THE ADDITIONAL JUDGE.
THE reluctance of Ministries and Varna ments to increase the number of Judges is a, very curious fact. There is plenty of money to pay them with not derived from taxation, and they are notoriously wanted, but while the population of the country, its wealth and the volume of business, rapidly increase, successive Govern. ments shrink back from the task of enabling the Courts to perform their duties efficiently. If fifteen Judges were wanted in the "sixties," thirty are wanted now. There are, we belieVe, three reasons for this reluctande, all of which are worth a moment's attention. One is the general impression that the Judges habitually shirk hard work. They are old men, they are dignified men, their work is highly responsible, and they like to do it leisurely and well, recruiting themselves, moreover, with an exceptional amount of holiday. if they were paid by the piece, it is said, there would be fewer arrears, and a good deal less indedision in making up Judges' minds. That this is true no terperiended lawyer doubts, but he does doubt whether there is a remedy. Hurried judg- ments would often be bad judgments; overworked Judges would be bewildered Judges ; and though the prejudice against young men on the Bench, like the prejudice against young Secretaries of State, is now carried much too far, it is well that the chiefs in the great Courts should be men of ripe experience and mature thought. We may dismiss that explanation, therefore, as insufficient; but there are two others. The first and most operative of these is that nothing is to be hoped from democracy in the way of good civil justice. The mass of electors care a little about criminal justice—very little, or they would not bear the long intervals which often occur between arrest and trial—but about civil justice they do not care at all. They never bring serious suits, they never eepect serious actions, and if the civil Courts are slow or costly that, they think, is a matter for the lawyers. For themselves, they can tolerate delays and appeals almost without end with the most serene in. difference. The people do not even grow angry at the frightful power of the millionaires, who cannot be sued, because if they are they " will go from Court t'o Court right up to the Lords." Their feeling is, of course, reflected among statesmen, till the latter shrink almost unanimously from the subject, and till a man like Mr. Bal. four, who really cares about general wellbeing, confesses openly in his place that as to cheap justice he is quite hopeless. He would not be hopeless if a General Election depended on the reform. The result is that in England, in America, in France, and in Italy, countries all governed by the representatives of the people, civil justice is slower and more expensive than in Germany, where the people have little power, or in India, where they have none. So costly are the proceedings, so wearisome the delays, so uncertain the ultimate result, that people shrink from law as from disease, and a family with a great lawsuit is pitied like a family with scrofula or insanity. The democracy, meanwhile, feels none of the burden, and if told of it laughs contentedly, and repeats sarcasms on lawyers' greed. The whole matter is left to the experts, and the experts know that reform is not so simple a matter as it looks.
Logically it would seem that Bentham was right, and that in a well-governed State the Courts should always stand open, decrees should always be obtainable, and the cost of justice, like the cost of the police or the Army, should be defrayed out of taxation. Why should John be heavily fined when the suit he has fought and won estab- lithos the rights of Dick and Tom, perhaps releases them from severe civil oppression ? Can anything be conceived more absurd or more unjust than that the decision which affects everybody should be paid for by the particular suitor who has raised the question ? Why should I who am resisting a robbery be fined heavily for the resistance which is to benefit the whole community ? Or why am I who pay my taxes regularly to be refused justice until the managers of an undermanned machine find time or make it convenient to look into my case ? In abstract logic there is no answer to those questions, but when tested by experience the answer is one of terrible weight. Laws exist for the happiness of the governed, and Bentham's plan, which looks so wise, if logically carried out would make the community miserable. If law were cheap and swift—swift, that is, as the wronged and cheap enough for all men—the whole community would be miserable. Litigation would become the busi- ness of life. The moment a man had a grievance, how- ever slight, he would rush into law, every man with anything would be harassed with actions, and every man with nothing would find in them at once a weapon and an amusement. The population would come to feel that life was dry and tedious without lawsuits, and the tran- quillity of ordinary life would disappear. Solicitors would be the most active persons in the State, the Judges would be worked into a condition of impatient acrimony, and as for men liable to sere on juries. they would be for life in the position of conscripts who cannot so much as think of their own private affairs. They are tormented now, but they would be tortured then. There would be no restraint on the cantankerous, and no penalty upon the man who refused to carry out his bargain. With law so cheap and so swift, what would it matter to a rogue to lose his suit ? He would be no worse off than if he had kept his bargain and paid. But there would be more justice ? Possibly in individual cases, but the extinction of practising lawyers, who, of course, would disappear because unpaid, would not con- duce towards it. Besides, the majority get justice now. Slowly and at much cost the existing system builds up a. body of law so reasonable and so closely adapted to men's needs that it is obeyed in silence, and men get the justice they crave for not only without expense,• but without the harass Of The immense majority pass through life without lawsuits, but also without suffering the injustices for which law- suits would be a remedy. The lawyers tell them what they can do, and what not, and unless they are stupid they act or abstain from acting according. to that advice, and the object of the whole system of civil law is silently attained. The present system works well in all but details, and the thing to be done is not to revolutionise it, but to make by degrees such improvements that its pres- sure upon individuals shall be as little unbearable as possible. Appeals should be limited, and appellate Judges required to give their decisions within a reasonable period. There should be coadjutor Judges, who could relieve their seniors and the suitors at one and the same time. And above all, there should be within the Bench itself some authority with power to limit holidays, to insist upon diligence, and to rebuke excessive indecision. No external power could do this without trenching upon the judicial independence, which we guard perhaps even too carefully, but a Bishop does not cease to be a Bishop because he has over him an Archbishop with an admitted right to hint. As for the cost of improvement, the objection is almost futile. Thirty thousand a year would more than secure all the agency required, and any faddist who can prove that a manefaCture is unhealthy can induce the Govern- ment to spend that amount upon inspection. A per- manent block in the stream of justice is at least as great an evil to the c;ommunity as the lead glade on pipkini.
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