date

22 Oct r 1807 L d Eldon's Bill
22 Oct r 1807

L d Eldon's Bill

Thus much as to the supposed mischief. Now as to the beneficialness of the proposed remedy.

What is the effect of it? understand /I mean/ the immediate and certain effect, where it has any. Not to /To/ cause the business to be well done - taking the will of the majority as in this case it is and must be taken for the standard of rectitude? - no: but to cause it not to be done at all. Yes: if by saying that such or such a business shall not be done without such a number /the quorum/ you could as often as that particular business comes upon the carpet force the appearance /attendance/ of that number /or as often as that particular business comes upon the carpet/; but this can not be done, or at any rate, never by any establishers of judicial Quorums (a), ever is attempted to be done.

Suppose now a Quorum number /Take first the case of judicature/ established in respect of judicial business in all or any of the four seated Courts of Westminster Hall, and observe the effect of it.

Say that in the King's Bench no business shall ever be done by any number less than the full compliment: the consequence is that every now and then judicature would be at a stand: which under the existing /the natural/ arrangements it never is.

Say in the same Court no business shall ever be done by any number less than three. Here is a regulation which as often as the case happens must be mischievous, and the best that can be said for it is that is - that unless by some rare accident, which perhaps may never be realized, it will be inoperative

(a) Under the Grenville Act for the purpose of getting a Quorum out of which to compose an Election judicature, it is done: but the difficulty on the one hand, and the inconvenience on the other are alike notorious.
Similar Items
  • Title: [22 Oct r 1807 L d Eldon's Bill]
    Description: 22 Oct r 1807

    L d Eldon's Bill

    Take now the case of legislation: and for example take the Quorum of 9 out of 15 the Quorum in each instance required by the Bill /learned Advisor/ as often as the whole Senate is concerned.

    A Quorum of 9 out of the 15 is made requisite to the validity of the law. What is the consequence /follows/? In the first place Power to the /a/ minority to defeat the will of the majority. Nine are requisite: by staying away, seven leave but eight: by merely /simply/ not coming /a more negative act/, and without the trouble of opposition, without the shame of groundless opposition, prevent the business from being done.

    Oh, but we would not have things /regulations/ carried by any such bare majority, it is the very thing we wish to prevent. Well then if you do your expedient does not answer your purpose. Your Quorum of nine attends: but of that Quorum the majority, I take for granted is sufficient to give validity to the act. What follows? Even when you might have a majority you will not have it, because it is not large enough: the security it affords against male-practice is not sufficient to /calm the anxiety of/ your prudence. Eight vouchers are not sufficient in your reckoning to establish the expediency of a law: and have you authorize laws in any number, enacted by so small a number as five.
  • Title: [21 Oct 1807 L d Eldon's Bill]
    Description: 21 Oct 1807

    L d Eldon's Bill

    Splitting sections, at least with the machine invented and employed by our legislator, is not, any more than splitting of logs, an operation unattended with labour: and the proof of it is that before the business is completed /Quorum is declared/, the force of the workman /operator/ fails him, and the promised Quorum remains undeclared.

    Where lay the difficulty? Is it that the settlement of a Quorum was /is/ in its own nature too arduous an exploit /operation/ even for that noble and learned hand by which all other noble hands are led? If so, what other noble, what less-learned hand will attempt it. But no: - when a Quorum was to be settled for the whole Senate so easy was it /the operation/ found, that each time it was settled in a porch[?] it was a sort of thing that a man might settle as he ran /a mere parenthesis was sufficient for it/. When the business /task/ of settling a Quorum for a whole Senate runs off so /thus/ lightly, shall the exertions /efforts/ of our Hercules /Solon/ /Lycurgus/ be baffled by a mere half-senate? by the half of it the same Senate, which, till this inauspicious moment, had been so trustable?

    Fortunately for Scotland, the quorum-creative force /strength/ of our /her/ Solon revives, like a Giant refreshed at the like section, and then and there where a Quorum for the adjustment of naterum possession is to be established, the Presiding Judge /the Presiding Judge wheresoever it may happen to him to sit, whether at the head of the division or elsewhere, may even though he be standing the whole time/, with any those of the other Judges of the Division, total number four, is pitched upon as constituting the sufficient number without difficulty.

    But how much more fortunately, had the revival taken place a few sections earlier, and when the adjustment of Quorums was the order of the day!
  • Title: [22 Oct r 1807 L d Eldons Bill]
    Description: 22 Oct r 1807

    L d Eldons Bill

    Another consequence of Quorum clauses: doubts in swarms and those doubts unsolvable: debates in multitudes, and those debates interminable. (As for example - )

    First take one legislator: and he, like our learned Advisor, one beside himself. The / One/ first proposes an number: one /the first/ proposes another. Between them they " break" the case together, till it is broken quite to pieces: when both combatants are tired out comes a section, such as section 7, composed of a blank.

    Next take two legislators, adding to the one beside himself, for example the Lord President. First comes /take/ his learned Lordships first Bill. Here in '.2 in which the problem concerning the bisection of the senate is first started he makes[?] two divisions quietly, saying nothing there about Quorums. But between his first Bill and his second Bill, it looks as if it had happened to his learned Lordship to have had /received/ the honour of an audience /interview/ with /from/ some person who (being one beside himself) was higher than himself, and by /from/ whom he was informed there was no doing without a Quorum /that a Quorum there must be/. In his second /amended/ Bill he accordingly goes to work: and not being one beside himself, experiences no difficulty. In his first Bill, though in '.2 in the case of the divided moiety of the Senate he had seen no reason for saying any thing about Quorums, yet in '.2., in the same first Bill in which he had contented himself in general terms with saying /announcing a distinction/ that the number of Judges sitting together in the Inner House at one time shall be diminished, calling to mind that under the existing regulation or practice nine in the whole Senate was a necessary number, he foresaw that supposing the diminution to proceed a certain length, if the same Quorum of nine continued to be exacted business could not be done: he thereupon saw the necessity of saying something about Quorums, were it only for the purpose of lessening them; and thereupon said five.