his favour he was then only in the posi- | ceeding. He proposed to allow the petition of an ordinary suitor commencing a tion to be presented and prosecuted in the suit. The whole expense previously in- form either of a bill in Chancery or of a curred, and it frequently amounted to some declaration at law, the Attorney General hundreds of pounds, was entirely thrown being called upon to answer it on the part away. The Crown was then called upon of the Government. In that way delay to answer, and the suit proceeded accord- and expense would be avoided; but, in ing to the ordinary forms applicable to the order that there should not be frivolous and case. Another jury were summoned, and vexatious suits brought against the Governthe case was tried before the Judge and ment, his Bill provided that no person jury. The result was that, unless he re- should be at liberty to prosecute his Peticovered more than £1,000 the suitor would tion of Right until he had satisfied a Judge generally be out of pocket, and no one of one of the superior courts that he had would embark in such a litigation to en- reasonable grounds for proceeding with his force his claims against the Crown un- suit. If he were told that affording a less he had a claim amounting to £2,000 simple remedy would encourage useless or £3,000. Many contracts were made litigation, his answer was that the penalty during the late war by the different de- of having to pay the costs in the event partments of the Government, and some of failure would deter persons from needwere rather abruptly broken by the Govern- lessly embarking in law proceedings. The ment at the close of the war, so that the change which he proposed was not withquestion had a practical interest at the out precedents, for in 1855 an Act present moment. If a person who entered was passed by which the costs in revenue into a contract with the Government was prosecutions were made payable or recharged with a breach of it, the remedy coverable by the Crown, as the case on the part of the Crown against him might be. So, too, there were precewas direct and immediate; but, on the dents for allowing persons to sue the Atother hand, when he wanted to enforce his torney General on the part of the Crown. rights against the Government, he was In 1857 an Act was passed which enabled practically prevented from doing so, and all persons having claims upon the Governthe result was that the greatest possible ment in Scotland to sue the Lord Advodissatisfaction prevailed among the mer- cate, and last Session, when the adminiscantile community. Under these circum-tration of India was transferred to the stances it had occurred to him and many other lawyers that some amendment should be made in the law. He desired to sim. plify the present cumbrous and expensive proceedings, and there was no reason why they should not be assimilated to those that took place between Subject and Subject, or to those that were adopted when the Crown endeavoured to enforce its rights by process of law. The Bill which he had prepared would be found to accomplish that object. Delay would be avoided, expense would be saved, and wherever a Subject succeeded in maintaining his claim he would be entitled to his costs, while, if on the other hand he brought forward a claim which he could not substantiate, heed by moving for leave to bring in a Bill would then equally have to pay the costs incurred by the Crown. The mode in which he proposed to carry out this amendment of the law was, not to allow a writ to be issued in the name of the Sovereign, but to preserve, as more consistent with the Constitution, the form of the ancient Petition of Right, at the same time sweeping away all the other unnecessary and expensive forms of pro

Crown, it was provided that persons having claims against the Government in respect to Indian affairs should be entitled to issue a writ against the Secretary of State, and so have their cases determined by the ordinary tribunals of the country. He was sure that the change he proposed would be of essential advantage to the public service, because when people knew they had a clear and simple remedy they would be more willing to enter into contracts with the Government; and, at all events, the public would have the satisfaction of knowing that there was one equal law for the Crown and its Subjects. The hon. and learned Gentleman conclud

"to amend the Law relating to Petitions of Right, to simplify the proceedings, and to make provision for the costs thereof."

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL said, the IIouse and the country were much indebted to his hon. and learned Friend for having brought this important subject under their notice. Claims founded in justice might exist against the Crown, sometimes to a considerable amount, and if a

