eIrrtuings frent thr Vim %unkfi.

EMOLUMENTS OF THE BAR AND JUDICIAL SALARIES. .

Tax scope of the rule of Lord John Russell and other leading state econo- mists is, that public servants ought to be paid such salaries as will com• mend the highest services,-that is, the best services, without reference. to connexion, title, or station. Conformably with this canon, the Salaries- Committee went systematically to work, in the legal branch of the inquiry, by first ascertaining from unexceptionable sources the current and average annual gains of 'members of the bar, with the view of settling the future scale of judicial remuneration, so as to insure for the administration.ef justice the most serviceable worth and ability in the market. It is _ manifest, however, that the naked salary forms only one of the sedate. tiona of a judgeship in the superior courts ; in addition, are the dignity, fixity, and independence of the appointment-its quietude, and exemption_ from the uncertainties, turmoil, and rivalries of forensic practiee-with. the further solace of patronage to some of the sages, and to all comfort.. able retiring pensions. Information, in consequence, was needed on. these incidental adjuncts, and was sedulously sought and obtained. Thee fallowing exhibits the results of the Committee's.hivestigation.a, for the United Kingdom. For the sake of more readily contrasting the prospective salaries sug- gested by the Committee, we add, in juxtaposition, the present salaries of judicial officers. ENGLAND. Proposed. Present.

- Lord Chancellor £8;000 ....£10,000 Master of the Rolls 6,000 .... 7,000 Vice-Chancellor of England 5,000 .... 6,000

Second Vice-Chancellor 5,000 .... 5,000

Masters in Chancery, each 2,000 2,500 Accountant-General 2,000 4,863 Chief Justice of Queen's Bench 7,000 8,000 Chief Justice of Common Pleas • . • 6,000 8,000 Chief Baron of Exchequer . 6,000 7,000 Twelve Pairing Judges, each 5,000 5,000 SCOTLAND.

Lord President of the Court of Session 4,300 .... 4,800 Lord Justice-Clerk and President of Se- cond Division of the Court of Session 4,000 .... 4,500 Lords of Session, Justiciary, and Exche- quer, each.. 3,000 .... 3,000 IrtzLexii.

Lord Chancellor 6,000 .... 8,000 Master of the Rolls 4,000 .... 3,964 Chief Justice of Queen's Bench 4,300 .... 5,074 Chief Justice of Common Pleas 4,000 .... 4,612 Chief Baron of Exchequer 4,000 .... 4,612 Fulani Jud es, each 3,000 .... 3,688 Masters in Chancery, each 2,000 .... 2,769

Besides the adjustment of pulieiol salaries, the Committee submit other amendments of great importance. The emoluments of the Law Advisors , of the Crown they deem " excessive " ; and suggest the payment of the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General by fixed salaries, in lieu of fees on briefs, patents, &e. The appointment, emoluments, and whole system of the Accountant-General's Office, is recommended for thorough revision, and that instead of Mr. Russell's present income from salary and broker- age, amounting-on the average of the last five years to 4863L, he be pail

the sum of 20001. per annum. The Committee further recommend, that various suggestions of their predecessors for enforcing the performance of

duties by principals in lieu of deputies or subordinate officers, be more strictly carried out in conformity with existing laws. To the supervision of the Treasury is recommended the present enormous expense of legal ings on behalf of the public • finally, the 'Committee expresses its *ef that in Scotland "the number of-Judges is larger than the popula- tion and business of that part.of the United Kingdom require."

It was a delicate investigation, and nothing less than an imperative sense of public duty could have carried the Committee through it Of all the imposts that press upon the people, the Income-tax is the most un- pleasant : it is a prying tax, sernethinghf the nature of eirMitditiping or window-peeping, from which hamannnature instinctively recoils, Of a

proximate kind was the task of the Salaries Committee';' they had to ask questions and inquire into incomes and means of subsistence, and that too of a class the moat sensitive, and' to whoni_everything_ is so purely honorary that the least allusion to lucre or mercenary service is notoriously abhorrent. " Fees indeed !"—who will name them in professional ears ? " It is contrary," says Sir John Jervis "not only to the etiquette, but, I am happy to say, to the universal practice at the bar, ever to notice or talk of fees." (Evidence. 1727.) Nevertheless, the Committee perse- severed in its researches.

