date

22 Oct r 1807 L d Eldons Bill
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.
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  • Title: [21 Oct r 1807 Eldon's Bill]
    Description: 21 Oct r 1807

    Eldon's Bill

    '.6.7 Quorums

    '.6 (1) ( Quorums) '.7 (1) (a Quorum thereof)

    Taken together, (and it would be indeed hard upon them indeed not to be taken together) these two sections may be termed Quorum Sections. The first of them is occupied in saying that each of the two divisions shall be a Quorum: the other in saying, or rather in endeavouring to say, and not being able to say, what /shall be/ that Quorum shall be.

    (On an occasion such as this a plain man /To a plain man it might /would/ would have been apt to come out) bluntly and without any preparation a plain man, meaning to have /make/ a Quorum number[?], would have come out bluntly with the declaration what that number was: and for this declaration one section would to his plain understanding have seemed sufficient. The refined genius of the learned Advisor would not stoop to any such coarse and vulgar practise. For a matter of such delicacy a smaller number of sections than two could not with any propriety have been made to serve. It required one, a sort of introductory section to prepare the mind of the reader for the other: to prepare him, and by giving him to understand that in some future undeclared section, which by due industry seconded by good fortune, it might happen /be his fortune/ to find out, the design would be accomplished, occupy and exercise his mind in conjectures what that /the so promised/ Quorum was destined to be.

    Of the sort /species/ of Members to which our legislator appears to belong an intimation was given at the outset of this commentary. To him who is one beside himeself a machine for splitting of hairs is a necessary implement: and the same machine may upon occasion, serve for splitting sections. Under such hands, a section like a polypus[?], is /becomes/ divisible in infinitum: convertible by fission into any given number of sections, each of them as perfect a section as the whole.
  • Title: [22 Oct r 1807 L d Eldons Bill]
    Description: 22 Oct r 1807

    L d Eldons Bill

    Thus stands the matter which as yet there is but one in the case of one legislator, and he not being one beside himself, but one only.

    Unfortunately for in the /that/ House where every thing /if any thing/ that were to be done were to be done, for the learned but unennobled Lord, so far from a voice not so much as a seat, were to be found: it accordingly became matter of necessity to be of the same Opinion, so far as it might be found possible to come at the Opinion[?], if the learned and already ennobled Lord whom by this time he saw not only presiding in that most honourable House and taking the lead in its proceedings, but prepared, whensoever and wheresoever a hand[?] should be found for it to " sit at the head" of it.

    Here then a Union of legislators Scottish with English became necessary: and we see the result. The half of the two was something: the two together became equal to nothing: ([...?][...?][...?]:) As in algebra, so in legislation. If x be in both cases a positive quantity, x + x is equal to 2x, but while in one case the value of x is positive if in the other case it be negative, x + x is equal to 0. But ex nihilo[?] useful fit: and there /here/ it is that while from one x alone we had a fixed quorum, viz. a quorum of five enacted in the course of one section and as the phrase is amongst other things, in the learned Advisors Bill, we have a whole /an entire/ section consecrated and appropriated to the subject of Quorums only, and that entire section with a gap /hole/ in it, making the whole equal to 0.

    of the President of the Scottish College of Justice with the learned Advisor and Representative of the Head of the Law in both kingdoms.
  • 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!