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viously been allowed to dispose of for money. At first it was proposed to allow the puisne judges 6,000l. a-year but the scheme ultimately adopted gave to the chief justice of the King's-bench 10,000l. a-year; to the chief justice of the court of Common Pleas 8,000l.; to the chief baron of the court of Exchequer 7,000l.; and to each of the puisne justices of the courts of King's-bench and Common Pleas, and to each of the barons of the Exchequer, the nett annual salary of 5,500l. There was likewise granted an addition of 2001. a-year to the retiring pension of the chief justice of the King's-bench; 3,500l. was fixed as the retiring allowance of the puisne judges; and 3,750l. as that of the chief justice of the Common Pleas, the chief baron, vice-chancellor, and master of the Rolls.

This arrangement met with considerable opposition in its progress. Mr. Hume was of opinion, that the cheapest way of doing the judicial business of the country was the best and Mr. Hobhouse and Mr. Denman, imbued with a spirit of deep philosophy, maintained, that the dignity of a judge depended in no degree on money. Mr. Scarlett contended that this arrangement was improper, because it in fact diminished the emoluments of the office of lord chief justice of England. The fees attached to that office were, he said, incidental to the situation of chief justice, and had existed for centuries. It was from these that he derived the greater portion of his recompense, and of the legitimate reward of his labours. Chief justices had as much a vested right in these fees, as any archbishop of Canterbury could have in the lands of the see which he had not yet become

absolutely possessed of. If it were proposed, for instance, to make an alteration in the leases of that see, and to give the present possessor a smaller sum in lieu of the loss he might sustain, how much would it excite the disapprobation of that sacred profession? If an alteration were intended, there should at least be a fair average of the loss sustained by it, and compensation to that amount. But, what was now proposed? To increase the salaries of the puisne judges from 4, to 5,500l. a-year; and while on the average of the last thirty or forty years, the salary and fees of the chief justice amounted to between 14,000 and 15,000l. a-year, to add only 1,000l. to the lowest sum he had received during any one of these years. This might be an advantage to the present chief justice, because it would give him a small increase to his present salary, he not being in a situation to participate in all the advantages derived from the disposal of the incidental offices; but he was sure that he was incapable of bartering any of the rights of his successors. It was unjust towards the chief justice to take away from him his fees, in order to create a fund for the payment of the puisne judges. It was an admitted principle, that the chief justiceship of the court of King's-bench ought to be a place of great elevation and dignity. Such was the feeling of the profession. To make it such, it should be a situation of considerable emolument. The profession of the law was like a lottery. Its expenses always exceeded its profits just as the expenses of the tickets exceeded the value of the prizes. To make these situations the object of high spirit and ambition, they should be offices of emolument and

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dignity. Any step to degrade the high offices of chancellor or chief justice, was a step towards the degradation of the whole profession. Men of very considerable eminence would not be induced to give up a leading practice at the bar, for a salary barely equal, perhaps inferior, to the profits of their practice. The style of living must also be taken into the account. The profession lived very much together, and were rigorous critics towards each other, as to the rate and style of expense. A man of good practice might live in his own way, and make a very good figure with half his earnings. Not so with the chief justice, who was looked up to not only as head of the common law, but as one possessed of dignities and advantages becoming his high station. A man could accumulate less for his family as chief justice with 10,000l. a-year, than a barrister could with the same sum acquired by practice. He was free to do as he liked in the latter case; in the former, he would be chained to hard labour for life; he would be condemned to tug at an iron oar, or, if that were considered too harsh a description, at a gilded one. There was a period when chancellors and judges held their levees, and maintained their station with the highest splendor. Lord Mansfield invariably held levees; but, if a lord chief justice could be found to ride down to court, or to travel, in a hackneycoach, with his train-bearer then, indeed, some saving might be made out of 10,000l. a-year. Upon these grounds he proposed as an amendment-That the sum of 12,000l. should be inserted, instead of 10,000l., as the salary of the lord chief justice for he was well informed that the average of the

income of the office had exceeded that sum in times past. This amendment was not adopted.

