opinion of executive officers so much changed, as to promise a more favorable consideration of the objections I still entertain to some few sections.

"On the other hand, should those sections of the Bill be disallowed by the Secretary of State, the symmetry of the measure would be undisturbed, and the valuable additions it makes to our rules of procedure would be immediately secured.

"Moreover it is, as I understand it, the chief recommendation of a Code that any defects which escape notice in its enactment, or any provisions which may be found to operate unadvisably, may be immediately corrected by legislation.

"For these reasons, if you think my opinion as an opponent of a few of the provisions of the Bill of any weight, I have felt bound to put you in possession of it.'

Now I do think his opinion of weight, because no man outside this Council has more carefully studied our work than Mr. Turner, and no man is in a position which better. enables him to judge what good it is likely to effect in the general business of the Courts of Law.

The plain fact is, that a change of officers who have the conduct of a great measure like this does lead to disturbance of the work, and to waste of power. We all have our parts to play-Mr. Cockerell has one part, Mr. Stokes another part, and I a third part. If I go away Mr. Stokes must play my part, and his successor must play his. That would infallibly result in the unsettlement of portions of the work, and the necessity of doing a good deal of it over again. If therefore the matter is in substance ripe for final discussion, it is worth while to strain a point to bring on that discussion before a change takes place. I am afraid that some inconvenience has been caused to Members of Council owing to the last print of the Bill being placed in their hands so late. But as regards the substantial questions of controversy which are embodied in this Bill, it seems to me that the time has come when they are quite ripe for final discussion: and therefore I hope the Council will not object to bring on that discussion now and finish it.

Now I will pass to the more direct subject of my motion. There are three reports before the Council to consider. You are aware that this Bill was published in the year 1864. That publication brought in a great quantity of valuable comment, which resulted in the alteration of the Bill, and the re-publication of it in the year 1865 in the shape in

which it was intended that it should pass. However the work was suspended, and it was not resumed until the year 1873. We then found that owing to changes in the law and other circumstances, it was necessary to alter the draft of 1865 to such an extent that it was convenient to recast it altogether. Accordingly we did that, and we published it in a remodelled form, being that Bill which is labelled Bill No. III. That re-publication was accompanied by a report which is the first report before the Council. Our re-publication brought us in a very large amount of most valuable and laborious comment from a number of skilled persons, which resulted in numerous alterations set forth in our Bill No. IV. No. IV was published in September 1876, and was accompanied by a report which is the second report before the Council. Again we have had a great number of comments; not so many as before, but some of very great value; and again we have made a number of alterations; not nearly so many as before, but such as necessitated the reprinting of the Bill. The reprinted Bill is the Bill on the table and is numbered V. It is accompanied by a final report, which is the third report before the Council.

The various papers have been placed in the hands of Honorable Members from time to time as they have been printed. They have not been placed on the table; and indeed if they were on the table, I should be speaking from behind a sort of breast-work of papers, and all my colleagues would be equally well protected; but they are in the hands of Honorable Members to use as they think it.

The substance of the two earlier reports has been explained to the Council, and I think I need not refer to it except so far as it may be in controversy at the present moment. Neither need I refer to the great quantity of detailed matter which we have touched from time to time. I shall confine this opening to the two subjects which have attracted general attention since the publication of Bill No. IV.

The first of these subjects is the distribution of business between District Courts and Subordinate Courts. In Bill No. IV we proposed an alteration of the law for the purpose of confining to District Courts certain kinds of business now performed by Subordinate Courts. My honorable

d

friend Mr. Cockerell explained the reasons for that proposal, and no doubt there was and is a good deal of reason and also a good deal of authority, as incidentally I shall have occasion to show, for the change proposed. But there came to the Committee so much evidence of the practical inconvenience likely to be caused by the change, that it seemed to them or the majority of them to preponderate, and it was thought wiser to leave matters as they now

stand.

There is a notice of motion on the paper in the name of my honorable friend Mahárájá Jotíndra Mohan Tagore. It is the third notice which stands in his name, and touches the relations of District Courts and Subordinate Courts. But it does not touch the general principles on which the changes were made by Bill No. IV, and I shall say nothing more about it at the present moment.

