Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/163

 5. JENKS: EDWARD I 149 in, property which is the subject-matter of dispute in the / royal courts. The Statute of Westminster the Second is, perhaps, mainly concerned with the conduct of the King's local representatives in the country districts ; but an almost contemporary group of Exchequer Ordinances made strict and much-needed reforms in the machinery of the central government. The cherished abuse of all revenue officials, from the days of Falkes de Breaute to the days of Marlborough and Stephen Fox, viz., the retention of heavy balances in their private pockets, was sternly, though, it is to be feared, ineffectually forbidden by Edward's rules. The employment of irrespon- sible private agents in the King's business is strictly pro- hibited. Alleged deductions on account of expenses are to be carefully scrutinised by independent surveyors. Oppressive exaction, even of the King's debts, is deprecated. And it is twice laid down, but, alas ! ineffectually, that the special royal privileges of the Exchequer process, which were intended for the benefit of the King only, are not to be made use of by private persons.^ Leaving, for the moment, the eloquent comment on these regulations furnished by the proceedings of the year 1290, we return to our analysis of the Statute. of Westminster the Second. '"^'^ The third and last great ob j ect of this Statute may be said to have been, to apply to ordinary litigants the same rules of justice and moderation which, as we have seen, the King had imposed on the feudal nobility and his own officials. The farther back we go in legal history, the more clear does it become, that the abuse of legal process, by litigants and officials alike, is no new thing, but, on the contrary, an ancient evil which steadily, if slowly, tends to diminish. Nor is there anything in this discovery that should surprise us. Legal procedure grew out of a gradual substitution of argument for violence, and it bears the marks of its origin at every turn. sition of two powerful interests: (1) of the Exchequer judges, to whom increased business meant increased fees, and (2) of wealthy litigants, who coveted the special privileges exercisable by a royal litigant, and were willing to pay for them. It was evaded, as every student of our legal history knows, by the use of transparent fictions.
 * This wholesome rule proved entirely unable to withstand the oppo-