issued improvidently to the injury of a private subject, and sue out a scire facias to repeal them?

In the meantime, let those, who are disposed to receive the present Commission with hostility and aversion, reflect on the alternative they have escaped. No one can be so unobservant as not to perceive a growing opinion in our Legislative Assembly, especially in the House of Commons, that the great chartered Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, including their aggregated colleges, exercise too important an influence in this country to claim any exemption from public survey and control. Whether that opinion be well founded or not, we will not inquire; but, with all respect for those venerable and learned bodies, we invite them to reflect whether an investigation into their "state, discipline, studies, and revenues" before a Committee of the House of Commons is likely to be more palatable, or to be conducted with more consideration and courtesy, than an inquiry before a few gentlemen, members of one or the other of those bodies, and, we believe, personally unexceptionable? Are they aware of the vast, undefined, irresponsible, powers claimed by that assembly, and delegated to its committees? Against them there is no privilege to refuse information, or to withhold documents. Against their errors there is no security of an oath -no "safeguards and helps" for investigating truth-no appeal. In the reports of that House they may indeed be "defamed, and shall not have any traverse to it; " "unfairly accused by false evidence, and shall not have any remedy.' - "O felicem Domum, quæ non impunitatem solùm adepta est, sed etiam accusandi licentiam!"

But we refrain from saying more on this head. We have already stated our object to be, not to discuss the propriety, or to vindicate the policy or justice, of this or any other particular commission. We only express our conviction that, unless the opinion of the law advisers of the University can be fortified by better and stronger authorities than any as yet adduced by them, the Commission must be regarded as legal and constitutional.

ART. V.-ON THE PREPARATION OF ACTS OF
PARLIAMENT.

SUCH of our readers as are in the habit of referring repeatedly to the Acts of Parliament of the United Kingdom designedly in order to acquaint themselves with the existing Statute Law on subjects of legislative importance, will readily admit that they constantly become involved in a labyrinth of doubt and uncertainty; extrication from which is a task of great labour, and, often, of sheer impossibility.

The first obstacle which presents itself, and which can be only partially overcome by the aid of the printed digests and indices, is, to discover what Acts have, from time to time, been passed, either directly or more remotely, affecting the matter in hand; the next, to ascertain, by a careful collation and comparison of the statutes brought to light, which of them are wholly, and which only in part, repealed; while the problem least easy of solution is that of interpreting or attaching a certain meaning to the phraseology in which the existing enactments are expressed.

These evils are necessarily, of course to some extent, inevitable in a populous and highly civilised community, in which Legislation proceeds year by year with rapid strides, but it will not be denied that there is ample scope for improvement in the machinery of law-making; and we believe, that by a few comparatively trifling alterations in the procedure of Parliament, with reference to the mode of framing Bills for proposed Acts, a very beneficial reform might be effected in the way of rendering the Statute Books more readily accessible for purposes of reference, and the Acts themselves of less doubtful construction than they are at present.

The difficulties which we assert to be incidental to the correct ascertainment and interpretation of our Statute Law as now enunciated, are fairly enough traceable to the three following causes, viz.:

I. Partial or piecemeal Legislation.

II. Hasty or crude Legislation.

And, III. Verbally inaccurate Legislation.

To the first of these causes, which obviously originates in the license possessed by all members of the Legislature of introducing at pleasure bills extending only to isolated cases of grievance irrespective of any attempt to render the contemplated enactments exhaustive, per se, of other matters properly falling within a like category, is attributable the multitude of Acts of Parliament on one and the same subject. In other words, for want of proper checks on the proceedings of the manufacturers of new laws, Bills, purporting only partially to amend or repeal antecedent Acts, are constantly allowed to pass into law; when, if due consideration were given to the subject in hand by those competent to view it correctly in all its bearings, the proposed measures would at once assume the character of Acts of Consolidation and Amendment in lieu of being Acts of Amendment merely.