Mr. Brougham proposed to lop 'off 500l. a-year from the proposed salary of the puisne judges: but that alteration also was rejected.

A very important bill, introduced by Mr. Peel, for consolidating and amending the laws relating to juries, was passed. Of the alterations made by it in the existing laws, the most important were the regulations with respect to special jurors. It was required, that in all cases where the Crown was either a real or a nominal plaintiff, the special jurors should be selected by ballot : and in all criminal proceedings tried by special juries, the same regulations were to be observed. In civil cases, where there was a consent in writing on both sides (which written consent was to be afterwards received as evidence of the agreement between the parties), special juries might be selected in the same manner as at present.

The bankrupt laws were consolidated into one act, and were in some respects altered. An act was also passed for amending the laws relating to agents and factors.

On the very first night of the session, the lord chancellor announced his intention to introduce a bill for regulating and restraining the prevailing practice of dealing in shares of proposed Jointstock Companies. This bill, he stated on a subsequent occasion, would not apply to companies already constituted, or which might be constituted by charter or act of parliament. But it was not to be endured that before the authority of the Crown or of parliament was given to the formation of a jointstock company, persons should be

permitted to sell at an enormous profit the shares of that company. The object of his measure therefore was, to prevent the transferring of shares of any joint-stock company, until such company should have received the sanction of a charter or an act of parliament. His lordship, however, afterwards abandoned this design. At a later period of the session, the attorneygeneral introduced a bill for the repeal of the bubble act: all agreed that the penalties annexed to the offence created by that statute, were preposterously severe; and the repeal of it was therefore readily acceded to.

The Unitarian marriage bill was again rejected. It was supported, in the House of Lords, by the archbishop of Canterbury, the bishop of Litchfield, and lord Liverpool. It was opposed by the lord Chancellor and lord Redesdale: and on the question of the second reading, it was lost by a majority of 56 to 52.

Mr. Serjeant Onslow again brought forward his bill for the repeal of the Usury Laws. On the 17th of February he moved, that it should be read a second time. Mr. Calcraft and the Solicitor-general opposed it. Borrowers, argued the latter gentleman, might be divided into three classes-mercantile borrowers, landed borrowers, and persons who did not belong to either of these classes, and who might be considered as general borrowers. Mercantile borrowers generally obtained a loan to make a profit of it. They did not borrow from necessity, but they borrowed to trade; and if they could make ten or twelve per cent on the money borrowed, there was no reason why the lender might not ask them to pay him seven or

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eight per cent. But was there any landed proprietor so ignorant, as not to see, that, if the monied man could lend to the trader, at a higher rate than five per cent, he would not lend to him at that sum? It was one advantage to the lender, that he could recall his capital at pleasure, or get it back at a short notice. Now, when a man lent capital to a trader, he was generally enabled to command the use of it when he pleased. Very often he received as security transferrable property, which he could turn into money when he pleased. But, if he lent his money on land, he could not get it back at his pleasure; there was all the trouble and inconvenience of a mortgage; he could not recall it for two or three years, and therefore, in proportion as he could not command the use of his capital, when he lent it to the landed owner, he would make him pay a higher rate of interest for it than the trader. He believed he was not wrong when he stated, that eight out of every ten estates in the kingdom were loaded with debt. Now, under what circumstances did the country gentleman borrow money? Was it to employ it at some seasonable crisis, when by a little prudence and dexterity he might obtain vast profit? No. The benefits which he could receive as its produce were fixed. He never could obtain from a borrowed sum beyond a determined profit. Such were the great distinctions between these two species of borrowers. Could any one say, that the repeal of the Usury laws would be beneficial to the latter class? But, if the terms of borrowing were so unfavourable to the landed class, what expectation could the general borrower enter

tain of being able to obtain a loan under any other than oppressive terms? The persons, who formed this class, generally stood in need of but small sums; their necessities were pressing, and therefore they were exposed to the most grinding demands. However, they would have no choice; they would be obliged to submit to the terms imposed upon them, let them be ever so oppressive.