The second subject of controversy relates to those parts of the Code which regulate the execution of decrees for money-debts. When I addressed the Council in September last, I stated that our Code was found to work in a harsh and rigid way against the debtor, so as to drive men to despair, and to create much suffering and even danger. I said that having proposed to soften the law in this respect by our Bill No. III, we had on the evidence and advice sent in to us proposed to go further in the same direction and soften it still further by Bill No. IV. I mentioned various points in which we proposed alterations for that purpose. The principal of these were imprisonment for debt, the sale of land, and the exemption of property from execution at the instance of the creditor. Now in proposing these alterations we had regard to what was told us of the state of various parts of the country, which warned us that a very rapid transfer of land from the hands of one class to the hands of another class, or too great harshness and rigour in the prosecution of decrees against debtors, produced great misery and disorder, and even in some parts of the country danger. So far then, although it is confined to its own proper province of procedure, our Bill is connected, as other legal operations are connected, with a great political question. I thought we had given to the State somewhat more power than the present Code gave to it to guide the course of a decree, though I think now that in that opinion I was mistaken. But still I thought that

substantially we aimed at the same objects with our predecessors who framed the Code of 1859, and that we kept their main lines intact. Speaking in Council I summed up the alterations thus:

"These provisions relating to execution-sales constitute the principal alteration that we propose in the Code, and our object has been to alleviate the harshness and rigidity of the law, to diminish the number of forced sales, and to get for the owner of the land something like an adequate value for it, at the same time keeping clearly in mind the important principle-one of the most important objects of all civilized society-that a man should perform his contracts and pay his debts to the best of his ability.'

Such being my view of our proposals, what was my surprise when I found that the publication of the Bill brought us in lectures on political economy, or what calls itself such, and charges that we were confiscating property, disturbing the money-market, re-enacting usury laws, reverting to a patriarchal system of government, undergoing violent oscillations of policy which was known only to the minds of Indian officials, disregarding the wisdom of ages, and making laws at variance with human nature. Indeed such a storm of expostulation arose that I was quite frightened, until the happy thought occurred to me of looking to see what the existing law actually is, and what were the alterations we proposed. Then I was comforted, for with one dubious exception which I will explain presently, I found that we had proposed no more than what I had stated to the Council. In fact we had proposed something less. For being driven by stress of weather to examine the motives of the Code of 1859, I satisfied myself that not only did we aim at precisely the same objects with the framers of that Code, but that we had in contemplation precisely the same methods as they had. In fact the head and front of our offending is this, that we show an intention on the part of the Legislature that the powers existing in the law, but now lying unused, shall be used, and for that purpose we proposed to commit them to hands more likely to use them.

It will be convenient if at this point I explain to the Council what are the provisions that are so much complained of, and what they do, and what they do not, effect. They will be found in the sections of Bill No. V which are numbered 320 to 325. I omit Section 326, because it is

only a repetition of what is in the existing Code, and I do not for the present speak of Section 327, because it turns upon some considerations which are peculiar to itself.

In the first place these sections do not of their own force work any alterations either in law or practice, for they are only to be brought into action when and where the Executive Government thinks fit.

In the second place they do not interfere with any specific contracts affecting land, such as a mortgage. If for instance land is to be sold in pursuance of a mortgage, the only powers the Collector will have over the sale are those powers which a prudent vendor by auction commonly exercises--the power of lotting the property, of adjourning the sale, of fixing a reserved bid, and of buying in. But in connection with this point, I should say that, owing to some inadvertence in the drawing of the Bill No. IV, it might have been considered that the whole of these sections applied to mortgages as well as to unsecured money-debts. It was obvious indeed from the context, and also from what I said in Council, that they were not intended so to apply; and in his comments, Mr. Justice Turner has treated this defect as an obvious slip, and with his invariable fairness has taken no advantage of it in his argument. But I mention the matter now because it may possibly account for what seems to me the very exaggerated views of our operations entertained by various of our critics.

So much for what the sections do not effect. Now for what they do.

Section 320 enables the Executive to declare that in any place and with regard to any class of decrees for the sale of land, the execution of the decree shall be committed to the hands of the Collector.

Section 321 gives to the Collector the ordinary powers of vendors at auction-sales.

Section 322 gives him further powers in cases only of money-decrees, viz., powers of arrangement between debtors and creditors. It provides that if he sees reason to believe that the judgment-debt of the debtor can be discharged without the sale of the whole of the property, he may raise the amount necessary to discharge the debt, with interest according to the decree if the decree specifies the rate of