It is certainly true, that of late years the advantages resulting from the incorporation of several pre-existing Acts in one have been recognised; but the principle of Consolidation, even when admitted, has not, in practice, been so thoroughly carried into execution as it might have been. Take, for instance, the recent Bankrupt Law Amendment Act, 12 & 13 Vict., c. 106., which is professedly an Act of Consolidation, and would have afforded a very happy illustration of the utility of the principle in question, had but its framers possessed sufficient resolution to repeal, without exception, all antecedent Bankrupt Acts, and to re-enact in extenso so much of them as it was their intention should still remain in force; but, unfortunately, without apparently a sufficient motive, unless the attainment of greater brevity is to be so regarded, out of the eleven statutes which are enumerated in schedule A. to the late Act, only four are wholly repealed, while the remaining seven are but partially affected, and that by way of exception, after a fashion which must almost inevitably occasion considerable difficulties of construction. Thus, in dealing with the Act 5 & 6 Vict.

c. 122., the whole is repealed, "except as hereinbefore in the Bankrupt Law Consolidation Act, 1849, is excepted, so far as the Act repeals any other Act or Acts, or any part of any Act or Acts; and except so far as relates to the appointment, tenure of office, and removal of additional commissioners, deputy registrars and official assignees, to act in the country, except so far as relates to the salaries of Commissioners, and except so far as relates to the transfer of the duties and business," &c. &c. We can but think that immunity from such a nest of exceptions within exceptions as this is would have been cheaply purchased at the expense of inserting in the body of the Act almost any number of additional clauses. In fact, it is a delusion to designate as an Act of Consolidation a statute which deals after this fashion with antecedent Acts affecting the same subject matter. Advocating, however, as we do, "Consolidation" in any shape, we do not entirely condemn the late Bankrupt Act; indeed, in many respects, it is a performance of very considerable merit. We only allege against its authors, that the principles on which it is professedly based, have been needlessly and unadvisedly sacrificed in the endeavour to obtain greater brevity in the Act itself. Any course is preferable to that of following in the beaten track of merely patching up, from time to time, the existing Statute Law, by Acts of Amendment and Extension without any attempt whatever at Consolidation. This "tinkering" process holds to a startling extent; thus, in the Act 8 & 9 Vict. c. 70., entitled "An Act for the further Amendment of Church Building Acts," no fewer than thirteen previous Acts on the same subject, and each of them, of course, more or less modified or altered by its successors, are recited, not with a view to their total repeal and re-enactment, but because "it is expedient that some of the provisions of the herein before recited Acts should be amended." So, in the same Session of Parliament, an Act was passed, relative to the taking of unlawful oaths in Ireland, in which four antecedent Acts on so trifling a matter as this is, are recited and continued with amendments. Even the County Courts, notwithstanding their recent origin, are being already subjected to the process

The

of piecemeal legislation and its concomitant evils. original Act, 9 & 10 Vict. c. 95., having been twice amended, viz. by 12 & 13 Vict. c. 101., and 13 & 14 Vict. c. 61., and having narrowly escaped in the last Session still more extensive additions to, and alterations in, its original provisions. And so, again, the simple matter of authorising and regulating the mode of making Government advances for the drainage and improvement of land and similar purposes, is the subject of seven lengthy Acts, six of which are partially, and only partially, repealed and amended by the last, 13 & 14 Vict. c. 31.

Instances of this kind of legislation might be multiplied almost indefinitely; and those which we have cited are not by any means the most glaring that could be brought forward; but, taken as they are, at random from a few of the late volumes of Statutes, they are amply sufficient to prove that an useless multitude of Acts on one and the same subject are permitted to continue in contemporaneous operation; and that there is proper occasion to endeavour to restrain the present usage of sanctioning Bills, the sole object of which is the partial alteration of existing Statutes, while the latter are themselves still unrepealed. Within what precise limits Bills of mere amendment should be allowed, either by reason of positive necessity, or on the ground of mere expediency, is a matter in which opinions will probably differ; but we are prepared to suggest that in no case, and under no circumstances, should any existing Act, or, at all events, any Act of a certain sessional age, be more than twice amended, unaccompanied by a total repeal and re-enactment of its provisions in extenso; and that even then consolidation should be regarded as the rule, and amendment as the exception; so that, in fact, in every instance where a present Statute requires alteration or extension, the onus should rest with the originator of the new Act, of showing a case for its coming within the exception and not within the rule, instead of its being incumbent on him, as it is according to the present practice, expressly to raise a case for, and prove the expediency of, consolidation. The principal objection to such an alteration in Parliamentary Procedure as that which