date

26 Octr 1807 Eldon's Bill
26 Octr 1807

Eldon's Bill

'.11

Procedure the same

Instead of presenting a friendly competition /contention/ in that straight and simple course, what is it they have done?

Travelling hand in hand in pursuit of those sinister ends which have already been /in the course of this work have/ so often been pointed out the maximum of profit combined with the maximum of care, they have by their harmonious exertions given birth to that system of elaborate /well-elaborated/ and but too successful iniquity of which the principal features have also been delineated /sketched out/. +See Lett. V under the head of Devices

Not that of competition there has been any want /deficiency/: but to what object has it been directed? Preserving each of the Courts in its own system those features by which the sinister ends common to them all were /are/ served, the subject of the competition which of them by unnecessary encroachments upon the liberty of the subject in the station[?] of the Defendant, shall /should/ offer the most tempting advantages to instances in the character of plaintiff /station of Plaintiff/.

By (faithful argument and) unbroken agreement and confederacy and uninterrupted co-operation a system having been thus formed corrupt in all its parts corrupt from beginning to end, disastrous to the people in the character of suitors, favourable only to that omnipotent brotherhood /fraternity/ by whom and consequently for whom it was organised, the field of competition has been scanty in the extreme and the utmost advantages ever derived or derivable from it by /to/ the suitors, proportionately minute.

Not only has so far as system is concerned - not only has it in that quarter been unable to render any effectual service to the interests of justice, but even as between individuals and individuals acting under the same system its inefficacy has been in many instances as conspicuous, as its efficacy has in the aggregate of all instances been dubious

 Point to Eldon delays notwithstanding the competition of the Exchequer.
Similar Items
  • Title: [26 Oct 1807 Eldons Bill '.11]
    Description: 26 Oct 1807

    Eldons Bill

    '.11

    Procedure the System

    What makes the example so much the more instructive /richer/ in instruction is that the same Courts which afford /present/ the spectacle of diversity of procedure, and of the mischiefs flowing from it, present the example of competition, and of the minuteness of the advantages, if any that have been derived from it.

    If amongst them any such contention had ever prevailed as which should do most for furthering the ends of justice they would long ago have arrived all of them at that simplicity that undilatory unvexatious unexpensive and at the same time /but the more/ efficient simplicity which has all along characterised the system /method/ of the Small Debt Courts, the Courts of Justices of the Peace sitting out of the Sessions[?] and the other Courts of Natural Procedure: they would long have arrived at it /that goal/, or rather they never would have swerved from it: so that /insomuch/ unexpensiveness, unvexatiousness, and so far as depended upon the system undilatoriness, being in those /these/ high Courts as in the other petty Courts in all of them alike at the pitch of perfection, the only object of contention would have been as between individuals and individuals, on each individual occasion, which Judge or set of Judges should by staving off the time for decision produce least factitious delay, be most sincerely anxious to save the suitors on both sides from all unnecessary expense [...?] [...?] most effectual that by that the operation of justice no unnecessary vexation be inflicted either on the suitors on either side or on third persons, ad be most solicitously and successively attentive to avoid doing /lending his hand to/ any of those diversified injuries to which the people in the character of suitors are subjected by erroneous decisions /misdecision/ decisions and denial of justice /to the prejudice either of the plaintiff or of the defendant's side/.
  • Title: [28 March 1805 Evidence Securities]
    Description: 28 March 1805

    Evidence

    Securities

    Ch. Procedure Natural

    ''.11. Advantages

    Such is the general outline of the natural system of procedure, the domestic mode rendered applicable to the purposes of public judicature by the addition of the requisite powers, and the enlargement of the scale - the extension of the field of action. In the /several/ succeeding /course/ chapters of this Book, the outline will be filled up, by bringing to view the particular arrangements which constitute the leading features of it. /of which the leading features of it are comprized./

    In this natural system, when extended and fortified as above we shall perceive, in proportion as the several arrangements with the advantages, which constitute their respective reasons, are /come to be/ developed, the standard of perfection.

    Nor yet /that/ a merely ideal standard, capable of being conceived, incapable of being realized in practice: but a system which actually is realized, in perhaps every country, in an extensive variety of instances, with inevitable success, and might be realized in all others, without any preponderant inconvenience.

    Of the advantages belonging to this system, no conception could ever have been formed, still less /nor therefore/ any description given, but for the mischiefs which produced by the deviation that have been made from it. A general and consequently slight but not unimpressive sketch of these deviations will be found in a succeeding chapter under the head of the technical system of procedure.
  • Title: [3 March 1804 Evidence Ch. Reform]
    Description: 3 March 1804

    Evidence

    Ch. Reform Objections: Lawyers

    What it has /is/been in the power of competition to do for us in the way it has affected - the decent administration of a system radically bad in many /several/ of its essential features. What it is not in the power of do for us, remains undone: the correction /improvement/ of that bad system by the extirpation of the bad features - the extension - for little, if anything /of such of its features as are thus [...?] bad, together with very little/, is extension of such good features as are already exemplified and in existence: the steady contemplation and in steady pursuit of he end in view: the /a/ deration[?] of all measures - of all arrangements of detail to that are[?] and or connected and consistent cluster /constellation/ of ends: and above all the utter extirpation of licenced mendacity in all its shapes as being in all its shapes the irreconcilable adversary to whoever and whatever and[?] whoever is directed to that end.