A MINISTER OF JUSTICE.
Tax discussions this week on the appointment to the highest office in the law have revived, amongst some of our readers, a question which ought not to have slumbered so long—Why has not a Minister of Justice already been appointed ? We have so often discussed that question, that to do so now would be only to repeat arguments which have already become familiar to most of those readers who take an active interest in the subject. The measure in fact needs no further advocacy ; it is in that unlucky state in which public questions slumber longest—when the argu- ments for them are exhausted, and the sleep is unbroken from the total absence of opposition. The measure to abolish the Parlia- mentarry exclusion of Englishmen who traced their birth to one particular race was a question of that kind,—still not quite closed ; for technically there is still something to be done on the statute book, even with regard to that question, as two of the Members for London City perfectly understand. An esteemed corres- pondent calls our attention to a very pertinent quotation from the first speech delivered by Lord Bacon in Parliament, when he was Member for Middlesex. His speech was in favour of law reform, and particularly suggested the establishment of a judicial office like the department of justice which still waits to be created. Lord Bacon then said
" The cause of assembling all Parliaments hath been hitherto for Laws or Monies, the one being the Sinews of Peace, the other of War ; to one I am not pnvy, but the other I should know I did take great contentment in her Majesty's speech the other day, delivered by the Lord Keeper, how that it was a thing not to be done suddenly, or at one Parliament, nor scarce a year would suffice to purge the Statute Book nor lessen it, the volumes of the Law being so many in number, that neither common people can half practice them, nor lawyers sufficiently understand them, than the which nothing would tend more to the praise of her Majesty. The Romans ap- pointed ten men, who were to collect or recall all former laws, and to set forth those twelve tables so much by all men so commended. The Athenians likewise appointed six for that purpose, and Louis IX., King of France, did the like, in reforming his laws."
And in a subsequent speech submitting to the King a proposi- tion for reducing and recompiling the laws our great philosopher said- " If I shall speak my opinion of them without partiality either to my profession or country, I hold them just, wise, and moderate laws ; they give to God, they give to Caesar, they give to the subject what appertaineth. It is true they are as mixed as our language ; compounded of British, Roman, &mon, Danish, Norman customs, and surely as our language is thereby so ranch the richer, so our laws are likewise by that mixture the more com- plete. I have commended them for the matter ; but they ash much amend- mentfor the form, which to reduce and perfect I hold to be one of the great- est dowries that can be conferred upon this kingdom, for certain it is that our laws are subject to great uncertainties, vanety of opinion, delays and
evasions."
But this work has still to be done. Bacon's plan of reform consisted of two parts—a digest or recompiling of the common laws, and a digest of the statutes. In detail, of course, his plan is now out of date, but the grand reproach to us is that lhe work, as of old, has still to be executed. Undoubtedly, one reason why it has been deferred has been that the heads of the law who are in Parliament are too much busied in other matters. The Lord Chancellor is acting chief Speaker of the House of Lords and a great Minister of State, besides being occupied in his court with the weightiest and most complicated cases ; the Attorney-General is one of the most active Ministers of State, and ordinarily a very keen partisan. How can these men keep up that deliberate and vig.ilant attention which Law Reform requires ?
The circumstances of the immediate season are peculiarly fa- vourable, always excepting the vast draughts upon our attention made by the state of continental affairs. One of the first steps towards an efficient Law Reform, is the appointment of a Minister of Justice ; and if any one should doubt that proposition, we only refer him to the experience of the last few years. With great Law Lords in Parliament, with the Law Amendment Society, comprising many eminent men, with a number of the most in- fluential members of society constantly agitating the subject, we are still talking about the thing instead of doing it. On the other hand, that lawyer who has the most simply and effectually grap- pled with the question in its plainest form of statute-consolidation, kit Fitzroy Kelly, has just been released from the cares of office, held under circumstances, we truly believe, not fully congenial to his mind; and he is free for the service of the nation instead of party. Perhaps the very ablest lawyer of the Liberal party, Sir Richard Bethell, is notoriously favourable to the creation of the office ; and there are men on both sides of both Houses, who would not only cordially support vigorous measures for prosecuting Law Reforms, but, passing the vulgar bounds of party, would be at the service of the party that did the work. We do not believe, there- fore, that we are out of season in saying that even while wars go on in Italy, and politicians ponder a Reform Bill, statesmen in office may lend the requisite authority to earnest lawyers in pro- secuting Law Reforms, and giving the key to an effectual course of policy.
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