We now approach a question of acknowledged importance, connected with practical legislation. Complaints have so frequently been made in Parliament, from the bench, the bar, and the press, of the hasty and ill-considered provisions of the public statutes,-of their loose and illogical arrangement, their obscure and often inaccurate phraseology, and their legal blunders, that our readers may claim to be spared any illustration of them. The modern statutes are not quite so bad as they are popularly supposed to be; but they are susceptible of very great and systematic improvements. Next to an epic poem, we believe an Act of Parliament to be the most difficult of all compositions. One mind, indeed, is rarely equal to the preparation even of a perfect draft, still less of a final legislative measure. Ready learning, patient study, practical knowledge, an appreciation of all conceivable circumstances amounting to imagination, logical discrimination, and the most critical nicety of language, are all essential to the due performance of the task. An Act of Parliament is not criticised like other works of art. Learned critics vie with one another to discover some hidden meaning in a chorus of Eschylus, which to common understandings has none at all; while the most subtle minds are striving to make unintelligible the language of statutes which, in any other composition, would be plain enough. No human skill will always be proof against such an ordeal; but by the present system of passing bills, a statute is exposed to so many dangers before it attains maturity, that we have often wondered, not that it should contain some obvious blunders, but by what happy chance it has escaped the enactment of sheer nonsense, in very bad grammar. However carefully it may have been originally prepared, no sooner is it out of the hands of the draftsman than its unities' are set at nought. A word omitted here, a clause added there, terms already used in one sense, inserted elsewhere, in another, make such havoc in it, that its author would scarcely recognise his own work. Nor is he present to advise and assist in the amendment of his draft. been given over to the care of a minister or member, who, though well informed as to the general policy of the measure, has borne no part in the unthankful labour of its composition. To conciliate one member and make another hold his tongue, he would break the heart of the patient law-maker, who has pondered over every word before he wrote it down. The sudden thought of a conversational debater has more weight than the well-advised judgment of the learned draftsman. And should he be again consulted, it may be too late wholly to correct the errors of others. Amendments have been agreed to which can It has not be withdrawn with good faith, or have been voted by the House, whose decision may not be lightly set aside; and so the legislative patchwork is permitted to take its chance, with other performances of the same description. The evil of thus disconnecting the lawmaker from the legislature is one that obviously needs a remedy. Bentham, impressed with the inconveniences of the present system of passing laws, went so far as to propose that a statute, having been prepared by official lawmakers, should be adopted by Parlia ment without amendment, or else rejected altogether. A proposal which gives Parliament only a veto upon the work of the draftsman cannot be seriously entertained; and even as an expedient for ensuring improvements in the mechanical part of legislation, it has little to recommend it. The lawmakers and the legislature would still be unconnected; and laws drawn up in the study, without the aid of public discussion, would rarely be fit for adoption without amendment. Lord Brougham, the first of modern law-reformers, has repeatedly called attention to the defects of our legislative processes. He, too, attaches great importance to the functions of the lawmaker, and deprecates the inconsiderate amendments too often made in his work, by the legislature. In speaking of the treatment of his own Digest of the Bankruptcy Laws, by a Committee of the House of Commons, he says 'No Committee can undertake with advantage the minute consideration of the terms in which provisions agreed upon as to their substance shall be couched. Confidence must of necessity be placed in the learning, skill, and diligence of those who have prepared the Digest.'* For the remedy of the evils of which he has so often complained, his Lordship proposes the establishment of a board or court of learned and practised men - irremovable from office except upon the address of both Houses of Parliament-to revise the drafts of all bills before they are introduced, and again after they have been amended. Such a board, resembling in its character and functions the Conseil d'Etat of the French, has much to recommend it; but its constitution and its relations to Parliament would require grave consideration. Parliament has already within itself the means of ensuring improved legislation with very little aid from without. Assuming that Grand Committees are to be appointed for the general Letter to Sir James Graham on the Making and Digesting of the Law, 1849, p. 5. consideration of bills, a Sub-Committee, selected from each Grand Committee, might be charged with their technical revision. The Sub-Committee, composed of a few of the most practical members, and including some lawyers, should be attended by the draftsman, officer, or commissioners, who prepared the bill, and by the minister or member having charge of it. No bill should be reported by the Grand Committee until it had undergone this revision and if amendments were subsequently made by the House, the bill might, if necessary, be again referred to the committee. This plan would bring into useful communication the lawmaker and the legislature, and would unite the practised skill of the one, with the political enlightenment and authority of the other. At present no responsibility is publicly attached to the draftsman. He works behind the scenes, like a newspaper writer, without personal credit or blame. The Govern-. ment or member, by whom his work is adopted, enjoys the credit of success and the disgrace of failure. He would now become responsible for his own defaults. His pen which drew the bill, would also draw the amendments, under the directions and subject to the approval of the committee. Many heads would co-operate in the revision; but one hand only would hold the pen. Unity of design and expression would, at least, be secured by these means, and a competent lawmaker would generally be able to resist the introduction of unsuitable amendments. This simple plan, involving no charge upon the public, and little alteration in the existing practice of Parliament, would be productive of the best results. If, however, some official organisation were required, for assisting in the revision of bills and for maintaining uniformity in the work of various hands and different committees, this object might be secured in connexion with another important change of parliamentary procedure, which we are about to propose. Many of the proposals we have hitherto made, though calculated to relieve the House and improve its legislation, involve, at the same time, a considerable enlargement of the duties of committees. And it may be asked, Are there not already too many committees?