the admiral of some squadron on active service. In fact, we see that great mischief is done in this country, by the circumstance, that every person who should superintend the vast province of law and law reform, has his mind always so occupied with his judicial business as Chancellor, or his forensic business as attorney or solicitor general, that he has no time to attend properly to those matters. It is most probable that the person appointed to the office of minister of justice, would be, as we believe he invariably is in France, of the legal profession; but a very different person would be required, from the one who must now also be the highest judge in the land.

Having thus gone through the objections made to the alteration of the office of Chancellor, it now only remains for us to notice the changes which must be made, in order to render the House of Lords fit for the dispatch of the increased and important business of appeal, which, according to the plan proposed, would be thrown upon it. The alterations required to render the House of Lords an effective court of appeal would consist chiefly in making its sittings constant, and its judges permanent. The court must sit all through the legal year. It must be provided with competent judges. We should, therefore, approve of an arrangement in its general bearing similar to that proposed by Lord Brougham at the end of the session of 1833. Instead, however, of a judicial committee, composed of competent persons, to which the House of Lords might refer certain cases to be heard, we would leave matters in theory as they now are, allowing any peers to be present and vote-trusting to their being kept in order by the regular professional judges of the court. Of these, the chief should be the permanent Lord Chancellor. In matters of appeal, however, we think that it is always desirable to have more judges than one. In such a tribunal, especially as the House of Lords, it would be necessary to have different judges respectively versed in the different kinds of law which come before it. The Chancellor should be assisted by at least two other judges; one an eminent common lawyer, the other a civil lawyer, taken from the Scotch bar, or our own civil law courts. Thus composed, the court would be fully competent to decide all the cases which would come before it. Making allowances for temporary absences, we should propose that the attendance of these

three judges should always be required, and that two of them should form a quorum. The House of Lords, we repeat, should, for judicial purposes, sit throughout the legal year. This, of itself, would create a peculiar bar for the court: the fees of counsel would be greatly diminished: and business would be speedily dispatched by a tribunal of acknowledged authority and competence.

The House of Lords thus constituted for judicial purposes, would exercise a most effective appellate jurisdiction. And as it is most desirable that uniformity should be preserved in the law of the whole British empire, we should be inclined to make every appeal centre in this common point. The ultimate jurisdiction in cases from the civil law courts, should be lodged in the House of Lords; and the last resort from the colonies, should be to the same tribunal, as that which presides over the law of the United Kingdom. Such a constitution of the House of Lords, would enable the government to abolish the judicial functions of the Privy Council. The additional business thus imposed on that House, would be more than balanced, by keeping its duties strictly within the province of appeals, and by confining its attention to questions of law, instead of allowing matters of fact to be re-argued before it, as is too often the case at present.

That such an effective re-organization of the highest court, and greatest legal offices in the country, would be worth some increased expense, will, we suppose, be admitted; but it does not appear that the expenditure of the country would necessarily be at all augmented by the changes which we propose. The separation of the political and judicial functions of the Chancellor might be effected without any increased cost. The addition of a third judge in equity, we consider absolutely necessary, whether any further change be adopted or not; and his salary, and the expenses of his court, need not exceed those of the Bankruptcy Court, which should be abolished. The permanent Lord Chancellor might have a salary of 9000l. a year, which is higher than that of any other judge in England, and the political Lord Keeper, one of 5000l. a year, which is equal to that of a secretary of state. Thus, if no greater change were to be made, no additional expense would be incurred; and the country would, in a short time, be the

gainer, by the saving of the greater part of those pensions to retired chancellors, of which the amount is so large at present, so likely to be increased in the shiftings of present politics, and so inconvenient a check on the crown's free choice of a very important minister.

The addition of two judges to the House of Lords, could be the only source of increased expense. Lord Brougham proposed that this should be saved, by imposing the duties of assisting the Lord Chancellor, on the retired chancellors and chief justices, and by requiring the occasional aid of the judges of the courts below. To taking judges out of their own courts for occasional purposes, and to gratuitous work, we strongly object: and on our plan, there would never be any retired chancellors—at least, none fit for work. It has been suggested, that some high offices, of a semi-judicial nature, might be made permanent; and that the duty of acting as assistant judges in the House of Lords might be imposed on their occupants. The office of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and that of President of the Council, or Privy Seal, might be made available for this purpose. By this means, these judges would have ample salaries, with no increase of expenditure; or, at least, none that would equal the saving in Chancellors' pensions.

