A Treasury Minute has been published fixing the salaries of
the Law Officers of the Crown. The Attorney-General next after Sir J. Coleridge is to have £7,000 a year for all non-contentious work, and the usual professional " fees" for contentious business ; and the Solicitor-General, beginning with Mr. Jessel, £6,000, and the same fees. The Patent fees go to the Exchequer. The arrangement is fair enough, but it does not bind the Law officers to give up private practice, and does not fix very definitely the "usual professional" allowances to be paid. Suppose Sir J. Coleridge to fight the Tichborne claimant for a Crown estate, would he have had £6,000 sent him ? The Times recommends that the Attorney-General should have a seat in the Cabinet, and so be paid for the loss of his practice in honour ; but honour will not feed a peerage, and we are not ready yet to shut the door of the Upper House on the Bar. Besides, is it certain that a man who can get 160 a day by practice would give that up for a sixteenth part of a right to settle what the House of Commons should be asked to do ?
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