THE IRISH CHANCERY COURT.

Press, Volume V, Issue 582, 10 September 1864, Page 2

THE IRISH CHANCERY COURT.

[TEVora tV.e Times.] Mr Whiteside tells us that " oven poets have been known to write on a suit in Chancery." It is a pity that so pleasant a theme cannot be abandoned entirely to fiction, for it is by no means so agreeable when yn •■ encounter it as a hard prosnic fact. It would be delightful to Gncl ourselves disputing as to the identity of the Homer of the great Chancery epic discovered by , Mr. Whiteside, and investigating the site of the fabled . Chancery Forum, as we now discuss the site of ancient Troy. " Here," we might say, " did the Six Clej&» hold their revels before they were driven frompwe into the Elysian Fields of pensioned quietude. Hero the Masters gave their three-quarters of an hour' I audiences before they were compensated, into silence. [ Here is the rent m the walls through which the wooden horse was let in, and discharged its perfidious garrison of Chief Clerks, Lords Justices, Yice-Chancellors. There it was that the many ; unsung Agamemnons of poetic Chancery battles bow , themselves bravely in the wordy war, and dragged . many a mangled estate at the wheels of their chariots, = until the wretched nearest of kin came and humbly, I begged the remains. There stood the Btatuee of Qrt " > terrible Eldon and of the gentle Bethell." Mr. Whiteside is, we think, bound to elaborate his-own id»i and, as no man has a more vagrant imagination in debate, we may hope that now ho discover a j happier vein of poetry when he set?/himself to cele*' ' brate in numbers the lively subjeo/ he recollects to ; have been the subject of others' 8/hg. But, although Trojafitit, alas! Cancellaria adett: and the Houea: of Commons was on Monday night compelled to acquire a conviction, at the expense of a longdebate, that not only is the Court of Chancery surviving in ' all its stern realities, but that never was it flourishing ' in a more grim and unreformed condition than itdoee at this moment in Ireland. Nothing might more reasonably move pity for the 5 Irish people than the declaration of the Irish Attor- " ney-General, that (he whole judicial bench of Ireland '* —perhaps with the exception of instances where great - ige has blunted the critical faculties—that the whole ' bar of Ireland, without distinction of creed or politics, :md that several Royal Commissioners, earnestly inquiring and then frankly reporting, all declare tbat'. the transplanting of an English Court of Chancery to Ireland ».ould be a blessing to that people. ItU ! the last thing we should have expected any one TO- : envy us; but bo it is. Mr. Whiteside and Mr. O'Hagan agree upon this point, although upon none other. Mr. Whiteside has had his Comraitteee ana i his Commissions to effect this object, and h ß *!"™!* duced liia Bill, which was, ?iowevor, not eueeeesfiu. Mr O'Hagan also has succeeded to averylargestOCltOl ; evidence and a very valuable property in Report*, W»O s from all these has'now elaborated his own partieujar . Bill upon the sa,me subject; and on Monday he asked leave to introduce it into the House ot.Oom- ' mons. Now, we will candidly confess that, in«J»\_. ', mon with all Englishmen, both lawyers and laitj,;^-, > labor under the disadvantage, or, perhaps, we I the advantage, of a thick Egyptian darknesses toMH»- ? > practice and procedure of the Irish Court of Chancery - i When, however, Mr. o'llugan asserts, and Mr. l side concedes, that thesister Chanceries of England*™ - Ireland grow up together like the rosc-treo ana u» brier so famous in the ballad, entwining at °**:'. true lover's knot, we sec at once that it was am *f??,- . confraternity, painful'to ail who mitfht try to meOOW ■ with it. When these two doughty combatants go » -s. to admit that when the English Chancery waa.cot ! clipped, and pruned and made more pervioiM^w"^ [rish Chancery was left to grow to eTer- ™f™^ luxuriance, v.c comprehend that the Irish- Lftancerj . must be by this time a very prickly "^β 8 ,"""*"' ,- i :uid a very close covert of abuses. > v » ""•Jγ .. impression"also—and this is evidently shared °J*"'. i Whiteside, who delicately alludes to »tne«h*blte « '. his country"—that where two little J*™*."? i planted, one in England and the other in "*£?£ they grow and flourish in ditferent degrees, w> the"English abuse makes it a scrubby root, ana snw ! along ground aud furtively enlarged itself, t&e i ! abuse btrikes its deep tap-root lit ouce fflC• » i earth, and springs up boldly to the dunen»>Bi 10 ,x forest tree, therein ail birds of J outt* bu»W Jicir nests and .<ing the most defiant DOtCI.

