date

15 April 1808 Ch. │ │ Competition
15 April 1808

Ch. │ │ Competition

'. 2 Legislation

'. 2. Competition, so applicable with advantage to projected laws /projects //plans// of legislation/.

A case then[?] in which the principle of competition has not been nor promises to be, productive of any advantage, is that of judication: at any rate under the technical or fee-gathering system as established in Scotland as well as in England.

A case in which it has already been productive of advantage, and under appropriate /suitable/ culture, promises to be more and productive of the same /like good/ fruit is that of legislation: competition for public esteem and favour as between one projector and another.

To prove my case, I /am/ find myself under the necessity of bringing forward divers persons of high account in the character of witnesses. Under the British constitution, no rant[?] how high soever, examples /affords [...?]/ a man from that service.

To prove efficacy of competition in the character of a stimulus, no more conclusive exemplification need be produced, than that which has been afforded in the case of the Right Honourable the Lord President and his /the [...?] learned Lord his/ [...?] learned Co-Memorialists. Before the stimulus was applied, the [...?] of justice would have been, not to say was, beholden /contemplated by those learned/ with a degree of unruffled complacency not inferior to that with which the deposition of commerce would at present be contemplated by [...?] unlearned eyes.
Similar Items
  • Title: [15 April 1808 Ch. │ │ Competition]
    Description: 15 April 1808

    Ch. │ │ Competition

    '. 2 Legislation

    An arrear of more than [...?] years already accumulated, and still the favourable object - the object honoured by one acknowledged performance, not dispatch, but its grand enemy repose: power to clear away the arrear acknowledged: will to clear it away disclaimed; determination not to clear it away, at the expence of repose, confessed.

    Vendible delay manufactured in pieces of more than two years length, and the growing means[?] of length contemplated with a degree of philosophical resignation /serenity/ not to be exceeded by that manifested by the manager of a much /still/ higher concern which contemplating the pitch of perfection to which the manufacturers of the same species of prime goods has been [...?] on up; the length of a [...?] already extended to six years, with a prospect of [...?] encrease without [...?].

    Such my Lord is /was/ in that situation the state of the human mind, before the stimulus /principle/ of competition came to be applied to it. Such the disposition in which in the Court of Session Your Lordships enterprize found eleven at least out of the fifteen Judges. The stimulus applied, now let us see /observe/ the effects of it.

    In Your Lordship's plan the [...?] /main //principal/ features appeared to be division of the Court, and introduction of jury trial; to which Your Lordship's learned advisor, in whose eyes a set of [...?] to firm [...?] seats for merit were the one thing needful, added an Intermediate Chamber of Review. The order of things, was thus threatened with reversal: the ends of justice had avowedly been preferred to the ends of judicature: the security of the people to the power and dignity of the Lord President, and to the repose of the whole bench. The Jury-trial /box, intoducible/ practicable or not, beneficial or not upon the whole, operated upon learned mind as a source of alarm: peopled with usurpers the Intermediate Court became necessary to /was to be got rid/ get rid of it at any price.
  • Title: [[...?] Apr 1808 Ch. | | Competition]
    Description: [...?] Apr 1808

    Ch. | | Competition

    Ch. /Of the principle of competition/ Competition as applied /are applicable/ to plans[?] of legislation in the present end

    I have spoken, my Lord, of the principle of competition, and of the ideas that had presented themselves in the view of giving, to the branch of public given laws in question, and to the best advantage, the benefit of this principle.

    On the case in which my view /conception/ of the matter benefit may to /in/ a very considerable degree be on good /[...?]/ grounds be expected from the influence of this principle, light may /the same [...?...?]/ in my view of the matter be thrown by the comparison /[...?] it comparison/ with a case in which no equal benefit if any can on any /no but expectation/ substantial ground be expected /built/. The case in which its influence promises to be powerful and /as well as/ salutary is the case actually in hand - the case where a flow of legislation is to be devised, and the object is to allow[?] the best[?] that is at once good and practicable.

    The case in which its influence presents not to any [...?] any such promise, is at least to an amount comparable with that promised in the former case, is that of judicature: a supposed competition between his judicatures having jurisdiction over the same class of causes.

    Experience /does not/ presents not any considerable benefit /in the practice/ as [...?] from any competition broken judicatory and judicatory on the grounds of judicature.

    /In the/ [...?] does present a very considerable benefit as resulting from a competition between projector and profiter[?], if the term denomination[?] may be endured, on the grounds of legislation: /Such are the propositions which in the present Chapter I propose to submitt to Your Lordship's notice. And in this very [...?]./ the constitution of human nature as evidenced by the benefit already reaped on this very decision I behold a promise of more.
  • Title: [1 April 1808 Letter V Ch. 2]
    Description: 1 April 1808

    Letter V

    Ch. 2 Features approved

    '. 2. Appeals diminished

    As to the allowance of [...?] as above, to the Right Honourable the Lord President belongs the honour of the [...?]: and thus without any one to share in it [...?] except his the[?] learned Colleagues, in[?] learned Co-Memorialists, who with confidence equal to his own, perceive[?] the time of the Member of the House of Lords and compleatly[?] of its burthen by the exclusion of a class of causes which never formed a /constituted any/ part of it.

    Of the microscopical addition made to the efficacy of the principle by the Lord Chancellor's learned scribe /draughtsman/, notice will be taken in its place.