Next we are told that the powers of the Ministry
are to be operated through Commissions of a judicial character. This, of course, is the old plan of taking matters of keen economic controversy out of the purview of the courts of law, which have the objectionable habit of treating all men who come before them as equal, whether they be lords or labourers. This bad habit of the Judges, as the Radicals tell us, has often Lad the result of defeating sound legislation for the benefit Qf the labourer. Commissioners with judicial powers, how- ever, will be able to be properly instructed, kept up to the
mark, and generally made to understand that there is one kind of law for the labourer and the tenant and another for the landowner. The Commissioners will feel free to act on the great principle once enunciated by a French juge de paix: " Vous etes riche, it est pauvre ; payez ce qu'il demande." No doubt our Commissioners with judicial powers will not put it quite so crudely as that. It sounds much better to say : " You are an idle feudal capitalist; his back is bent with tilling the ungrateful soil. Do you dare to refuse him the right to live?"
