and brought together and dealt with by the same Judges; while others may not admit of such classification, and require to be dealt with in a different manner. It is proposed to divide the High Court into four Divisions of five Judges each; and that will leave one Judge not attached to any Division. But, though the Judges will be thus attached to different Divisions, it would be a mistake to suppose that this involves any return to the old system of divided jurisdiction, because every Judge is to be made available for any part of the business of the entire Court, in which his services may be required. The division of the Court into four Divisions is merely for convenience in the arrangement and distribution of business. It is proposed that these Divisions should correspond as nearly as may be with the divisions of the existing Courts; and in the first classification of business any convenient classification now in use may wisely be adopted as an element. I will read to your Lordships an opinion of the Associated Committee of Law Societies, given in February, 1868, and also a passage, bearing on the same point, which I find in the first Report of the Judicature Commission. The Associated Committee said,

"The division of legal business ought to be by judicial regulation, and not by general law. The general division of legal business effected by the present system is very convenient; and in giving to every Court entire jurisdiction over any matter which may come before it, and in dividing the business of the law by regulation, it is desirable that the work of the Courts shall as much as possible continue to pass through its present channels.'

"Other gentlemen, of great knowledge and experience, made similar recommendations, and the Commission reported thus:

"Between the several chambers or divisions of the Supreme Court it would be necessary to make such a classification of business as might seem desirable with reference to the nature of the suit and the relief to be sought or administered therein; and the ordinary distribution of business among the different chambers or divisions should be regulated according to such classification. For the same reason which induces us to recommend the retention for the present of the distinctive titles of the different Courts in their new character, as so many divisions of the Supreme Court, we think that such classification should in the first instance be made on the principle of assigning as nearly as practicable to those chambers or divisions such suits as would now be commenced in the respective Courts as at present constituted; with power, however, to the Supreme Court to vary or alter the classification in such manner as may from time to time be deemed expedient.'

"My Lords, that recommendation rests on reasonable principles, and what I propose to do in conformity with it is this :-The first Division of the High Court will consist of the present Judges of the Court of Queen's Bench, subject to the necessary arrangements for taking three Judges from the aggregate of the present Courts of First Instance permanently to the Court of Appeal. The second

Division will be composed of the existing Judges of the Court of Chancery; the third, of the existing Judges of the Court of Common Pleas; the fourth, of the existing Judges of the Court of Exchequer. The existing Judge of the Court of Admiralty will be a member of the second or Chancery Division of the High Court, and the chief of this Division will be the existing Master of the Rolls. The distribution of business proposed to be made between these Divisions and the unattached Judge is proposed as one to start with, and not as a stereotyped one. It will be subject to alteration, to the power of transfer, and to other safeguards. In the first place, with the exception of the second or Chancery Division, all the Divisions will have those classes of business which are now within the exclusive cognizance of the Courts of which the future Judges of those Divisions are members. Thus, Criminal and Crown business will be in a Division composed of the Judges of the Queen's Bench, Common Pleas business will be in that of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas, and Revenue business will be in that of the Judges of the Exchequer. As to the second Division, we could not go that length, because if we did so we should be going too far towards the re-establishment of the distinction between the administration of law and equity which we do not want to be acted on longer, except so far as it may in the nature of things be coincident with a convenient distribution of the business. The second Division will hear Admiralty cases, as the present Admiralty Judge will be there, and Bankruptcy cases, as the present Bankruptcy Judge will be there, and also that class of cases for which the Court of Chancery has at present the only or the best available machinery; being all causes, matters, and proceedings for any of the following purposes: -The administration of the estates of deceased persons; the dissolution of partnerships or the taking of partnership and other accounts; the redemption or foreclosure of mortgages; the raising of portions, or other charges on land; the sale and distribution of the proceeds of property subject to any lien or charge; the execution of trusts, charitable or private; the rectification, or setting aside, or cancellation of deeds or other written instruments; the specific performance of contracts between vendors and purchasers of real estates, including contracts for leases; the partition or sale of real estates; the wardship of infants and the care of infants' estates. Your Lordships will see that the business to be so assigned to the second Division may be summed up in the words 'administrative business,' which requires administrative machinery. Such business should remain where it is, but not without a power to move it elsewhere when there are reasons to make its removal desirable. I mentioned that there will be one Judge not attached to any Division. He is the present Judge of Probate and Divorce, and, of course, he will hear such cases as are now heard in his Court. This distribution of business, alterable by rules, is subject to the additional safeguard that, in cases not expressly provided for, any suitor will have the right to choose where he will bring his action; in what Division,

