15 Jur., part 1, p. 807; Russell v. Jackson, Id. 1117). The rule is established, not upon any particular importance which the law attributes to the business of them protection, but out of regard to the interests of legal professors, or any particular disposition to afford justice, which cannot be upholden, and to the administration of justice, which cannot go on, without the aid of men skilled in jurisprudence and in the practice of the courts, and in those matters affecting rights and obligations which form the subject of judicial proceedwould be thrown upon his own legal resources. Deprived ings. If the privilege did not exist at all, every one of all professional assistance, a man would not venture to consult any skilful person, or would only dare to tell his counsellor half his case; (Greenough v. Gaskell, 1 My. & K. 101, per Lord Brougham); or, as one learned judge (Sir James Wigram, in Lord Walsingham v. Goodricke, 3 Hare, 127) remarked, "Without the privilege no one could be safe: a party must otherwise be his own lawyer." And again, in another case, (Woods v. Woods, 4 Hare, 83), “So long as the state of the law shall make it impossible for parties to be their own lawyers, and to act without professional advice, it is indispensably necessary that the privilege conceded to least, to the extent to which it is now established." professional communications should be maintained, at

an intermediate character-things more like short causes than anything else, requiring but a short statement of facts and a little argument, not requiring more skill or practical knowledge than experienced juniors possess requiring dispatch above all things; and not-having reference to the suitor's pocket-calculated to bear the expense of a double array of counsel. Nevertheless, in practice, such motions must be intrusted to a senior and junior, if they are to be heard quickly, or they must run the risk of indefinite postponement if the suitor cannot or will not retain two counsel. We say advisedly, that, in practice, such motions must be intrusted to two counsel; because, although the suitor may, if he choose--and no etiquette prevents it-engage the services of a leading counsel without a junior, yet it is very unusual to do so; and for this reason, that, in preparing the papers necessary for a motion, much assistance is derived by the suitor from the access which his solicitor has to his junior counsel, if he is going to instruct such counsel to appear in court-assistance which he cannot expect from Queen's counsel, by reason not only of the conventional difference of his position, but the substantial difference of his occupations, The principle of the rule has, however, been quesand which he does not, of course, like to ask, even if tioned, and its policy doubted, by a late distinguished he could with propriety do so, from counsel not in-judge, (Lord Langdale), who, after giving the subject tended to be engaged in the case. The result is, that continually either the time or the money of the suitor

is sacrificed.

much consideration, said (Flight v. Robinson, 8 Beav. 36), he had found great difficulty in discovering any well-grounded principle upon which the exceptions to the general rule of discovery could be said to rest, and It is said, in answer to any suggestion that on any that he was unable to deduce from the decided cases on day precedence should be given to the outer Bar, that the subject a principle which he could consider as a leading counsel hold their right of precedence from the satisfactory guide to their application to other cases which did not fall within the direct scope of their Crown, and that the Court has no authority to super-authority. On the other hand, the great majority of the sede that right in any way or to any degree. But the judges have differed from the views of Lord Langdale; principle is conceded, when it is conceded that the and in a recent case (Pearse v. Pearse, 1 De G. & S. outer Bar may take precedence on a given day for 12) the policy as well as the principle of the rule has unopposed motions. At any rate, even if the Court has been pointed out by Knight Bruce, V. C. The arguno such authority, it has, at least, authority to regulate better presented to the consideration of the reader than ments for and against the rule of exemption cannot be the course of its own business, and to have a paper of in the language of these two learned judges and of Lord motions as well as a paper of petitions or causes. If Brougham. that were done, much of the time, both of the junior Bar and of the solicitors of the court, and a very heavy expense to the suitors, would be saved.

UPON THE EXEMPTION FROM DISCLOSURE
OF MATTERS COMMUNICATED IN PROFES-
SIONAL CONFIDENCE.

THE rule which exempts communications between a solicitor and client from disclosure, at the suit of an adverse party, may be considered under several heads: first, as to its principle and policy; secondly, as to its subject-matter and extent; and, thirdly, as to the circumstances under which it is applicable, and the manner in which it must be claimed in order to obtain the benefit of it.