-and have they not more than enough to do? Has it not been said that thirty-three committees have been sitting on a single day? Then why add to the number? Nothing can be further from our intention. There are already too many committees they have too much to do of necessity they do a great part of their business very ill- and we propose to relieve them of the most onerous and the least satisfactory of their duties. - The large number of committees on private bills has been noticed in our summary of the business of last Session. They form, indeed, a serious proportion of the engagements of members for about three months of every Session, and sometimes more. In 1846, there were no less than 123 committees on opposed private bills alone, the aggregate sittings of which amounted to the extraordinary number of 1048 days. The work would have occupied one committee nearly four years, sitting from day to day! In 1847, there were 88 committees; and their sittings extended to 720 days. During the seven years from 1846 to 1852, there have been 377 of these committees; and the annual average has amounted to 53, sitting for eight days each; and this in addition to very numerous committees on unopposed bills. On the whole, it may be estimated that between 350 and 400 members are occupied, about 10 days each, by services in connexion with private bills. Of their duties in a railway committee we need say but little :- they are too well known as difficult, laborious, responsible, and irksome, to need any illustration. But are they properly performed? and could they be performed better by a different tribunal? In selecting the members to serve upon any committee, the principal qualification of the greater number has been that they had no pecuniary or local interest in the questions about to be considered by them; or, in other words, that they happened not to be shareholders in any of the companies concerned, or landholders in the contested district. Their impartiality being thus assumed, they are appointed to try some of the most important and difficult issues that can possibly come before any tribunal in the country. No judicial training or experience no special aptitude for business, or familiarity with the matters on which they are about to adjudicate, are expected of any member of the committee, except perhaps the chairman. These are undoubted facts, which none will be found to deny ; but on the results of the system there is still little unanimity of opinion. By many it is said to work well'-a dubious phrase,to secure, at least, a greater number of just than of unjust decisions, and to give fairer play to enterprise and the rivalry of capitalists than could be anticipated from the exertions of any permanent tribunal. From others we hear nothing but ridicule and contempt. There is a favourite story amongst practitioners, of a young member, who had been sitting, for three weeks, in judgment upon the engineering merits of two rival lines of railway, suddenly arousing himself to ask, Pray what is a ' gradient?' And we have been assured by an eminent railway engineer that the following conflict of decisions, upon the leading principles of railway legislation, actually occurred in a single week. The question to be tried by four different committees, sitting at the same time, and in adjoining rooms, was this: Which of two rival lines is to be preferred,-the shortest and most direct, or the more circuitous, which accommodates a larger population, more towns, and a greater traffic? The first committee preferred the shortest line; the second, the more circuitous; the third would sanction neither of the lines; and the fourth decided in favour of both. And this anecdote, however exaggerated it may be, serves to illustrate one of the chief evils of the existing system. The committees may be individually just; but how is it possible for them to carry out any uniform principle of legislation? Another great evil is, that every bill has to pass the ordeal of two select committees one in the Commons, the other in the Lords. There is no security that the principles of decision adopted by both committees will be identical, and much probability that they will be different. When an opposed bill has passed the Commons, the opposition may be renewed in the Lords. After the expense of an opposition has been incurred before the Commons' committee, and the committee have reported in its favour, the Lords' committee may find that the preamble has not been proved; and thus all the expenses of a successful contest before the Commons' committee are thrown away. The great Railway Companies, whose parliamentary triumphs have generally conciliated their support of the system under which they have risen to greatness, are now beginning to calculate their past losses and estimate their future dangers. A most com'petent witness,' says the Committee of last Session on Railways, has estimated the loss of money to the railway shareholders, unnecessarily incurred in obtaining parliamentary authority for, and in constructing the railways now in existence, and in opposing rival schemes, at seventy millions!' Another witness informed the Committee that two thousand miles of railway, involving an outlay of more than forty millions, have been sanctioned by Parliament, and afterwards abandoned by the promoters, without any parliamentary authority. If to these be added the numerous lines which have been relinquished under the sanction of Parliament, it would seem as if the mileage abandoned were about half as much as the mileage constructed, which amounted in June last to 7,512 miles in the United Kingdom. In other words, for every two miles of railway authorised, and sufficiently well selected to be ultimately made, one mile of railway was either so bad in itself, or so ill-supported by its promoters, as to be abandoned with loss |