and in cases where suits are decided by a single Judge, before what Judge. But some of your Lordships may suggest that perhaps, through ignorance on the part of the suitor, or from some other cause, the action may have been begun in a wrong Division, and then what is to be done? Why, the suitor will not lose his cause it will simply be removed into the right Division, and the proceedings will be taken up at the point to which they had arrived at the time of transference. There will also be power to transfer any case from one Division to another, or from one Judge to another, in consequence of the nature of the case or because of litigation going on elsewhere, or for any other reason which may make such transfer desirable."

Lord Selborne then proceeded to deal shortly with the sittings of the Courts and with the subject of trial, and on the question of Procedure said that the Bill would adopt the recommendations of some of the members of the Judicature Commission, who had suggested certain rules which would be embraced in the schedule. They covered all the main points of procedure, he said, and "their object is to get rid of long and expensive pleadings, to establish a single uniform system, to constitute the means of giving a decision when there is no practical defence, and in many other respects to introduce useful improvements."

"My Lords," said the Lord Chancellor, "I now come to the subject of the Appellate Jurisdiction. I do not propose to deal by this Bill with the appeals from Scotland or Ireland. Those countries have each their own system of jurisprudence and judicature, with which, so far as their original jurisdiction is concerned, this Bill does not in any way deal. Furthermore, the evidence given before your Lordships' Committee last year by gentlemen conversant with the practice of appeals from Scotland was to the effect that no change was desired in that country. I think the views entertained by the people of Scotland on this subject are entitled to very great respect; it would be an unwise and unnecessary thing to propose changes applicable to that country which the public opinion of that country does not require. As to Ireland, there was also no evidence that any change was wanted. I do not, of course, conceal from myself that if you establish in England a thoroughly good appellate jurisdiction, and find that it works as we hope it will work, opinion both in Scotland and Ireland may probably hereafter tend to the application and adoption of the same system in those countries. But I am perfectly content to wait, and not to anticipate the time. All I propose is that, in the constitution of the Court of Appellate Jurisdiction, we may make it possible to have the services of eminent Judges who have served in Scotland and Ireland.

"I will now remind your Lordships of the present state of the appellate jurisdictions in this country. We have four Courts of Review-the Exchequer Chamber, the Court of Appeal in Chancery, your Lordships' House, and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. These Courts give to the dissatisfied suitor, in most,