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only to draw the attention of the House | admit the influence of the commercial and to one or two broad and general results. manufacturing interests, he still believed The great or the noble, or the rich of that the maintenance of the great landed the land, would not to be the first to be properties was essential to the working of injured by the Bill. The class that would the British constitution. They are the be most injuriously affected by the measure balance or makeweight in the political was one that had been left entirely out of machine. If they were destroyed, they consideration. It was the class of small might have an American Republic, or a yeomen and small freeholders-the persons French despotism, but not the English who had acquired a small proprietorship in Government. It was the solid substratum land by industry and perseverance, and of power derived from the land that rewhose interests ought ever to be upheld by sisted all unnecessary change. The conthat House. The number of such persons tinual subdivision of land in France was had by a recent Parliamentary return been at the bottom of all the political troubles placed at 300,000. By the operation of the of that country during the last fifty Bill the land of these small proprietors would years. It was by the votes of the numerbe divided and subdivided, and their cot- ous body of small landed proprietors that tages and freeholds, which, as stated by Louis Napoleon was raised to the Imthe noble Lord the Member for the City of perial throne. He did not wish to make London (Lord John Russell), might have any attack on the system of government been in their possession 400 years, or ever which prevailed in France, but he did not since the Norman Conquest, would be think the people of England were at all gradually swept away. And why? Merely desirous that that form of government to satisfy a crochet of the hon. Member for should be introduced here. They regarded East Surrey that was entirely opposed to with dislike any legislation that would tend the feelings of the people of England; and, to produce that state of society which contrary to the general devisement of land might pave the way for such a form of goby will and testament. In all ordinary vernment in this country. Any one who cases land was left in a mass to the eldest had travelled in France must have observed son, with a provision from it for the other that the minute subdivision of land had also branches of the family. What does this seriously affected the agriculture of that prove? That the law of primogeniture is country. Stock, implements, and the culinherent in the character, customs, and tivation of the land had all deteriorated. feelings of Englishmen. He knew that the This was admitted even by the French hon. Member would say that the law of themselves. A French gentleman of exprimogeniture was not openly and directly perience in these matters, lecturing before attacked by this measure; but if it passed the Agricultural Society at Paris, had a most important step would have been stated that France was half a century taken towards abrogating the ordinary law behind England in the practice of agriof succession. If you once declare that culture; and he gave it as his delibein cases of intestacy real estate shall be rate opinion that the superiority of Engcompulsorily divided, that it is a crying in- land in this respect was owing to those justice that land should not be equally di- social and political institutions this meavided amongst all the children, you raise sure would undermine and destroy. And up a most formidable argument against what was the overwhelming necessity for the law of succession. The principle and the change? What was the crying inprecedent established by this Bill would justice that demanded such a remedy? If hereafter be quoted against it, and though any injustice was committed it was the conyou may not directly abrogate the law of sequence of a man's own negligence, and to primogeniture, you would so limit and re- call on Parliament to pass a special law to strain it as to attain that object in an in- remedy evils caused by individual neglect direct manner. They were bound to con- certainly required an unusual amount of sider what effect such an alteration of presumption. He would not impute any the law of property would have on the such presumption to the hon. Member; but government and constitution of this coun- then he thought it was plain he must have try. They were about to consider a Bill some other object, some ulterior aim, some modifying the representative system. With greater principle in view, that induced him, out wishing to attribute any exaggerated year after year, and Session after Session, importance to the large territorial posses- to introduce this Bill to alter a law which sions of the country, and perfectly ready to had worked so well, had produced such

The

devolved their real property upon the eldest | by his appeal to morality and justice, had child. At the moment that the widow and described some instances of the injustice younger children, who had been dependent arising out of the existing law of real proupon the intestate to the day of his decease, perty they might then have discussed were grieving over their loss, there was it with a view to finding a remedy. added the bitter consideration that it de- hon. and learned Gentleman, however, pended upon the eldest son's humanity wished then to revert to the Norman Conwhether they should be sent out of their quest, and stigmatized the change that home as exiles. The Bill would remedy then took place as a change effected by that injustice. It would not interfere with fraud and injustice. That language was any man's right to dispose of his real pro- not very likely to induce the House to perty by will in any manner he pleased. consider calmly the existing evils or to But if no will were made the State inter- pacify those who were alarmed that this fered and disposed of his property in a man- Bill was only the commencement of an ner that was opposed to justice and mo- attack upon the landed gentry. He should rality. In the reign of Charles II, the Sta- not, however, follow the hon. and learned tute of Distributions was passed, whereby Gentleman into these larger questions, but personal property in the case of intestacy confine himself to the matter at issue. He was made distributable among the next of did not dispute the accuracy of the hon. kin, without reference to the claims of the and learned Gentleman's statement that priesthood who had previously claimed the intestacies caused great inconveniences to distribution thereof to the prejudice of the the middle classes, and that the higher next of kin, and thus far feudalism had to orders, as they were called, were not exyield to civilization. The advanced opi- posed to like inconveniences. Persons nion of these days demanded that with re- belonging to the higher orders did not spect to landed property a similar victory often die intestate. But the hon. and should be obtained over barbarous feudalism. learned Gentleman said nothing about the It was only recently that an Act was pas numerous classes of the poor. He did not sed enabling a father to inherit the pro- condescend to notice them. But would the perty of his son, notwithstanding the feu- House bestow its attention upon the case dal dogma that inheritances must always of a well-educated man belonging to the descend and never ascend. Perhaps the middle classes, who, from sheer carelessnoble Lord opposite, if he had been pre- ness or cowardice, declined to make a sent when that Act was passing through proper provision for his wife and family, the House, would have got up and said of and shut its eyes to the case of those it, as he had said of this Bill, that it would hundreds of thousands of poor men scatinsert the slight end of the wedge for the tered throughout the land who were the destruction of the landed gentry. The owners of a cottage that had descended advocates of the measure merely sought in generation after generation, and who, the interests of humanity and equity to generally speaking, never had and never remove a restriction imposed in feudal would make a will? This Bill would drive times, and wholly unsuited to the present those men into the clutches of an attorney enlightened age. He would object to any or a small schoolmaster, who would have to make a will for them. The middle and the upper classes were more able to take care of themselves than these poor men. At present, not one in a hundred of the poorer class ever made a will. Generally speaking when one of them died his eldest child took the cottage, and the widow continued to reside in it during the remainder of her life, and so the cottage was handed on from generation to generation. But all that would be put an end to by this Bill. Nevertheless at the end of the Bill there was some consolation for these people. The Bill would permit them to go to the Court of Chancery, which, upon a summary application, might give such directions to an administrator as it might think proper.

Bill which interfered with the discretion or absolute power of testators to dispose of their property as they liked; but this measure would not do so, while it would remove a grievance which was frequently arising in families, and ought to be dealt with by the Legislature.

MR. HENLEY said, he regretted that the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Mellor) had not described the operation of this Bill. Any one acquainted with the ordinary affairs of life knew perfectly well that in its mutations and changes people were constantly subjected to some inconvenience or another, and he wished that the hon. and learned Gentleman, instead of endeavouring to carry the House away