The season for in.-juju was not the most favourable. Increase of popu- lation in the profession, as in other classes, has lessened the divisional por- tion of each member, and therewith the disposition to make revelations. Upon this point Sir fohn Jervis was closely pressed : but he was reticent in the extreme ; he would not say whether the increase of barristers had been a hundred or a thousand, but it lay between—" it is not a thousand, it is more than a hundred." At a subsequent sitting the problem was solved; and Mr. Henry Drummond, a member of the Committee, made this statement—" The total number of members of the bar in 1810 was 880; in 1821, 820 ; in 1830, 1129 ; in 1840, 1835 ; and now in 1850, 3268," Nearly a twofold increase in the last ten years, and far outstripping the rate of multiplication in any other subdivision of society. A somewhat corresponding ultra-fecundity has raged in Scotland and Ireland; the Lord Advocate remarking, that he supposed "two hundred gowned" every morning in term at Edinburgh, with only two silk gowns to strive for; seven hundred was the approximate estimate of Mr. Keogh for Dubn.

Besides increase, various internal changes have been in operation, tending in a degree to revolutionize the English bar and lessen the enormous gains of the more gifted or fortunate. The number of courts has been augmented. Not very long ago there were only the Rolls Court and the Court of the Lord Chancellor for Equity, and the Rolls Court sat only two or three hours in the evening ; it has now morning service like the rest ; and the three Courts of the Vice-Chancellors have been established in aid of the Lord Chancellor, besides relieving him of Bankruptcy eases by placing them under a separate judicature. The reconstruction of the Court of Exchequer has enabled it to dispose of nearly as much Common Law business as the Court of Queen's Bench ; and the Court of Common Pleas, which used to be the exclusive preserve of sergeants-at-law, has been opened to the whole bar. All these changes have tended to subdivide professional business among a greater number of individuals ; although the aggregate quantity has doubtless been aug- mented, from the increasing wealth and population of the community. The County Courts are operatingpowerfully in the same direction, by opening a host of attractive tribunals, with provincial bars in costume— wig and gown, like their elders—to plead before them. In addition to the wider diffusion of legal employment, there has been a diminution in some descriptions from improvement in the Poor-laws, lessening the amount of settlement and bastardy litigation, and from the numerous orders of the judges to shorten pleadings, and allow more applications to be model° them at chambers, instead of by motions of Course in open court—to the profit of junior counseL However, let us see what are the present emoluments of the bar : they are not to be despised, though they do not so frequently amount to the nettings of 17,0001. or close on 20,000/. a year, as in the palmy days of Sugden, Romilly, Scarlett, and Campbell, the last of whom is considered to have realized as much as any one except his father-in-law though Sir John never told how much he yearly shovelled into his -banker's. Ex- amples of such inordinate gains, it is probable, must now be sought only among the Law Advisers of the Crown; and in courtesy we are.bound first to notice her Majesty's Attorney-General, who, as leader of the bar, is cock of the walk.

Officially the Attorney-General has no salary; he has only fees—which in'strict etiquette ought not to be mentioned, but as Sir John Jervis has talked about them it may be allowable. " The fee," says he, " upon a special retainer, has been, uniformly a fee of three hundred guineas" ; and the client is besides expected to take the counsel free of expense to the place of performance. This is the special retainer, distinct from the addi- tional and larger fee marked upon the brief. " Some of my friends," says Sir John, having an undeserved confidence in my exertions, give me three or four or five hundred guineas, and have not !men dissatisfied with doing so." He was next questioned- " Can you state to the Committee the average official income of the At- torney-General, which he obtains by virtue of his office, as distinguished from any private practice which he may have ?" Answer—" The income which I have received, strictly official, on the average of the years 1847, 1848, and 1849, is somewhat above ten thousand a year. But that must not be taken as a pure gain to the Law-Officer of the Crown; for on becoming Attorney- General, I necessarily gave up, as my predecessor had done, the whole of the Common Juries, and the business depending upon those and various other matters, which amounted to a very considerable sum in his case, and in my case they amounted to a considerable sum."

But this is not making quite a clean breast of it. Sir John mentions his losses, not his gains, by becoming Attorney-General; he states the sacrifice of low practice he made,. but not the high practice he acquired in virtue of his office. The private income of the Attorney-General from this and all other sources, it would perhaps be unbecoming to specu- late upon ; but in another place, (Evidence, p. 178,) Sir John Jervis in- formed the Committee, that, in his opinion, there were five counsel, in- cluding himself and the Solicitor-General, who were making more than 11,0001. a year; eight counsel who each make 80001. a year; and twenty- three or twenty-four, including the first class, who earned more than 5000/. a year each. Sir John's income of upwards of 11,0001. in the first class was of course from his private practice; making, with his official emoluments, an aggregate revenue of above 21,000/. per annum.

