date

27 July 1806 Scotch Reform /Evidence
27 July 1806

Scotch Reform /Evidence

Lett Lawyers adverse

The substitution of salary to fees, is a practice so solidly grounded in principle, and so compleatly sanctioned by recent and universally approved precedents, that were this /expensive as it is were the expence/ the only difficulty neither opposition nor dissatisfaction could consistently be apprehended: but though this were surmounted, a great part of the opposing force remains unconquered, and perhaps unconquerable.

Unprecedented as it is, strange as accordingly it may well appear to our English eye, in Scotland, the reform which has the honour of Your Lordship's patronage, originated in /I perceive [...?] law-learned, in/ a judicial brain: in substance I see it proposed, and not proposed only but well advocated by the late Lord [...?], not one of the Judges of the Court of Session, in a pamphlet printed so long ago as in 1789. Even now, if I am rightly informed, it has for its prime [...?] and draughtsman another of the Judges of that locally [...?] as well as superior supreme Court.

In all this there is nothing out of nature. Ease is provided for /Repose is held out to/ for those to whom ease /repose/ may be desirable: sacrifice is not required of any. Additional Courts require additional Presidents: additional dignity requires additional emolument for its support. I speak not in the way of irony. It is a common place conclusion /argument/, sanctions well applied, sanctions ill applied, never conclusive, to infer public [...?] /mischief/ from individual accommodation. Your Lordship knows how to distinguish: I in my humble sphere do so too. Were my disapprobation of the plan ever so strong, I would leave it to any one else that pleased, to call it a job: if it /reform,/ had not this quality in common with jobs, would not be reconciliable either with policy or with justice.
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    To this article I should not expect to hear any objection, unless it be on the score of expence. More Courts whould require or be supposed to require more officers, in every case except where if there be any such case, the officers of any particular description are already in the existing single Court in a number as great as that of the proposed Courts.

    Not only so, but whatever additional number of Courts were to be established, each such new Court, would if the number of Judges placed in it were greater than one, be probably looked upon as requiring a Precedent: and to such superior in rank some superiority in salary - and thence some additional salary would naturally be looked upon as necessary.

    Report says that this plan was suggested by one of the present Members: if this be so, he would naturally on this occasion not be unremembered.

    I number this as an objection - not that ought to prevail but as one that will naturally enough be made, and ought therefore to be considered /on that account ought not to pass unheeded/.
  • Title: [PRIVATE [...?] Dec r 1807]
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    Reformer or Titius[?] to Lord Grenville, giving the reason for the omissions to be made in the Lords Appeal Accounts -

    Between the Scotch job which it is our design to make and the English jobs which of course it is our bounden duty to preserve, the connection is most intimate: we have accordingly two points to attend to - to make a case for the Scotch job, and in so doing to avoid bringing the English jobs to notice.

    In this task of ours we are happily favoured by the current denominations. Woods serve us not only as engines but as screens: beyond and behind them the public eye must not be suffered, nor happily for us is it disposed, to penetrate. The attempt would be theory, speculation: and in the care it behoves us to take to avoid giving facility to such innovations happily we are in no great danger of being discovered, or though we were to be discovered, of subjecting ourselves to any very serious reproach.

    In regard to Scottish judicature, Your Lordship's more particular objects are to make convenient situations for men of merit, who have the honour to be connected with Your Lordship's Administration, to take advantage of whatever suspicious opportunities may present themselves for giving to it every practicable degree of encrease.
  • Title: [1818 Sept. 18. Parl Reform Bill]
    Description: 1818 Sept. 18.

    Parl Reform Bill

    Reasons Note ult o

    '.2. Electors Who

    Universality

    II. Intellectuality

    Things as they are

    2

    2

    Part 1. Operations and Effects of Misrule

    Ch.1. Misrule, its principal operations; predatory oppression in the shape of depredation, profit, to the public /people/, loss by waste.

    Ch. 2. Immediate sources of waste - 1. Unnecessary wars.

    Ch. 3 - 2. Distant Dependencies. See by the author Emancipate Your Colonies. Addressed to the French National Assembly A o 1793.

    Ch. 4. - 3. Unnecessarily /Needlessly/ expensive Official Establishments. See by the author Defence of Economy against the right Hon. Edmund Burton, Pamphlet[?] N o < > D o against the Right Hon. George Rose: ibid. N o

    Ch. 5. - 4. Jobs of all sorts

    '.1. Jobs for the money profit of the few.

    '.2. Jobs for the amusement of the few.

    Ch.6. A system of judicial procedure, having for its effect and object the creation preservation and encrease of delay, vexation, and expense, for the profit upon the expense. See, by the Author, Draught of a Plan for the Judicial Establishment of France. Addressed to the French National Assembly A o 1790: and Scotch Reform &c. A o 1806.

    Ch. 7. By taxes and fees on law proceedings, sale of justice at enormous prices to the few, denial of it to all besides. See, by the author, Protest against Law Taxes, first published A o 17< > republished with Defence of Usury

    '.1. Instruments of sale and denial of justice for the benefit of rulers at large, Law-taxes.

    '.2. - for the benefit of Judges and other official lawyers, official law-fees.

    '.3. Regulations preventing parties from speaking for them selves; defendants, from defending themselves.

    Ch.8. Oppression at large - shapes in which it operates - 1. By various arrangements, the many oppressed for the benefit of the few. +

    Ch.9. - 2. Under the aggregate name of Common Law, laws fabricated by Judges at pleasure - pretended laws enforced as if real.

    See, by the Author, Papers on Codification A o 1817.

    +  Section whether to be inserted?