of the Bill which his noble and nounced, it would have been anticipatively, learned friend introduced into the other prospectively, and prophetically-to bor- House, which had received the sanction row the language of his hon. and learned of that House, and which was now in the friend. But did his hon. and learned course of discussion before that House. friend mean to say, that the necessity of The necessity for the introduction of some something like it had not long been ac- measure to amend the Bankrupt-laws, knowledged? In 1718, upwards of a must be obvious to every one after the century ago, there had been a petition repeated and continued complaints which from the city of London, complaining that had been made against the existing laws, the operation of the Bankrupt-laws was from the commencement of the last century such, that the estate of the bankrupt was down to the very day and hour that this consumed in litigation. In 1783, Sir measure was introduced. What did the James Burgess put forth a series of reasons hon. and learned member for Boroughagainst the existing power of the Court of bridge mean by saying to him, or to any Chancery; and in his learned pamphlet, of the supporters of this measure, that it Mr. Basil Montagu had printed a bill for was unnecessary-that it was uncalled for the remedy of the abuses he complained of, in the same form as Sir James Burgess drew it. That bill contained a provision for a permanent Court, and proposed a remedy for some of the grievances which suitors at present sustained in their appeal to the Lord Chancellor. Again, in the year 1811 there were petitions from the sister kingdom, from Dublin, Waterford, Cork, Belfast, and other trading and commercial places, complaining of the administration of the Bankrupt-laws, and of the manner in which the Courts were formed. In consequence of the general complaints which were made of the existing law, a bill was introduced into Parliament in the course of the year 1811, but for some reason or other, with which he was not acquainted, it was not followed up; that bill, however, contained a provision for the establishment of a permanent Court to dispose of all legal matters in bankruptcy. Then came the Committee of 1817, before which the most eminent legal authorities, Sir Samuel Romilly, Cullen, and others, were examined, and all concurred in stating, that nothing could be more iniquitous than the existing mode of administering the Bankrupt-laws. These things

that it had been introduced in mere wantonness of legislation? Did the hon. Member mean to say that, in the opinions of commercial men, as well as in the judg ment of the most eminent of those to whom the administration of the existing Bankrupt-laws had been intrusted, that change was not required? All that he (Mr. J. Williams), could do was, to satisfy any man that, for more than a century past, the attention of the public had been continually called to the grievances of the present system. He had done that, and laboured to shew, that the present system was ill-constructed and worked ill, for this plain and obvious reason,-that in proportion as the questions of bankruptcy were of importance, in the same proportion was it necessary to have a Court which was distinguished by Judges of great learning, and in the same proportion was it necessary to revise, to remodel, and to make a radical change in the whole system. To use the language of the Committee of 1818, in proportion to the importance of the subject, was the necessity that there should be a complete change in the Courts and in their practice. The noble Marquis, the member for Buckinghamshire, said