TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 673 



TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1878. 



The following Papers were read : — 



1. Some Remarks on the Desirability of Simultaneous and Identical Legisla- 

 tion/or England and Ireland.' 11 ' By H. L. Jephson. 



The Act of Union is very far from being complete. First of all, though it 

 'declared Her Majesty's subjects of Great Britain aud Ireland to be on the same 

 footing generally in respect of trade and navigation, it left both countries with 

 separate customs department and tariffs, and thus left them in this matter 

 virtually separate countries. Next, it left each country with its separate exchequer, 

 its different coinage. Next, it directed that all laws then in force, and all the 

 courts of civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction within the respective kingdoms, should 

 remain as then by law established within the same, subject, however, to " such 

 alterations and regulations from time to time as circumstances might appear to the 

 Parliament of the United Kingdom to require." It left Ireland also with a sepa- 

 rate peerage, a separate Privy Council, and finally, and perhaps the most important 

 of all, as being the ever fruitful cause of separate legislation — it left Ireland with a 

 separate Executive. Seventeen years elapsed before any material progress was 

 made, the union of the exchequers then had taken place. The next step of im- 

 portance was not taken until 1825, when the two countries were commerciallv 

 united, and in the following year the currencies were assimilated; but it was not 

 until so very recently as 1858 (just twenty years ago) that the fiscal systems of the 

 two countries were finally assimilated. The very striking fact, however, remains 

 that after a lapse of now very close on 80 years, many of the defects of the Act of 

 Union exist in full vigour. About the close of the first quarter of the centurv a 

 system of legislation crept in, and gradually gained ground, which resulted in the 

 creation of a vast number of differences. Reforms in the administration of justice 

 naturally became necessary, but instead of their being carried simultaneously for 

 both countries, as ought to have been done, each country was dealt with separately. 

 It might reasonably be expected that in the matter of sanitary legislation the two 

 countries shoidd be treated as one. Such an opinion, however, if it prevailed, was 

 not acted on. In 1855 a Sanitary Act was passed for England only. In 1866 

 when an invasion of cholera was anticipated in Ireland, the only precautions which 

 the Irish Privy Council could take against the introduction of that disease into 

 Ireland were under the condemned Acts of 1848 and 1849 which were still in force 

 there. The emergency, however, became so great that the Sanitary Act had to be 

 passed for Ireland, and the law was then assimilated to the English law. Another 

 difference created since the Union, and one which entailed a number of others, was 

 as regards the valuation of property. In England and Scotland the valuation of 

 property was based upon rent; in Ireland it was based on the prices of agricultural 

 produce. Furthermore, in Great Britain the valuation is annually revised, whereas 

 in Ireland no revision as to the value of land as distinct from buildings had taken 

 place during the last 25 years. The result was that the valuation of property in 

 Great Britain and Ireland was far from being approximate. Besides those which the 

 author had alluded to, there were differences in the laws relating to the representation 

 of minorities, relating to the legal status of women, in the pawnbroking laws, in the 



* The paper has been published in extenso by William McGee, Nassau Street, 

 Dublin. 



1878. X X 



