Limited Liability Bill. In this uniform system our minds are not dazzled by the presence of imposing theories, or pr. plexed by the enunciation of scientific wonders. Its beautiiul simplicity can be comprehended by all, and the most minute details of its principles bear the stanıp of usefulness impressed upon them. In such a part of Ireland as Galway, where habits of practical industry,' (notwithstanding the many good and noble qualities of its people) have never been remarkably prominent, a society such as the one under our consideration, must of necessity be productive of good and plentiful fruits, in the incentives to active industry which it will supply. The genealogical talent of the people may be more profitably employed in studying the substantial peculiarities of the finny tribes, than in discussing the relative merits to ancestral distinction of the human tribes of that Milesian Colony, and the reclamation by means of artificial guano, of the swampy marsh, and the barren moor, will be a more laudable employment, than either laying out race courses, or enclosing deer parks. The indolent nature of the Celt has long been the pet expression which flew to every Englishman's lips whenever the subject of Ireland's grievances have meen mooted; it has come down to us, hand in hand, with that triumph of alliteration, “ Pigs, Priests, Politics, and Potatoes ;” though the un. equalled industry of our countrymen, in France, in England, and in America, have made it evident to the world, that circumstances, and not nature, were the causes which prevented its appearance in our native country.

We have now given us an excellent opportunity of still more strongly exhibiting the injustice of the calumny, and that opportunity is afforded us by the people, who, hitherto ignorant of our real character, have attributed to us vices which their experience of us will shortly teach them were less natural than acquired. If this project succeeds, and for its success we need seek no higher pledge than the fact of having such a man as Commander Symonds as its managing director, we have every just reason to suppose that the rest of our well. sheltered and capacious Sea Ports will become more known and more appreciated; and that with that knowledge and that appreciation, will come some practical measures for the benefit of the commercial world, and the employment of the impoverished but hardy population which lives along their shores. Irrespective of the vast agricultural resources of Ireland, its highly

valuable mineral prodactions are of a nature sufficiently
attractive to tempt speculation to any extent, were their localities
but rendered accessible to the merchant vessel or the waggon.
Nor would this be a task of insurmountable difficulty. Into
the very waters of that Bay, which has been chosen as the
fitting spot upon which to carry out a great fishing enterprise,
Lough Corrib flows. Were there but a channel or canal large
enough to float vessels of a few tons burthen, cut for a distance
of two or three miles, the navigation of the Corrib would be
accomplished, and through that noble sea avenue the beautiful
Connemara marble, and the produce of the Tin, Lead, Iron,
and Copper mines of Mayo and Galway, could be transported
to the English manufacturers. We do sincerely trust that the
only society set on foot for many years in Ireland, which
promises to benefit a great portion of the labouring classes,
may also become the foundation of practical undertakings in
this country, and that our people, by observing its application
so thoroughly laid open to their inspection, may bring their
experience to bear upon enterprises of a similar kind. If so,
its formation will become a turning point in our history, which
will serve to mark the line between the darkness of our utter
prostration and the dawning of our prosperity; recording the
period when wild theories, supineness, or the unhealthy excite-
tent of the public feelings, with all the horrors of agrarian agi-
tation, ceased to forin our national characteristics, and when in
their places business habits, industry, development of the vast
resources of our country, with all the other sinews of a nation's
strength, began to be perceptible.

Now particularly, when so many of our countrymen are
recrossing the Atlantic to settle again at home, it is pleasant
to reflect that for many of them there is really “a good time
coming," which will lay open to them a field upon which they
may follow out the good example they have learned from our
western neighbours, nor have any cause to regret their having
obeyed those instincts which knitted them to Ireland. In the
mean time, we heartily wish success to the “ London and
West of Ireland Fishing Company," and to its able managing
director, Commander Symonds : we sincerely believe that no
distant day will behold the realization of many of his hopes,
and we as sincerely trust that he may live himself to see it,
and to receive the thanks of a people for being the instrument,
under Providence of unfolding, and of turning to profitable

1

account, their inexhaustible "mines under water," as they have been called by Sir William Temple, and of being the first to give a fitting example in their own country of what an enterprise, carried on in a practical and business-like manner, can accomplish.

ART. IX.-LORD BROUGHAM'S SPEECIL ON

JUDICIAL STATISTICS.

Speech of Lord Brougham in the House of Lords, on Monday,

3rd March, 1856. Specially Reported in “The Law Amendment Journal, being the Weekly Journal of the Society for Promoting the Amendment of the Law.” Vol. 1. No. 4, March 13th, 1856, p. 21.

