date

28[?] July 1806 │ │ Old Scotch Reform
28[?] July 1806 │ │ Old

Scotch Reform - Lett to L d Grenville

Facienda

Lett │ │ Facienda

p-

1. Salaries instead of fees. │ │ I shall not trouble your Lordship in this place with the reasons /For the Reasons, I beg leave in this [...?] to refer your Lordship ot the Appendix/. In the mode of /for/ payment by fees In the practice of receiving fees your Lordship if I am not much mistaken will there find the chief if not the only cause of all the evils by which the demand has been created for the now proposed remedy.

Not that the abolition of fees will /be of/ itself be sufficient for the care: but only that whatever other remedies the cure may be demand[?], this is one that can not be dispensed with.
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    Description: 28 July 1806

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  • Title: [Jan y 1806 Facienda IV. Inquirenda]
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    My Lord on this head I observe a sort of contradiction which I am inclined to think will not be found altogether undeserving of your Lordship's notice.

    In the Report concerning the High Court of Session in Scotland (30 th Report of Committee in Finance Appendix A.1) dated at Edinburgh 10 th April 1798 signed "by order of the Court John Pringle one of the Principal Clerks of Session, I find a round assertion in the following words "Neither the President nor the other Judges have any Enducements, Perquisites or Benefits whatsoever, excepting their Salaries".

    In M r Russel's practice of the Court of Session 2 d edit. A o 1768 I find other words

    In the book of practice attributed to M r Larne[?] edit. A o 17 I find the same proposition in the same words │ │

    In the Appendix to the last mentioned book entitled A Table of Fees payable to the Clerks and Officers of the Court of Session I find in p. 382, 383 a list of "Fees payable to the Clerks of the Ordinary Lords". It /This list/ is taken from an Act of Sederunt dated the 1 st of August 1789. On turning to this Act of Sederunt I observe an Introduction in which after stating that a memorial had been presented praying augmentation of these fees for certain reasons neither memorial nor reasons given, the Lords enact and ordain that "the fees of the Clerks of the Ordinary Lords shall be paid agreable to the following Table. Then comes a list of 11 occasions in which fees are declared to be payable to these Clerks: in 7 of the instances the fee is 3': in one, 5' in two 6': in one 10'.6
  • Title: [Jan y 1807 Facienda V. Abolition]
    Description: Jan y 1807

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    5. Substitution of Salaries to fees

    5. Conversion of fees into Salaries

    5. Abolition of fees or conversion of them into Salaries

     Shall /put[?]/ the mischief of payment in judicature? then go on thus

    If my conception of the matter my Lord be just, the rules of [...?] policy on this subject lie within a narrow compass -

    Particular abuse apart were in not for the abuse which in most cases is so apt to grow out of them, remuneration a given quantity of the matter of reward would be applied /administered/ to most /more/ advantage in the shape of fees than in the shape of salary.

    Why? 1. Because in the shape of fees, you may so connect reward with service, as that some how or other unless the service be performed the reward shall not be received. Whereas when it is administered in the shape of salary the reward is paid whether the service be performed or not performed.

    2. In so far as the goodness of the service of the work in the doing of which the service consists depends upon alacrity, upon the pleasure with which the performance of the work is or is not accomplished fees have a manifest advantage over salary. Reward, does it not sweeten labour? - Yes: but not unless they are served up in the same dish.