THE CHANGES ON THE BENCH. T HE past week has seen
several important changes on the Judicial Bench. On Thursday Lord Hannen took his seat as a Lord of Appeal, and on Thursday also Mr. Justice Jeune was sworn-in before the Lord Chancellor, while on the same day Mr. Justice Butt entered upon the duties of President of the Admiralty, Probate, and Divorce Division of the High Court, an office which gives the Judge who holds it a seat in the Court of Appeal. These appointments, taken in conjunction with those of Mr. Justice Wright and Mr. Justice Romer to Puisne Judge- ships, give the Lord Chancellor a right to the gratitude of the nation, for they mark another step in the with- drawal of judicial patronage from the region of party. The bestowal of Judgeships for political services has hitherto been a blot upon our system of legal administra- tion; but if Lord Halsburfs example in recent instances is followed, it will be so no longer. Every seat on the Bench given, not to an expectant legal Member of Parliament, but to the lawyer most fitted to fill the vacant office, tends to create a precedent in favour of promotion by merit. If the appointments just made had been dictated by party motives, the next Chancellor would have had a good excuse for rewarding political services. As it is, however, the conversion of Judgeships into rewards for consistent voting, or for the fighting of up-hill electoral battles, is becoming exceedingly difficult. To return to a bad system after a, better has been tried is never easy, and, if nothing else, the fear of comparison is likely to keep future nomina- tions out of the hands of the Parliamentary hacks. A good example once set in patronage is almost sure to be followed, for to do otherwise would provoke criticism of a very damaging kind. Members of Parlia- ment will no doubt still continue to be made Judges when they deserve promotion ; but the notion that political work gives an indisputable claim upon the Government is, we trust., destined to die out.
Apart from the change as regards political appoint- ments, there are signs apparent that true intellectual eminence is getting to be regarded as a necessary qualifi- cation for a seat on the Bench. The old notion that if a man had a fair knowledge of law, and a reasonable experi- ence of the Courts, and was, in addition, a person of ordinary probity and respectability, the Government were justified in making him a Judge, though to do so was to pass over his superiors in far higher qualities, is now admitted to be untenable. A man now must be a great deal more than "not unfit" and the friend of the Chancellor or of other influential persons, to make his nomination or promotion in any sense acceptable. The question which it is admitted ought to be asked is not, " Will fill the vacancy without discredit ?" but, "Who has the best right to pro- motion on the ground of mental capacity ? " The mental calibre of the men eligible has, in fact, come to be regarded as of great importance. Uprightness, impartiality, and high character conic first, of course, and are essential conditions precedent in regard to the tenure of judicial office ; but granted that these can be satisfied, it is of the utmost moment that the Judges should be men possessed of intellectual distinction. It is necessary that the Judges should not only be respectable but respected, and this can hardly be secured unless they are distinguished for their mental powers. It is impossible to prevent clever counsel holding duller-witted Judges in contempt ; and this con- tempt soon filters through to the public, and prevents that complete confidence in the tribunals which is the secret of a successful legal system. Again, intellectual eminence secures social consideration, and such considera- tion is of no small importance in the case of the Judges. The opinion of society may be, and perhaps is, a very poor thing ; but it unquestionably has a great influence upon the public opinion of the nation. But in England intel- lectual eminence is, and. always has been, recognised as a ground for social consideration. The Judges, except in so far as the courtesy which is hereditary is; as a rule, more complete than the courtesy which is acquired, do not gain much by being of good family ; but when they are men of . unusual brain-power, they are in England assured a social position which gives them that place in the eye of the world which they ought to hold. Yet another of the advantages which flow from the appointment of Judges who are net merely "not unfit," -but men of strong character and wide attainment, is that if by any chance some outburst of popular feeling takes place in connection with the discharge of their official duties, the latter may be the better relied on to act wisely and prudently. A weak or a stupid and obstinate man, or, again, one unable to take a broad and clear view, is almost certain to do something indiscreet when he and his actions are placed under the microsoopic observation which is brought to bear upon any person that of which he approves. Lord Hannen has this gift, the So far as the privileged Companies are concerned, and supreme gift for the Judge, and one which is seldom pos- the Government establishments, we are decidedly with sessed by any but persons of great intellectual power. In the artisans. The railway servants in Scotland, with a him, too, it is tinged with real human kindness, and with a folly which is nearly unintelligible, have given their case sense of the true import of human action. The standpoint away in public opinion by a series of meaningless yet from which men are regarded as struggling animalculre, murderous outrages—dropping stones from a bridge who bite and are bitten, but whose vagaries are of little real on an engine-driver is morally murder, and nothing moment, should not belong to a Judge ; yet.it is ona that else—but the case itself' is unanswerable ; and in Par- the atmosphere of the Divorce Court is likely enough to liament on Friday week it was not answered except produce. Lord Hannen, however, never hardened under by saying that long hours were not so common as the the influence of his work. It was impossible to hear his men's advocates represented, which doubtless is true, as judgments or charges to juries, in the ordinary matri- a similar statement has been true of every social oppres- menial suits that came before him, without seeing that sion we can recollect. The Abolitionists exaggerated the from his mind had been eliminated all such refracting frequency of the worst horrors of slavery, and the philan- cant, and that he saw the facts as they really were. This thropists over-reckoned the worst oppressions of the truck large-mindedness, coupled with a deep knowledge of and system ; but neither iniquity was defensible for one an instinctive ability for the administration of the law, moment. One of them was robbery of everything, and will render Lord Hannen's presence in the final Court of the other, robbery of a large per-centage on all contract Appeal peculiarly valuable. It is true he will now deal wages. A man ought not to be liable to be made to work only at a distance with human actions, but his keen in a civilised. community for eighteen hours at a stretch, or judgment and well-balanced intellect will find ample scope fourteen either, and when the work involves the lives and in the discussion and settlement of the important legal limbs of the public, to work him so is almost a criminal problems with which the House of Lords is concerned. offence. Railway Companies have no more right to leave
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