01T11. SUPREME JUDGES.
THE leafing Journal follows up the subject upon which we touched last week, that of judicial appointments, and treats it in a large and satisfactory manner. appointments, journalist echoes the warm approval which we said was felt by the legal profession at the promotion of Sir Robert Rolfe, andthe prospect of promo- tion to Baron.Parke ; but he shares and confirms-our anxieties at the incompleteness of the changes made. The Times forcibly re- states the impoverished legal resources of the House of Peers— "Of the Law Peers who have for the last ten years carried on the legal business of the House—Earl Cottenham, Lord Lyndhurst, Lord Denman, Lord llrou,gham, Lord Langdale, and Lord Campbell—none, we fear, remain in full vigeUr and activity, except the two last, who are engrossed by other judicial 'occupations. These are men who have for the most part well earned the honours and emoluments they enjoy ; but they have all passed ar very nearly reached that limit of threescore years and ten which forms the com- . mon boundary of unremitting labour; and although we do not recommend imitation of the American rule which dismisses judges from the bench at sixty, we may he allowed to crave some reinforcements under seventy."
But the " reinforcement' will be scarcely more than nominal:
the strength added in the higher courts must cause a proportionate weakening in lower courts; for, with the Times, we are at a loss to see how the services of Baron Cranworth can be transferred to the House of Lords and the Privy Council without subtracting too much of his time from the Court of Chancery. Yet if you shut up the court of one -Vice-Chancellor, and still put the Lord Chan- cellor on the double duty of mounting both political and judicial guard, not even the preternatural intuition and energy of Sir Lewis Knight Bruce will keep in circulation the legal traffic—will prevent the dead-lock-which we have described as imminent—or, perhaps, succeed in averting a " frightful collision," attended with loss of judicial life.
The hesitation to complete the division of the Lord Chancellor's office will moreover, with the present imperfect arrangements, lead to an absurdity that the simple public will think almost scanda- lous—to the spectacle of a junior Vice-Chancellor reviewing as a supreme judge in the Court of Appeal the judgments- of his judi- cial superior the Lord Chancellor; who has perhaps just previously reversed the same decisions as the erroneous dicta of the same subordinate Vice-Chancellor.
The present Judges of the Chancery Courts and the Courts of
the Peers and theCouncil are in the position of a small community of Flemings defending an immense range of the dikes which ore the salvation of their country, against the encroachments of the ever-advancing ocean. The cireninvallation is too extensive for the slender force; pluck and energy are alike set at nought : the captains strive with heroic endeavours—they breast the advancing tide with Atlantean struggles—rushing from points where they have effected some little cheek, to other points where the torrent ie roaring through new breaches ; but each local success tells less and less against inexorable waves' because aocomplielted only by resort to measures fatal to other parts. Such a contest is desperate ; its endurance is only a question of time : if succour be not timely given the country, will be submerged and its inhabitants must perish. The chief difference between the eases of the unreal country and the sadly real courts is, that the system of technical law administered in the latter marks them as institutions the an- I nihilation of which we may perhaps more desire than regret.
However, assuming, as we do assume in our placid moments that our legal estate with its " offices " and appurtenances is word; preserving because it is capable of being thoroughly "improved," I we only feel the more anxiety to begin making its administration more efficient. .; .
One of the old opprobria of legal polities is the question, how best to secure a bench of able and honest judges. Principle would indicate that the qualification for a special function should be aimed at by an adaptive education and a training of experience ; that for the bench there should be an education and gradations of employment, just as the bar, the church, and the army, each has its
peescribed courses of teaching and employment. The system on which we do act is exactly contrasted with the ideal on which WU ' should act. Whereas a judge should be chosen for erudities, en: passible calmness Of temper, and untarnished moral repute, we in practice choose judges who are seldom men of impassible temper; ate- sometnnes-by no means men of -elevated moral lone, and are VeiTaften Men of the -slenderest legal erudition. The best advocate le elin man evlici lean best feel his client's wo and shine his interesta tlie-tutteente who aspires to the highest reward of his profession idlgieleleillee One who most borrows his moral tone from those who.- teeleprbeieteliis personal ambitions ; and the successful advocate* the inehoate jedge; is frequently one who has seldom thought of a legal prineiple- except so far as. it might assist- the cause for which wateretinned, or eubserve the political party through which he hopes to -reach the anticipated -goal. of his pro.fessiona -careen. Hereafter, when legal studies may haply become part of the cur. eireuhim -of our Universities, the proper educational conditions of judicial candidature may be less difficult to find; and perhaps the increase of minor grades of judicial employment, not filled from, the ranks of political aspirants, may contribute to solve the clues,- tion how to supply the bench with men at once just,, learned, and experienced. But while such "a good time" 143 this may yet be distant, it is in the power of vigilant and upAglit rulers so to choose as that the worst tendencies of oursysteen bear not their, worst fruits.
We have already stated our fear that nothing more.thart tory measures are intended—measures for changing the distribu- tion, rather than lessening the aggregate of eviL But whether stopgaps only be used, or such a remodelling -of the Court of Appel- late Jurisdiction be made as will protect it, and the vast public interests with which it deals, from being the mere sport of acci- dent, — whether a complete judicial reinforcement be intended, or only an incomplete and embarrassing one,—we still conclude in the same strain of grave advice; and our advice will prove the more valuable and friendly if it prevent a threatened evil which would ultimately recoil in public condemnation on its ine- thors. The Whig Ministers—famous for fidelity to party predi- lections—have yet a reputation to win in this departmentaf patron- age. They might usefully call to mind the honour and national gratitude bir Robert Peel acquired, when, as Home Secretary, he selected Judges for the Supreme Court of Scotland from the front ranks of his political opponents in Edinburgh ; recognivingenly the fact that they were the foremost lawyers of their time.
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