In answer to these observations, Mr. Serjeant Onslow argued, that money was like land or houses, which, when men borrowed, they paid for the use of. As the rent both of houses and land was unrestricted, he did not see why the rent of money for there was nothing magical in the term interest should not be equally so. It could not be denied that the best and readiest security, which could be offered for money at the present day, was land. The fact was, that money could be at all times obtained on good security, at its fair market value. To reduce it to that value, or to prevent its being carried higher than that value allowed, the present measure was introduced. The land-owner and the merchant would always obtain it at its fair price; but as to the person who had no security to give, he did not know any change of the law which could put him into a better situation with respect to the terms on which he could obtain a loan, than he was at present. He contended, that, on the ground of good policy, there was no just cause for continuing the present restrictive laws.

In the course of the discussion, Mr. C. Wynn stated, that not only was he himself friendly to the abolition of the Usury laws, but the chancellor of the Exchequer, and the president of the Board of Trade, had, on more than one occasion, defended the policy of doing so; and he was confident that all his colleagues, with the exception, perhaps, of the right hon. secretary for Foreign Affairs, who, to the best of his knowledge, had never taken the question into his consideration, were strongly in favour of it. They had left the House, because they anticipated that the division on the bill would not take place till a late hour, and that their presence would not be wanted to render the question successful. He had stayed behind at the request of his right hon. friend, the president of the Board of Trade, to declare the opinion of ministers on this bill, in case such a declaration of opinion should be rendered necessary.

Notwithstanding this important declaration, the bill was rejected by a majority of 45 to 40.

Besides some essential improvements in the constitution of juries in Scotland, the form and course of proceeding in the court of session underwent a great alteration in the present year. The act introducing these alterations was the result of the labours of the committee, which had made its report in 1824: and the effect of them was, to diminish greatly the succession of steps which intervened between the commencement and the termination of a suit.

CHAP. VL

Combination Laws Mr. Huskisson's Motion for a Committee Report of the Committee-Bill founded upon the Report-Debates on the Bill Corn Laws-Alterations in our Colonial Policy-Diminution in our protecting Duties-Measures for the Relief of the Shipping Interest Surrender of the Charter of the Levant Company.

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from Mr. Hume's act, repeal ing both the statute and common law against combinations among workmen, had been too serious to be overlooked; and on the 29th of March, Mr. Huskisson called the attention of the legislature to the subject. Mr. Huskisson, after alluding to the hurried and inconsiderate manner in which that alteration in the law had been made, stated, that, since the passing of the act in question, he had in his official capacity received information of the conduct adopted by bodies of workmen in various parts of the country. These were, many of them, very painful accounts; and to the Secretary of State for the Home Department numerous reports had been forwarded, detailing most atrocious acts of outrage and violence, on the part of workmen combined against employers. All those classes of workmen who had misconceived the real object of the legislature in the late act, had manifested a disposition to combine against the masters, and a tendency to proceedings destructive of the property and business of the latter, which, if permitted to remain unchecked, must terminate in producing the greatest mischiefs to the country. Indeed, those mischiefs were rapidly grow

ing a pitch, that if their progress was not speedily interrupted, they would very soon become, rather a subject for Mr. Peel to deal with in the exercise of his official functions, than for him (Mr. H.) to call the attention of the House to as a matter of trade. These things could not remain much longer in their present condition. Unless parliament should interfere to place them on a different footing, his right hon. friendarmed as he was by the state, with the authority of calling in aid the civil power for the protection of the property and liberty of the king's subjects, must so interpose against what he could not but consider a very formidable conspiracy in certain bodies of men, calculated to place that liberty and property, and perhaps life itself, in great jeopardy, as regarded certain individuals who employed large numbers of labourers and journeymen. As a general principle, he admitted that every man had an inherent right to carry his own labour to whatever market he liked ; and so to make the best of it: and, accordingly, he had always maintained that labour was the poor man's capital. But, then, on the other hand, he must as strenuously contend for the perfect freedom of

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