We have thus laid before our readers an outline of our ideas on that portion of the great field of law reform, which has been brought under our notice by Sir Edward Sugden's pamphlet. Small as we think the merit of that work to be, it has at least been useful in calling public attention to a most important legal question. All the acrimony with which party writers, for party purposes, have assailed the alleged defects in the administration of justice in particular courts -all the difficulties which the accidents of political changes, have lately placed in the way, of making the ordinary appointments of great legal functionaries have been most serviceable in forcing the consideration of important and permanent reforms on the attention of the public, and of men in power. Whatever may be the immediate settlement of these matters of detail, the great principles which the discussion has stirred, will not fade from the public attention. The friends of law reform may congratulate themselves on the great improve

ment at present evinced, in the general mode of thinking on these subjects, and on the additional impulse recently given to correct opinions. In spite of all the prejudices and interests, which are ever ready to thwart us, a force has been called into activity in the cause of legal reform, which, we are convinced, will lead to the utmost results that we desire. The great change, which ministers are specifically pledged to propose, will produce the best effects, both in its passing and in its operation. There is reason to believe that the present government, also contemplate alterations in other matters which we have discussed, quite as extensive as those which we have ventured to suggest. No better sign can be given of the good intentions of a ministry. The palm of law reform, is not to be won without encountering opposition, and exercising perseverance, and grappling with dif ficulties not without dust, and even peril. But the wearing it is well worth the gaining it.

ARTICLE XII.

Report of the Select Committee on Agriculture, with the Minutes of Evidence taken before them. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 2nd August, 1833. Report of the Proceedings of the Agricultural Meetings, held in London on the 14th and 15th December, 1835. London: 1835.

FEW subjects can be more appropriate to the purposes of this Review, than that which is popularly known by the appellation of the "Corn Question"-or, unhappily, by that of the "Corn Laws;" with which last name we head the present article. It is of a nature peculiarly international; whether with reference to the fears of the landed interest, on the one hand, lest the produce of foreign countries should cripple the agriculture of our own,-or, on the other hand, to the apprehensions of the commercial interest, lest the exclusion of foreign corn should lead to such a disruption of our commercial connexions, as eventually to ruin our trade. Even the

politician augurs good, or forbodes evil, as the choice shall fall upon the alternative systems of friendly intercourse, or selfish estrangement.

At the termination of the war, the industrial peculiarity of England, among the nations, was that of a decided bias to manufacturing and commercial pursuits; while the industry of the continent had a marked inclination to agriculture. Such, indeed, was the character of the long war by which the peace had been preceded, that it could not fail to produce these distinguishing peculiarities. A most serious question was then propounded to the statesman-whether he should take the actual position of the country and the world, as the basis of his future measures, or whether he should undertake to create for himself a totally new basis, in order that he might have a foundation for measures, schemed in his own brain, but for which the existing order of things was wholly unfitted? The war had given us the command of the seas, and thus our commercial superiority was established; and it so happened that, during the war, the chief of those inventions in machinery, and of those discoveries in science, which have wrought revolutions in the condition of man, were either brought by us first into use, or were by us matured. England had, by these means, acquired a greater command over the precious metals than any other nation; because, she was thereby enabled to send forth, into the general markets of the world, a greater value in her manufactures, in proportion to the quantity of human labour expended upon them, than any other nation could send. This power is the foundation of all riches; and since it exerts itself in commanding the larger share of the quantity of precious metals extant in the world, it has a direct tendency to raise the rents of land in the country, by which it is possessed. Whatever excuses may be made for the errors of our statesmen, in not seeing at once, and in the happy moment for a right decision, that they had then in their hands, self-created, a foundation for their future proceedings, far preferable to anything which their vain and fanciful devices could produce,--no excuse can now be offered for that wilful blindness, which sees no remedy for the evils of its own making, except in their noxious repetition.

In the progress of the twenty years, which have been