The French Senate is- still most reluctant to pass the
Bill upon the Magistracy, which affronts all Conservative feeling. The Committee appointed to discuss the details of the Bill is decidedly hostile, and has elected M. Jules Simon chairman, as the Senator who is most nearly able to cope with M. Gambetta's influence. It is believed that the report to the Senate will be against the Bill, but this is not final, and the three sections of the Senatorial Left have held a meeting to compose their dif- ferences. They have agreed, it is stated, to fix the age of super- annuation at sixty-five, a matter of importance only to the
and to reduce the term during which Judges shall be removable to six months. Except that it asserts the right of the Senate to modify the Bill, this compromise seems to have no meaning. As many Judges can be dismissed in six months as in twelve, and the only principle at stake,—that the Bench shall be independent of political change, is just as completely surrendered. The only compromise worth contending for would have been a Bill dismissing or pensioning the Judges and Magistrates named in a schedule at its foot. That would, at least, have maintained the idea that it requires a statute to- dismiss a Judge.
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