THE NEW LEGAL APPOINTMENTS.
THE Government has had to pay very dear for an injudicious bit of economy. The Ministry determined last year to terminate a great and increasing scandal by appointing paid Judges to sit on the Judicial Committee of Privy Council, and work off the discreditable heap of arrears. No less than 330 cases, involving some £14,000,000 sterling, are waiting for
decision. They proposed at first to offer salaries which the profession deemed inadequate, but after considerable pressure agreed to concede allowances which, though they included pensions previously earned, still brought the incomes of the new Judges up to the usual level of £5,000 a year. They, however, either declined or forgot to allow for the Judges' Clerks, and consequently any Judge with £5,000 a year who accepted the new post would be fined in about one-tenth of his whole salary. The defect was pointed out, but the Treasury appear to have imagined that the dignified seclusion of the new berth, its comparative quiet and ease, would prove sufficiently enticing to men many of whom begin to feel the weight of years, and the Act was passed without any provision for the clerks. As it happens, however, a great majority of the appeals brought before the Judicial Committee are from India, and for English judges the study of intricate points of Indian law, points sometimes requiring the study of weeks, is not in itself so attractive that they are willing for its enjoyment to pay an extra income-tax of two shillings in the pound. One Judge, of the highest reputation and ability, Sir Montagu Smith, did. indeed accept the offer, to the great benefit of the new tribunal, and one Indian Judge, Sir James Colvile, in whom all Anglo-Indians and natives of India have a profound confidence, both as a sound lawyer and a man of keenly incisive intellect. But the majority of the English Judges declined the offered seat, and the Government was compelled to fill up the vacancy by an expedient which in principle, though not in form, violates a statute not yet a year old. The statute limited their choice to Judges—intending, no doubt, to secure experienced men.-,-and the Government have therefore been obliged to make Sir R. Collier, the Attorney-General, a Puisne Judge for a few days, in order to transfer him to the Judicial Committee. They comply with the words of the Act, but set aside its most obvious intention. An expedient of that kind, unless absolutely unavoidable, is deeply to be re- gretted, even when it secures a man of exceptional qualifications, which in this instance can hardly be said to be the case. Sir R. Collier is doubtless a good lawyer, a man of decided character, and a keen politician, but he is not one of those counsellors for whose sake a wise government might think itself justified in evading a Law. He has never attained the position of some of his rivals at the bar, and though a ready debater, has never rendered to the administration very apparent or weighty aid. The serious objection, however, to his appointment is the Act, and that will not, we fear, be deemed a light one by the House of Lords. A Parliamentary debate on any judicial appointment is, if not a scandal, at all events an incident to be most carefully avoided, and in this case it has become almost inevitable. No tribunal in the world now occupies so Imperial a position as the Judicial Committee, nor is there any other whose decisions affect so large, so varied, and so sensitive a population. The Committee is the final tribunal of appeal from forty Colonies and the whole Indian Empire, and its decisions are frequently of the highest political im- portance, while its judgments seriously affect the reputation, prospects, and authority of more than a hundred of her Majesty's superior Judges, men to whom the fortunes of entire communities are practically entrusted. That such a Court, however strongly constituted, should be made a little less pre- eminent than it might have been in order to save a sum of £1,000 a year, or as a perpetuity less than a half per cent. on the capital now in litigation before the Court, is, to put it in the mildest form, a vexation to all friends of good administra- tion.
The vacancies caused by the promotion of Sir R. Collier have been filled up in the regular way, and call neither for condemnation nor approval. klveryone would have liked to see Sir Roundell Palmer made once more Attorney-General. The public confidence in his ability is great, and in his character greater still ; while his present position as the anticus curiae, the candid friend who can tell the Administration effectively of its faults, is a little too strong for the easy working of the Parliamentary machine. When a man's opinion in Parliament has the weight of that of a leader he should be made a leader, and not be allowed to sit by himself the irresponsible and sometimes irresistible chief of all the waverers. It is, however, unusual to pass over the Solicitor- General, and we have nothing to say in depreciation of Sir J. D. Coleridge's promotion beyond a wish that there was a little more of the great statesman in him, more force and character to strengthen that silver-tongued eloquence of his. His speeches please much more often than they convince, and it is not to the first legal adviser of the Crown that we shall look to supply the deficiencies of the weaker members of the Administration. Mr. Jessel, however, the new Solici- tor-General, is strong enough for any post,—if anything, a trifle too strong. A weightier judgment is scarcely to be found at the Bar, or a man whose speeches have more effect in producing immediate conviction. His one political fault is that he hits too hard, tramples down his opponents too much, is too contemptuous of the stupidity which is, after all, the characteristic of the people he is to help to govern. He will make enemies for the Govern- ment, though he may help it to defeat them; and he brings to it considerable cynicism as well as much more than average force. If one could but construct two law officers out of the present two, carefully mixed up, the Lord Chancellor would have an unparalleled team. How- ever, men of his stamp are wanted in governments, no equally qualified rival is in the field, unless it be Mr. James, whose seat for Taunton does not look in Dad's returns the safest in the world; or Mr. Harcourt, who has not risen to the position in debate he claims; and the appointment gives an assurance to the world that the Cabinet in selecting its agents considers efficiency the highest qualification. Parliamentary life is, after all, a battle, and fighting Mr. Jessel is no child's-play, as the opposition will discover in the very first legal debate. It will be seen that the new appointments do not strike us with great admiration, and in fact these political legal appointments very seldom do. It is very hard indeed to find, a lawyer with the qualifications the Liberal party wants,—great knowledge, fair but not forensic eloquence, a massive judg- ment, and a fund of strong and sincere Liberal conviction. Great lawyers tend to be Tories, to dislike departure out of grooves, and to consider that everything which exists derives from law some kind of right to continue existing. A little more perfect rapport with the popular mind, a little stronger trace of the true Liberal fervour, and Sir Roundel]. Palmer would be the ideal Liberal lawyer ; but then he would in many respects cease to be Sir Bounden Palmer,—cease, that is, to exercise his high influence over both parties, sometimes to moderate and sometimes to enfeeble the action of both. We must take what we have, and we do not suppose that in Sir G. Jessel we shall find an opponent of ecclesiastical reform, or in Sir J. Coleridge a devotee of the religion of landed settlements.
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