472 Welsh Jurisprudence. [Nov. 
reductions of expenditure which might possibly take place without any 
detriment, and even much benefit to the public service, is the retrench- 
ment which might be effected by the gradual consolidation of the four 
judicatures of Wales into one circuit,” &c. We wonder when the people 
of England will cease to be treated as “ husks for swine to fatten on.” 
To the usual evils of local jurisdictions (the want of power to compel 
the attendance of witnesses within them, or to enforce obedience to 
decrees without), an act which passed in the session of 1824, affected to 
apply a remedy. The remedies for the first are appropriately described 
by Lord Cawdor “to be almost as curious as the grievance.” One 
_ would naturally have supposed that the shortest way of getting a witness 
into any court of justice (next to carrying him in on the shoulders), was 
to render the summons of that court imperative on him. Our legislature, 
however (perhaps thinking travelling a wholesome exercise to its subjects, 
and by way of extending their principle of encouragement to mail-coach- 
men), in order to get a Welshman into a Welsh witness box, prefer 
making the requisite summons issuable from the Court of Exchequer at 
Westminster ; and though, in certain excepted cases, they trust the pro- 
vincial court, with the exercise of this weighty authority, they neverthe- 
less provide, that, with reference to all, the penalties for disobedience are 
only to be obtained in the Exchequer. “ This is legislation,” says his 
lordship, “‘ beyond my comprehension. You render the Court of Ex- 
chequer, in the first part of this clause, ancillary to the Court of Great 
Session, and compel it to issue process in a case not before it. In the 
second, you authorise the Marshal of the Court of Great Session to issue 
the same process in a particular case, which, if he can do with propriety 
in that case, he might assuredly do in all. Then having issued the 
process in the name of a justice of the Court of Great Session, you deny 
him all jurisdiction as to the contempt of it ; and, for the ease of parties 
residing in the country, and to shew what value we ought to set upon 
having justice administered at our own doors, the remedy for disobedience 
is to be sought in Westminster.”—pages 31, 32. The clause empowering 
the judges to issue commissions for the examination of witnesses out of 
the jurisdiction, leaves it “entirely at the option of those persons to 
answer, or not, as may be found most convenient”—page 33; and the 
provision for enforcing decrees against parties who have submitted to the 
jurisdiction of the courts “ is not in the shape of power to the Court of 
Great Session, but of authority to the Courts of Westminster to issue 
process, on the production of certain certificates and office copies of pro- 
ceedings, in order to enforce rules and decrees made by another court.” 
In addition to this, each jurisdiction has its own peculiar and varying 
standard of practice, which the rest refuse to recognise ; and, either out 
of deference to the mutual jealousies of attornies, or from some other 
cause, the attorney of one circuit is restricted from practising in another, 
without a previous admission, to the great detriment of all who, hap- 
pening to have suits without the limit of their own attorney’s practice, 
may be driven to resort to strangers for the conduct of their causes. 
The first is an evil which can be removed only by a fundamental change 
in the whole jurisdiction ; and to the latter, the act to which we have 
alluded did net even affect to provide a remedy. 
The proceedings of the court exhibit the most anomalous compound of 
indecent hurry and ruinous delay. The Court of Great Session only 
occupies three weeks in its circuit ; and it is during the progress of this, 
ss 