if

although not in all cases, the opportunity of a double appeal. In Admiralty cases there is only one appeal-to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. In Lunacy cases also there is only one appeal to the Judicial Committee. But all the cases in the Superior Courts of Common Law, which are brought by Error to this House, must go through a double appeal. They must first go to the Exchequer Chamber, and in every case where an appeal is taken to the Exchequer Chamber it may also be brought to this House. It is not so in Chancery. In Chancery cases there is an option generally for the appellant either to come at once to this House or, if he prefers it, to the Court of Appeal in Chancery; but every judgment of that Court is subject to an appeal to this House. Therefore, there is generally a system of double appeal for the suitor. I have never concealed my opinion that this is not a good system. If you have a good Court with sufficient judicial power to command the confidence of the country, it is better that there should be no double appeal. I would not exclude the power where you have an appeal heard by a small number of Judges of having it reconsidered by a larger number of Judges. But my opinion is that you establish an adequate Court, it is desirable for the parties and for the general interest of the country that the decision of that Court should be final, and that you should not multiply appeals. You never can escape, by going through any number of Courts of Appeal, from the risk of differences of opinion in each and every one of them, and from doubts arising as to whether the last Court decided better than those before it. What you want is to make as good a Court as possible, and to give it all the power and authority you can, and that, in my humble judgment, is best accomplished by making it final. I will now briefly review the results, upon this subject, of the useful discussions of the last few years; and I hope your Lordships will pardon me if I first ask permission to read a passage from a speech delivered by myself in the House of Commons six years ago, when I moved this question. Your Lordships will, at least, see that the opinions which I now express on this subject are not newly formed, and that they are indeed the same that I expressed at that time. Addressing the House of Commons on the 22nd of February, 1867, I said, 'I will venture to state what has occurred to me as the best way of meeting all these difficulties, before I say a word on the most difficult portion of the subject, relating to the august tribunal of the House of Lords. Taking the three Courts I have mentioned alone-the Court of Error in the Exchequer Chamber, the Court of Appeal in Chancery, and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council-I am of opinion, if the House agrees with the view I have expressed, that one Court of Appeal is sufficient that out of the Court of Appeal now existing in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council you might, with some additions, form a most admirable Supreme Court of Appeal, capable of discharging the whole of the business which is now done by that Court and also by the Courts of Exchequer Chamber, and of Appeal in

Chancery. The constitution of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is most excellent, as far as it goes. I have no hesitation in saying that that Court, powerfully constituted, with a sufficient number of Judges to render it capable of subdivision, and comprising men conversant with different kinds of law-Common Law, Equity, and, it might be, Scotch law, as well as Colonial and Indian lawwould be able to dispose of the appeals most beneficially to our jurisprudence, with great satisfaction to the country, and at no very great additional cost. You might have the Lord Chancellor, though, if the House of Lords retained its appellate jurisdiction, he would be required there frequently. You might also have the Lords Justices, and all the other eminent persons now constituting the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. You might have two

or three other permanent Judges with proper salaries, chosen with reference to qualities which are not ordinarily to be found in the Judges of the Court of Chancery. . . . . Some such measures as these have been suggested by high authority, as necessary to maintain in efficiency the Judicial Committee, even for its present purposes. I venture also to think that those who may hereafter fill the high office of Lord Chancellor might, considering the circumstances which often deprive the country of their services in that office, be called upon, ex debito, in consideration of their pensions (which are ample, though not too great), to give their services in the Supreme Court of Appeal, as they now voluntarily give them, from a sense of public duty, in the House of Lords. It would be thus quite practicable to form such a Supreme Court of Final Appeal as might unite the various jurisdictions now exercised by different Courts; and then I should certainly recommend that the Court should assemble in the same place as the other Law Courts-in the future home about to be provided for justice in the neighbourhood of those who practise the law, and not, as the Judicial Committee now does, in such an inconvenient place as the Privy Council Office in Downing Street. I do not conceive that there would be any constitutional objection, resulting from the relation of the Colonies to the Crown, to giving such a Court jurisdiction over Colonial and Indian appeals, because its Judges might be, and in practice would be, Privy Councillors, and, being so, would be qualified to advise her Majesty on all matters of that kind.'—[3 “ Hansard," clxxxv. 857.]

"My Lords, in reading this passage from my speech delivered six years ago, I desire to prove to you that I have not now arrived at a new conclusion: and if in what I now propose I seem to ask your Lordships to relinquish some part of your judicial authority, I hope your Lordships will feel persuaded that this does not arise from a disposition on my part to take anything away from the dignity and importance of your Lordships' House. Independently of my being the youngest Member of your Assembly, my own constitutional principles have always made the honour, the dignity, and the constitutional power of this House, most dear to me; and there is not a man in it who would be more unwilling to do anything to