THE LORD CHANCELLOR AND THE MAGISTRACY.
THE conception of the local Magistracy—the unpaid Judges of England—has a good deal changed of recent years. Until the creation of County Councils the Justices in Quarter Sessions did almost the whole of the county business. The transfer of this duty to an elected body was a notable example of the triumph of theory over practice. The Justices of the Peace had done their work well and they had done it cheaply. They were, for the most part, thoroughly acquainted with the circumstances of the district, and they had the interest in keeping down the cost of administration natural to those who had to find the larger part of such money as might be wanted. All that could be said against them was that they were not representative ; but this was a more damning charge than any other that could have been brought against them. Taking "representative " in the sense of elected by a popular vote, it was a charge that it was impossible to deny. That they were as representative in fact as any authority that was likely to take their place was not a sufficient defence. They were not representative in form ; consequently in their civil capacity they, for most purposes, ceased to be. The business of the county is done by new men. The dis- appearance of the civil functions of the Justices necessarily brought their judicial function into greater prominence. Happily the objection to elective Judges, which is still strong in England, prevented this from being transferred with the civil duties. The Justices remained Magistrates, though they had ceased to be administrators. But in this single character their acts naturally came in for more criticism. Slight errors of judgment may pass unnoticed in civil busi- ness, but they attract, and rightly attract, attention when they are visible in a conviction or a sentence. As no serious complaints of this kind have been made for some years past, it is pretty safe to assume that no real ground exists for them. The watchful scrutiny of which the Justices of the Peace have been the object would certainly have got together evidence on this head bad any been available. The truth, we believe, is that the Magistrates commonly err on the side of leniency rather than severity. There was a time, no doubt, when as regards a particular class of offences this could not have been said,—a time when a poacher was not likely to be let off easily by a game- preserving Bench. But the state of things which made this unlikely has passed away. The poacher is no longer the hungry labourer, he is the expert thief who acts as the agent of a poulterer in the nearest town. Such hostility as there is to the Game-laws is now chiefly economic. They are disliked because they injure crops. But even this has more and more become a matter of arrangement between landlord and tenant. Farms are not let so easily as they were, and even without the Act of last Session a good tenant could usually protect himself. But though the action of the unpaid Justices compares not un- favourably with that of Stipendiary Magistrates in towns, it has not escaped a certain amount of unfounded suspicion. It does not tend to create confidence in a body of Judges if a very great majority of them belong to one political party. There is nothing in the nature of things to make a Conservative a less impartial dispenser of justice than a Liberal, but if there are very many more Conservatives than Liberals on the Bench it is pretty certain that some such idea will grow up. Circumstances have unavoidably created a disproportion of this kind.
The determining motive in the appointment of the County Justices has not been political ; but as the Lords- Lieutenant, and the classes from whom their nominees are ordinarily selected, are commonly Conservatives, it is only to be expected that the County Benches should be largely of the same complexion. It is this that has filled Sir John Brunner and the other Liberal and Labour Members of Parliament with the desire, expressed in their Memorial to the Lord Chancellor, that the appointment of Justices should be "put upon an entirely non-political basis."
Lord Loreburn begins his reply with an expression of agreement in this " initial aspiration." The preponderance of Conservatives on the Bench of which the memorialists complain does, he says, exist, and " threatens to become an injury to the credit of the Bench." What can be done to correct the inequality he is already doing. " Since the end of February there have been appointed in ten months three times as many [new Justices] as have been appointed annually upon an average of the last ten years." But while the Chancellor lain agreement with the memorialists as regards the end to be kept in view, be differs from them as regards the means by which this end can be attained. If the choice lies between two equally good men, one a Liberal and the other a Conservative, it is quite right to take into account the relative numbers of the two parties already on the Bench. But the prayer of the memorialists goes a good deal beyond this. In order to deprive the County Bench of the political character which it now possesses, the signatories propose to invest it with a political character of the opposite kind. They complain of a " long-established custom of taking advice from exclusively Tory circles," and they suggest by way of amendment that in future advice should be taken from exclusively Liberal circles. The Chancellor is in possession, it seems, of knowledge which enables him to supplement the information given him in the Memorial. The demand now made on him is really a demand that " the position of Justice " shall be treated "as merely or mainly a reward of party services." There is unfortunately a very general persuasion " that the Bench of Justices is the appanage of party, and the Lord Chancellor the mere registrar of party selections." This is shown by the significant fact that no Conservative Member has made any application relating to such appointments since Lord Loreburn has been in office. It has been taken for granted that the Conservative chance is over for the present, and that a Liberal Chancellor will make only Liberal Justices. Lord Loreburn's view, on the contrary, is that the fact that a man is a strong party man, on whatever side, is no objection to his being made a Justice if in other respects he is suitable. The fact that the representation of parties on that particular Bench is very unequal may be a reason for postponing an additional appointment of the same character, but nothing more. The non-political character of the County Justices should be secured, not by the mere swing of the pendulum, not by allotting all the appointments to each party in turn, but by making, each appointment as it comes on non-party grounds. It is obvious that this is a matter of very great difficulty. The Chancellor, on whom the selection .ulti- mately falls, may be sincerely anxious to choose the best men, but choice implies knowledge, and knowledge depends on information. The Liberal Members who have furnished Lord Loreburn with lists of names suitable for appointment as Justices have not always been in possession of this information, and the best intentions will not cover the absence of it. And there are cases in which they have taken no pains whatever to test, probably have thought it safest not to test, the information on which their applications have been based.
In these circumstances, the Chancellor rightly declines to subject his action in the appointment of Justices to any party restriction. "I must exercise," he says, "my own discretion as to whom I may consult in any particular case. And I certainly am not prepared to render an account to any one of my reasons for choosing one man or omitting another." It is satisfactory to find that to whatever cause the too exclusively Conservative character of some County Benches is to be attributed, it is not the fault of the Lords-Lieutenant. With rare exceptions, Lord Loreburn says, those of them with whom he has been in communica- tion have " acted and advised impartially," and have taken real pains to discharge the duty which their position as representatives of the Crown imposes on them. The work could not be got through without their help, and they have often been instrumental in preventing " most undesirable, appointments." Whether Sir John Brunner and the other Members who have signed the Memorial will be satisfied with this reply we do not know. But we are quite certain that . Lord Loreburn's view of his duty will be shared by all reasonable Englishmen. A proposal to, cure the too political character of the Magistracy by injecting into it a highly political serum of another kind has no claim on their acceptance.
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