xtr «*• therefore, quite ready with our eredenc Jl to 3fr Wliitwide and to Mr. O'Ha-ai j? t the In*h Court of Chancery stands hi need of ! irtr reo-fiSTiization ; and as a mixed Commissio; flnrtfeh an<i *"* h la™rs have declared that tJi. K«t reniciv is to be found ia an assimilation of tin MM* and procedure of the English and Irisl Trrts w , »«* content to believe that any ineasun C wh faWv carries out this object must deserve Ou iSJ-trf »B Toaso«abl« law reformers. That th< noa- introduced by the Attorney-General foi Wlsndi* of this nature he himself seems confident n£iw he is able to assure the House of Common! there is not a clause or a line of it which 13 nol *«*dor gustainen by the finding of some Commia *? o f t he very highest authority," he ia, in all prob *wKtr justified in his estimate of his own work » may be its intrinsic merit?, there wil *rtainlybe Irish fight about the Bill. Even iU Ruction was opposed. A Law Reform, whethei in England or in Ireland, generally involves th< Z.W of some new places, and the Opposition of the Irish lawyers having seats in the Souse very naturally think that a reform whieb has been delayed so long may, with great expeSencv, be delayed a little longer, in the hope that the selection of occupants for the projected fficestnay be in the hands of statesmen in whom <°heT hare more confidence. Such is evidently the "nimonof Mr. Whiteside, and of Mr. Hennessy, and other ahining lighte of the Conservative party. It is Iw tliaS the Irish Chancery Reform Bill will not L« widi their consent, and although Sir Patrick O'Brien appealed for fair play to Mr. Whiteside, re minding him " that no one when in office had been more ready to give places to his friends," yet Mr Whitwide did not se?m inclined to deduce from tin's undoubted fact the inference which Sir Patrick deered toeaggest. It is evident that the Bill is to be opposed, and, if possible, stopped. All that the English members can do under such circumstances is to look on and dress the scales oi Justice while the combatants contend. If the Irish desire to continue the abuses that flourish in their island in the hope of a Tory Government, amt if they ,re determined that none but a Tory Di-uiJ shall cut awaT the excrescences that grow upon their trees, we do not know that any FngHsh interest will suffer bvtbeir determination. The fate of the AttorneyGeneral's Bill will, however, very much depend upon his bein" able to convince the House of Commons that it is measure of the old fashioned expensive character. The experience of the English Lord Chancellor with his Bankruptcy Bill ought to be sufficient to deter all future law reformers, from following precedents set by Tory law reformers, and pensioning off all the present staff of a Court in order tomakeafoiefo ronton which to write a new list of appointments. It was only a remote and jealous suspicion of Lord Westbury having an intention of leaning towards some precedent of this kind which proved fatal to his original scheme. Mr. O'Hagan gays there is nothing of this sort in his Bill. He assures the House of Commons that the present officers are all to be kept at work, and that upon the whole his new system will be not only more efficient, but also cheaper, than the worn-out, creaking machinery he is about to throw out of gear. He may depend upon it that his suggested reform will be very narrowly examined in thi» point of view. If it ibould stand this ordeal, he will deserve the support of moderate men of all parties ; for, whitcver may be the sine of this measure, we have no great hope of getting a better from the other side of the House. We certainly can have no confidence that, Mr. Wliiteside, with his golden visions of poetic Chan - eery suits and heroic Courts will ever condescend to to sordid a consideration as that of economy.