TOPICS OF THE DAY.
_ OFFICE OF LORD CHANCELLOR: POLITICAL JUDGES.
AN anonymous paragraph has appeared in several journals an- nouncing the intended retirement of Lord LYNDHURST and appoint- ment of Lord ARMEE. as his successor on the Woolsack. Such a_ piece of gossip, turning up while Lord ABINGER'S charges at the Chartist trials are still fresh in people's memories, has naturally elicited some remarks on the impropriety of making Lord ARMEE Chancellor. Hypothetical consequences deduced from an hypothe- tical official change would possess little interest, were it not that the main argument directed against the promotion of Lord ABINGER tells against the combination of political and judicial functions in the person of the Lord Chancellor. It is said, and truly, that those who have to sit in judgment on po- litical offenders ought not to have the great political prize in their imaginations. But so long as the highest judicial appointment in England shall be filled by a politician, either this political prize must continue to dazzle the imaginations of the rest of the judges, or its occupant must in all cases be selected from the bar. If the latter choice be preferred, the judge who may be called upon to re- view the decisions of all the rest must be selected not from a class who may be supposed to have contracted more or less of the judicial habit of mind, but from a class whose daily avocations confirm in them a turn for special-pleading. The bias which the mind necessarily contracts in practising at the bar is generally found to cling for some time to the new-made judge. The danger may be disregarded where there is a possibility of appealing from his decisions, or where (and this is a point which BENTHAM has overlooked in contending for one single judge in all tribunals) he is associated with two or three judges of older standing,—as in India the newly-caught wild elephant is tied to a couple of tame ones until he acquires something of their gentleness. But it is too se- rious to be overlooked if a barrister in full practice, and having his acquired habit of speaking according to his brief strengthened by his habits of political partisanship, be on all occasions the material out of which the least responsible of all our judges is to be carved. Here is a dilemma : if under existing circumstances the Chancellor be taken from the bench, the morals of the judges will be corrupted ; if from the bar, there is the risk of getting Chancellors ill-qualified for the judicial duties of their office. There is only one way of getting out of the difficulty—to separate the political from the judicial functions of the Chancellor.
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