The principle of the rule which exempts communications, made in professional confidence, between a person and his legal adviser, from disclosure, is, that such communications are essential to the security of men's rights, as well in courts of justice as in ordinary transactions of life which never become the subject of judicial investigation; and in order that they may be free and unrestricted, public policy requires that they should be privileged, and not allowed to be disclosed at any time. (Bolton v. The Corporation of Liverpool, 1 My. & K. 88; Holmes v. Baddeley, 1 Ph. 481; Glyn v. Caulfield,

"According to the general rule which has always prevailed in this court," argued Lord Langdale in Flight v. Robinson, "every defendant is bound to discover all the facts within his knowledge, and to produce all documents in his possession which are material to the case of the plaintiff. However disagreeable it may be to make the disclosure, however contrary to his personal interests, however fatal to the claim upon which he may have insisted, he is required and compelled, under the most solemn sanction, to set forth all he knows, believes, or thinks in relation to the matters in question. The plaintiff being subject to the like obligation on the requisition of the defendant in a cross bill, the greatest security which the nature of the case is supposed to admit of is afforded for the discovery of all relevant truth, and, by means of such discovery, this Court, notwithstanding its imperfect mode of examining witnesses, has at all times proved to be of transcendant utility in the administration of justice. It need not be observed what risks must attend all attempts to administer justice in cases where relevant truth is concealed, and how important it must be to diminish those risks; and that if there be any cases in which, for predominant reasons, parties ought to be permitted or to be held privileged to conceal relevant truth, those cases ought to be strictly defined and strictly limited by authority. In this case I have, on the one hand, been reminded of the vast importance of maintaining the plaintiff's right to the discovery of all

the relevant facts within the knowledge of the defend- till a title to relief has been proved against him. In ant, and of all the documents by which those facts may this court, the only case to be made out against the be manifested; and I am urged not to extend the ex- defendant may rest within his own knowledge. The ceptions to the exercise of that right further than I am plaintiff may know, or be able to prove, nothing which compelled to do by authority. On the other hand, I justifies more than mere suspicion; and yet the defendam reminded of the authorities which have declared ant must, on his oath, disclose the truth. The cases that the defendant is not to be compelled to disclose are often such, that they are only to be ascertained by communications made in professional confidence-that a discovery, to be obtained from the defendant alone, the protection of professional communications necessarily and in which it is plain that the concealment is against infringes upon and induces exceptions to the plaintiff's conscience and good faith. I own that it is difficult for right to discovery; and then I am urged to give to those me to comprehend how it is possible to apply to such exceptions the full extent which is warranted by the cases the rules which are applied to cases totally difprinciple on which they are founded. This might be ferent. An innocent man, falsely accused of fraud, will practicable if the principle on which the exceptions are scarcely be desirous of concealing the facts, which he founded were in itself clear. The arguments which may have stated to his legal adviser for the purpose of have been used in some late cases seem, as was observed obtaining legal protection, to which he is justly entiby the counsel for the plaintiff, to have assumed that tled. A man engaged in a scheme of fraud will be very the concealment of the truth was, under the plausible unwilling to disclose the statement of facts, which he names of protection or privilege, an object which it may have made to his legal adviser, for the purpose was particularly desirable to secure, forgetting, as it of better enabling him to conceal, or to secure and would seem, that the principle upon which this Court enjoy the fruits of, his fraud. And it is a question I has always acted is to promote and compel the dis- would willingly submit to the consideration of those closure of the whole truth relevant to the matters in who have to decide upon cases of this kind, whether the question, and that every exception requires a distinct interests of society and of justice, or the honour and and sufficient justification. It is singular that it should utility of the legal profession, which are so closely become necessary to observe, that cases of discovery bound up with those interests, are more or less likely from defendants in courts of equity, which are the to be promoted by the author of the fraud being comonly cases now under consideration, relate to the admis-pelled to disclose or permitted to conceal the fact of his sion of the parties, and not to the testimony of wit- own admissions contained in such a statement of facts." nesses; that they are not cases in which parties in all (To be continued). courts are held entitled to insist (as their own privilege) that their legal advisers shall not be permitted to disclose confidential communications, nor cases in which parties are sued for penalties, prosecuted for crimes, or exposed to personal or political oppression. Above all, they are not cases in which presumptions in favour of the defendant are to be carried so far as to exempt him from the obligation to answer on his oath

Her Majesty has been pleased to appoint Charles Henry Stewart, Esq., to be Deputy Queen's Advocate for the island of Ceylon.

MASTER IN CHANCERY.-The Lord Chancellor has appointed Robert Alexander Smith, of Richmond, Surrey, Gent., to be a Master Extraordinary in the High Court of Chancery.