JUDGE-MAKING IN THE CITY. AT E fear that the Corporation of
London is going to dis- regard the unanimous advice of all impartial friends and its own manifest interest in regard to the Recordership. The talk runs that Sir Thomas Chambers, the present Common Serjeant, will, in all probability, be appointed Recorder, and that it is not unlikely that the new Common Serjeant will be the Hon. R. Bourke, the present Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. Both appointments will be bad—not exactly jobs, for that conveys the idea of corruptness, but ill-advised, in- judicious appointments, of which the City may have cause to repent. We stated last week a few of our reasons why Sir Thomas Chambers is not peculiarly fitted for the higher office, and we have no desire to dwell un- graciously on the fact that his judicial career at the Lord Mayor's Court and at the Old Bailey has been inglori- ous ; that he made no great figure at the Bar ; and that in Parliament he has done nothing but occasionally speak in favour of the propriety of a man marrying his deceased wife's sister,—a matter in which, so far as we know, the City is not deeply interested. But why, apart from any personal question of this sort, should the Court of Aldermen be ready to establish a rule to the effect that the Common Serjeant has the reversion of the Recordership ? Do they desire to hand over their most im- portant piece of patronage to the Common Council ? And if they do not, are they judicious in sanctioning the idea that the Common Serjeant, the nominee of the Common Council, has a right to promotion by seniority? We need not tell those who are conversant with the history of the City that the best judi- cial appointments ever made by it were deviations from routine. Fifty years ago it was customary to give the Common Sergeant- ship to the senior pleader of the City. Mr. Denman, then in the hey-day of his popularity, as the advocate of Queen Caroline, broke through this rule, and defeated Mr. Bolland ; and the City thereby obtained the services of one of the ablest and most trusted Judges who ever adorned the English Bench. Why should not the Aldermen show a little of the public spirit which the Common Council showed in 1822, and appoint some lawyer of distinction, such as Sir Fitzjames Stephen, who would be a worthy successor to Sir Stuart Wortley and Mr. Russell Gurney ? Of course, Mr. Bourke is a highly respectable Under-Secretary. He answers simple questions in a discreet fashion, and he can paraphrase with some skill the arguments set by his official superior. But he is not a successful Under-Secretary, in the sense that Lord George Hamilton or even Mr. Lowther is, and mediocrity at the Foreign Office is but poor security for eminence on the Bench. Much has been made of the fact that he once had some practice on circuit and at sessions, and that he was " devil " to an Attorney-General many years ago. But what guarantee is this of knowledge of a system of law which has marvellously changed since Mr. Bourke was practising at the Bar ? We do not give the command of a division in the field to a man because he was in the Militia in his youth. To choose as Recorder one gentleman merely because he is Common Serjeant, and to elect another as Common Serjeant who has been for years out of practice, and who has been too busy to pay any attention to legal matters, is to say without circum- locution, " The City does not want great learning or tried judicial ability. It wants men with a social position ; men who have got a City connection ; barristers who have married or dined into the circle of aldermanic families, or whose faces are familiar at civic feasts or to the loungers on the Bench at the Old Bailey." It is to be false to the spirit of the old con- ception of the Recorder who, according to the Liber Albus of the City, was to be a lawyer of learning and eloquence, known and in good repute in all the King's Courts.
Now, the City must not say this, at least not too plainly. Both the Recordership and the Common Serjeantship are very extraordinary offices, about which a Royal Commission might have many hard things to say; and the Corporation dare not direct many eyes to their own anomalous powers as Judge- makers, by choosing those who are not the fittest. The Re- corder is a Judge of Oyer and Terminer. He is one of the Commissioners of the Central Criminal Court, and it is also his business to try civil causes in the Lord Mayor's Court. He is, therefore, no mere municipal officer, nor a higher order of stipendiary ; but a Judge with large jurisdiction, civil and criminal. His salary is also considerable. As Judge of the Central Criminal Court he receives a salary of £2,000, and for his judicial work at the Lord Mayor's Court he receives a further sum of £1,000. His virtual subordinate, the Common Serjeant, we may add, has a salary of £1,500, and a further allowance of £1,050 as Judge at the Lord Mayor's Court, making an aggregate considerably more than the remuneration was in the time of Lord Denman, who states that he received as Common Serjeant £1,000 as salary, and £150 to nearly £400 in the shape of fees. Nominally the Recordership is not the highest paid office of which the Mayor and the Corporation have the disposal. The City Engineer receives from the Corporation and the Commissioners of Sewers a still larger salarv—£3,246 —than the Recorder, and in some years the former has re- ceived thousands more in the shape of remuneration for extra services. But it is understood that in reality the Recordership is worth to an occupant of it who is not in Parliament nearly 1"6,000. As the advocate of the Corporation, he has a right to be " briefed " in all cases in which the City is con- cerned, except those which come before his own Court ; and if he is not disqualified by being a Member of Parliament, this privilege extends to all private Bills in which the Coporation is interested. We mention all this, not in order to show that the two Judges are overpaid, but that their salaries are such as to satisfy able men of good repute. Any Royal Commission would probably have much to say about the mode in which the appointments are made. Englishmen sneer at the State Judges in America who are elected by popular vote, and find a sufficient explanation of the depredations of Gould and Tweed in this one fact. But here in London are Judges with jurisdiction equal to that of the State Judges elected by popular assemblies. Here is a Corporation which appoints and keeps two Judges. Those who remember the last vacancy in the Common Serjeantship, more than twenty years ago, when Mr. Russell Gurney was promoted from that office to the Recorder- ship, must remember that there were most of the accompani- ments of a contested Parliamentary election, that public meetings were held by the supporters of the many candidates, and that canvassing was freely carried on. We admit that, alk a rule, a tolerably wise choice has been made. But such institutions, so alien to all English notions, are always very properly on their defence, and people will say that they are bearing only their natural fruits if candidates with undoubtedly secondary claims are preferred. Who knows but that the City may some day, not so very distant, have to justify the retention of those privileges and peculiar customs which the Municipal Corporation Act swept away elsewhere, but which it spared in the case of London ? The propriety of Alder- men electing themselves and of nominating one of the superior Judges may not always be acquiesced in, and the duration of the anomaly may depend very much on the character of the law officers.
The City has usually had the good-sense to select as their Judges men who have already earned some public reputation. On the occasion of the last contest for the Common Serjeantship, the two candidates out of many who were at the head of the poll were Members of Parliament, and we do not doubt that the possession of a seat in the House will usually be a decided recommendation to a candidate. There is no practical incompatibility between a seat in the House and the Recorder- ship. The judicial duties of the Recorder and the Common Serjeant are not absorbing. They have in the Lord Mayor's Court., which usually sits for a week about once a month, the ser- vices of an Assistant-Judge, and the monthly sittings of the Central Criminal Court leave them ample time to attend to their Par- liamentary duties. We do not grudge the Corporation the presence of two champions in the House of Commons. But we do wonder that they do not show more eagerness to elect men of great repute, as criminal or mercantile lawyers, more ambition to prove that they are as discerning of judicial merit as the Lord Chancellor. Parliamentary influence is useful to the City. But a reputation for real discrimination and public spirit in the selection of its judicial officers would be still more useful. City-men complain often that the modern Judges who are sent to try heavy commercial cases at Guildhall do not exhibit the same knowledge of the details of business as the Parkes, the Mules, the Willeses, and other giants of the past. Why should not the Corporation, by making wise appointments in this instance, read the Government a lesson on the subject of Judicial Patronage ?
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