27 Oct 1807

L d Eldon's Bill

First[?]or L d President

Provided nevertheless

(4) (First of the said divisions ... the division in which the Lord President ... presides) both descriptions designed to designate the same division - another instance of flowry inconsistency - [...?] diversification - in an Act of Parliament. See '.│ │. Suppose the Lord President absent, the election over, and the successful candidate either presiding in the division in his Lordship's stead or sitting at the head of it, as per '.2: in that case shall the cause in question belong to that division, the Lord President not presiding in it, as required by this 12 th section. Laur[?] ceo[?]. Such is one of the consequences of such flowers.

(5) (Provided nevertheless &c) In a Bill brought in to the House of Lords, a proviso inserted, a long and formal proviso to enact that in a particular instance, in a field of jurisdiction incontestably belonging to them /that branch of the legislature/ without dispute, Orders given by the House in the exercise of their /such/ jurisdiction shall be obeyed! What? is it only in a particular case that obedience is to be paid a judicial Order of the House of Lords? in a particular case only, and when it is the pleasure of the learned draughtsman to allow of such obedience? But to that branch of the legislature it belongs to say what sort of reception ought to be /shall be/ given to such a clause.

In the instance of the Quorum sections '.6 and 7. we saw an extremely simple business split between two sections and after all left unfinished. In the present section we see two businesses as wide of each other as possible, crowded /forced together/ into one. Section the [...?] th had for its subject, remitts /the case of causes remitted/ from Division to Division of the Court of Session. Section 10 th, the case of an interchange of opinions as between Division and Division of /in/ the same Court /in the instance of each other/. When remitts were on the carpet, remitts as between the one and the other of the two co-ordinate courts, then /there/ one should have thought would have been the place to go on and speak of remitts made to either of them from the common superordinate the House of Lords.

When interchange of opinions was on the carpet, there, if any where /if at all/, would have been the place, to speak of such interchange of opinions as might come to be called for, by particular order of the House of Lords. No such thing. Between the one case of Remitts and the other two sections are interposed, one of them of the highest and most extensive importance, as widely distant from the subject of remitts, as it was possible for a section in such an Act /a Bill/ to be: and the same irrelevant section is interposed between the two sections in which mention is made of interchange of opinion.

In '.12 in which the topic of remitts and the topic of interchange of opinions, are both of them introduced, mention being in both instances made of the authority of the House of Lords, here as between those two topics a principle of connexion exists /does exist/: but then these two clauses which in this way have a connection are both of them stuck on to the tail of another clause relative to the distribution of causes as between division and division, a clause having nothing to do with the judicature of the House of Lords.