date

10 April 1805 Evidence Securities
10 April 1805

Evidence

Securities

Ch. Procedure Technical

''.2 Ruling Interests

Here as elsewhere, judging from the known /predominant/ principles of human nature, to predict /for predicting/ what the wish would be, the workman having full powers, or being left to themselves nothing more was /would have been/ necessary, than to observe /consider/ what course, in every part of the business would be most for /favourable to/ their interest, [...?] productive in the greatest degree of their own personal, or (what in this case comes to the same thing) professional and official, profit and /or/ advantage. The state of things /of the results/ by which that advantage /object/ is promoted in the highest degree the description will be very simple

1. That the aggregate mass of profit (Lawyer's profit) extracted from the aggregate mass of suits, carried on within each a given space of time, may be as great as possible.

2. That accordingly the greatest possible quantity of profit be extracted. from each suit.

3. That, of suits capable of being made to yield profit, the number be made as great as possible.

4. That of suits not capable of being made to yield profit the number be made as small as possible: sheer labour, labour without profit, being the only result afforded to the lawyer by suits thus circumstanced.
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  • Title: [10 April 1805 Evidence Securities]
    Description: 10 April 1805

    Evidence

    Securities

    Ch. Procedure Technical

    ''.2. ruling Interests

    continued

    9. That in all instances in which misdecision would be /is/ productive of a greater degree of professional /lawyers/ or official profit than right decision, misdecision /the wrong course/ be the course adopted in preference: if /at any rate provided/ a pretence can be found capable of reconciling /hiding from/ the eye of the public to the injustice.

    Note

    If, the misdecision thus pronounced to the prejudice of the [...?] party who is in the right the effect be confined to that individual suit, having open to him the expectation of right decision, that is of a decision favourable to him, in case of another suit carried on in relation to the same demand, the natural effect of such misdecision is to produce two suits instead of one /give birth to a second suit in addition to the first/.

    In this interest may be found /traced/ /seen the source/ the origin of decisions on the ground of informality , or nullity /a principal source of that class of decisions which are pronounced on/: decisions on grounds of all sorts foreign to the merits. Add Appeals Injunction &.

    [...?] device[?] of technical procedure: device[?] for increasing the number of profitable suits: also of the mass of profitable proceedings in each given suit. Decisions on the ground of informality.

    10. That whatsoever be the amount of profit extracted from the aggregate mass of suits, by the construction of the system, the quantity of inconvenience sustained by themselves in the extraction of it, viz. in the shape of vexation and delay (vexation including labour and expense) (delay in respect of the receipt of the profit) be as small as possible.

    Of these two interests, that which respects the extraction of profit may be termed the main interest: that which respects the avoidance of vexation and delay, the collateral interest.
  • Title: [10 April 1805 Evidence Securities]
    Description: 10 April 1805

    Evidence

    Securities

    Ch. Procedure Technical

    ''.3 Objects ulterior

    9.1. A malâ fide demand makes a suit as much as a bonâ fide demand: therefore, it is the interest of the men of law requires that the number of malâ fide suits /demands/ be made as great as possible. Third object of technical procedure - to encrease /render/ the number of mala fide demands. of mala fide suits being such on the part of the demandant /plaintiff/ as great as possible.

    10.2. A mala fide defence continues a suit as much as a bonâ fide defence: therefore it is the interest of the man of law requires that the number of mala fide defences be made as great as possible. Fourth object of technical procedure - to render /encrease/ the number of malâ fide defences - of malâ fide suits being such on the part of the defendant, as great as possible.

    11.3. The quantity of profit extractable, in a given space of time, from the aggregate number of suits, being given, it is the interest of the man of law that the number of suits carried on within that time should be as small as possible: since whatever labour is not attended with profit, is needless. Fifth object of technical procedure, to render as small as possible the number of suits carried on by those whose capacity of expence affords no profit, or inferior profit as small as possible: in other words to exclude as much as possible the poorer classes, that is the great majority of the people, from the benefit of justice: - to place the great body of the people in a state of perpetual outlawry. N.B. This effect takes place in a considerable degree, without the necessity of any exertions directed to this special purpose /specially directed to this purpose. The greater the quantity /quantum/ of expense created, the less the number of those whose circumstances enable them to support it.
  • Title: [21 April 1805 Evidence Securities]
    Description: 21 April 1805

    Evidence

    Securities

    Ch. Procedure Technical

    ''.2. Objects pursued

    In the objects or ends pointed at by the interests abovementioned some sort of contrarity and competition may already have been observed: to encrease suits and not to encrease them, to encrease labour and not to encrease it: to extract the maximum of their advantage objects somewhat differently [...?] must therefore have been aimed at, means of different description and even opposite tendency as among the legitimate +, so among these illegitimate occasionally employed: each of the interests, each object /interest, each object/ must occasionally have been made to give way, and in some sort sacrificed, to the other. /another/.

    1. One interest said - make as many suits as possible.

    2. Another interest said - make the profit upon each suit as great as possible.

    3. A third said - make the trouble to yourselves from all suits taken together as little /light/ as possible.

    Here was a sort of contarity /To a certain degree these interests clashed:/: by the same means /arrangement/ by which one of them was promoted, another was counteracted. The more the profit upon each was augmented, the more the number of them was diminished: for the profit to the man of law being unavoidably attended with expence as well as vexation to a much greater amount to the individual would in many instances by utter inability in many more by dint of [...?] prevent them either from entering into or from continuing in the situation of a suitor - would in other words diminish the number of suits - would strike a number of hypothetical suits out of the list of actual ones - But the suits thus struck out of the list what

    Ends.

    Conflict.