“Omnes comites et barones una voce responderunt, quod nolunt leges Angliæ mutare, quæ hucusque usitatæ sunt et approbatæ.” Just six hundred and twenty-one years ago, a British Parliament thus expressed themselves, and from that epoch to the present era, wise, and able, and earnest men have but too frequently found later Parliaments as unwilling as that of Merton to change the Laws of England; without, however, the sound objections against particular mutations which that Parliament could urge against the revocation of the law of special bastardy.

It happens, unfortunately, that men confounded, in all these past-by years, amendments with innovations; and although the law reformers of one age may have been considered as patriots, and as benefactors of the nation in the next; yet in their own time they were, in all probability, met by the reproaches of upsetters" of the glorious pillars of the Constitution," “wild theorists,” “jacobins," possibly “traitors.”

When one comes to consider all these things carefully and closely; when he remembers how earnestly Romilly, and Mackintosh, and others of their era, toiled and wrote, and when reasoning failed, “coaxed,” the legislature into wise measures of amelioration of the old laws of the kingdom, one

can only feel regret that so much genius should have been required to persuade reasonable men into reasonable measures.

There is, however, to the student of our history of legislation, one bright and cheering point amidst all these clouded records--all great amendments in the law have been the work of Lawyers. And it is right that it should be thus. If Law be a science, who can see its defects, and appreciate its perfections so clearly as its student or its adept—and thus it cones to pass, that from Somers and the Bill of Rights, to Broughain and the Reform Bill, our legal reformers have rever forgotten that in repairing those decays which time has made in the constitution, still greater rents may be caused by rash or by unskilful alterations. When Sydney Smith said, that every man thought he could drive a gig, cultivate a small farm, and write a leader for a newspaper, he stated a truth ; but he might have added, that every man considered himself capable of amending the laws of England; yet, as Jeremy Bentham most truly wrote, referring to law reform,—"Adding to the mass in the Augean stable, everyox had wisdom for-every ox that ever was put into it: to employ a river in the cleansing of it, required, not the muscle, but the genius of a Hercules.”

To no man now living, possibly to no man, does England owe more than to Lord Brougham, who has applied, not alone his “ genius,” but also his " muscle," to the repairing of the grand edifice of the national legislation, whilst preserving its fair and noble proportions. Eight-and-twenty years ago his memorable motion upon Law Reform procured the formation of two most important Commissions, one on Judicial Proceedings, the other on the Law of Real Property; and, intespective of the amendments effected through the recoinmendations of these Committees, their Reports will ever be considered as the most valuable and important of those, but half-worked mines of information, the Parliamentary Blue Books.

England is deeply indebted to Lord Brougham for his long, and never-ceasing struggle to render her code of legislation worthy her constitution. When he began to work this great question, he was accused of deserting his own principles, because he did not oppose all plans of legal reform less comprehensive or well considered than his own. Because he was thus anxious and thus unselfish, he was accused of adopting this conciliatory course from motives of personal ambition,

and these accusations were made at a time when he had taken most effectual measures to prevent even the offer of the post indicated by his rivals being tendered to him. But, living down these slanders, he has earned and secured the gratitude of his country, and has long possessed, despite bitter political and party hatreds

“ The unwilling gratitude of base mankind.” Amongst all Lord Brougham's various schemes, of Law Reform there is not one more admirable in design, or more elaborate in its details, than that developed in the Resolutions upon Judicial Statistics which we shall just now present to the reader. Doubtless, to the general mass of readers, these Resolutions do not appear so important as to the few who are, like ourselves, engaged in the investigation of the subjects to which they immediately refer ; yet no man reading these Resolutions, with ordinary attention,can fail to comprehend the vast amount of important information, we may write, of infallible knowledge, which must of necessity accrue from the adoption, by the legislature, of the well considered and wise principles contained in the document.

The Resolutions are as follows :-
I. That a Judicial Survey should be made, to be continued quinquen-
nially ; showing,

1. The Number of Courts in the United Kingdom;
2. The Geographical Limits of their respective Jurisdictions;
3. The Nature of the Subjects they have to deal with;
4. The Number of the Judges and Officers attached to them, whether

salaried or not ;
5. The Amount of Salaries and Fees received by such Judges and

Officers; 6. The Funds out of which they are paid ; 7. The Amount of Business brought before them; and 8. The Proportion of such Courts to the Population, and Character

of each Court or District :
II. That as respects Criminal Statistics accurate Tables should be an-
nually prepared ; showing,
1. All Offences brought within the Cognizances of the Police, clas.

sified under different Heads;
2. The Number of Persons apprehended and charged with Crimes

and Misdemeanors ;
3. The Number of those summarily proceeded with, distinguishing

those discharged and punished ;
4. The Number of Persons committed and bailed for Trial to Ses-

sions and Assizes; and 5. The Courts to which they stand so committed and bailed : III. That such Tables should show all such Particulars as may be ob

tained relative to the Individuals so committed, as to their