If this deduction is correct—and from the evidence it seems strictly so— it -may be safely affirmed that there is nothing like it out :of the Church, nor perhaps within its sacred precincts.; and it.maybeohnibted whether the famous Livre Rouge of MI Necker contained:any. inscription of the rev:eras-of 'courtier; (courtesan,' or fanneergeneraloseestraoldisiiirydui to matchtthe (y.earby gains of the Queenia offitia4 inianiolfice(refilicli all eons of pedples-dharlow, Gibbs, Shepherd, Giffdrd, anclhelintrinAt-#ayeifdled and . again. . . • fsida9119lar urn' It ds. c essiblethat there may havaieetrenninleasi.kady wilittlideiceeed- ing iki • oistatemseiit of -SieJnlin.Jerriarndrociseing4itatteldsitattlingily was meant tiabii 'cinisidereri withAltdriatentlof ai futaresasstingetutsitioqiirli7 cialopayi Isenmayhavalhemnscidnintiedlawathy4Miliimdlurallitnilsterat- turitienpaiilimbrierldrin 01'6f-inure dittoes:its! diAdivittialon*leta *he uniniaditi nfischativas .pesionalohnhindelf,..se*S310,101Frpreserved unimpaired for'others_. the- inheritanak: sorbpoi3sibly Ise finny . have. had a presentiment that ha: himself ..might. onemlay,:be..a judge, and such in truth rheibecame within about a month-after his appearance before the

Committee. - • -

Whatever there may be in these conjectures, his, statement of juris- consult affluence does not exactly coincide with that of Mr. Charles Le Blanc, the well-informed solicitor of Lincoln's Inn. Mr. Le Blanc was not sure, but he thought there, was no jaw at the bar who now makes 11,000/. a year. " I think," says he, " there may be a few who make- perhaps 7000/. a year, and a few who make 5000/. ; but I should say that there were only a few who make either 11,000/. or 7000/. or 5000/. ; that is my own impression. I think that if the Committee will bear in mind the length of the vacation during the year, and deduct also the Sundaysand a few other holydays, they will find that it must be very difficult indeed for a man. to make anything like the income that many of the public have conceived from time to time. that the members of the bar have made. Of course there have been op- portunities, but I do not think such opportunities now exist, of men get- ting 1000, or even 2000 or 3000 guineas at a time ; but I do not know of any such case of late years. I believe that sometimes on the Northern Circuit barristers have been taken from town and have been paid a fee of 500 or 1000 guineas ; I am sure that those large fees are seldom paid now-a-days." —Evidence, p. 168. • . . According to Mr. Le Blanc,,if the stars be excluded, and the rank and file of the bar- be taken, consisting of those who are so far established as regularly to go the circuit, their earnings are veryismall. " I should think," says he, very few hundreds." These form aline majori • tit the bar. Nothing is so precarious as the incomes of barristers. practise for years—may be'barristers of seven years' standing—and not- be able to clear their expenses. Of those Who Were'first aPpointed Revising Barristers, and who were paid five guineas a day ,exclusive ckg4heir ex- penses, it was considered, says the authority just quoted, thatprviously they had really not been making "" the rent of their chambers. ' They were often selected by the senior Tudge of the circuit on the score of poverty from insufficient practice. Allusion to thew dark shades the At- torney-General carefully shunned ; upon the princely honorariums and great gains orthe elect he-was voluble and grand, but no ingenuity of the,: Committee could extort from him an approximate guess either aS, to thq,',; increased -number or small pay of the preponderating mass of his bred:ward. Sir James Parke, a Baron of the Excheiner; hoivever,* was'iolidatreeti• few I

that feleaders receive so much as tliey'nsed to de.

apprehension need be'felt that suitable men for the bench may not be ob- tained at present salaries (Evidence, isoy; or perhaps at a lower rate,-

4000!. a year, which was their salary in 1625 in lieu of 5000/. Besides the distinction and comfort secured to them already mentioned, Sir James Parke allows that they have the further alleriation of any pressure of dutY'in term or on the circuits of full three nionths qf ludyday out of the twelve. The average earnings of the class fronewhich the Puisne' judges are mostly taken, and which does not include the toppingpractitieners,

usually political 'aspirants, do not, in the estimate of another competent -witness, exceed. 3000/. per annum : to them, of course, elevation to the bench is a pecuniary acquisition.

In truth, there are scarcely any examples of refusals in our

however much an advocate may be earning, he is always ready' to retreat into the quiet haven of the judiciary. Sirldward Sugden, indeed, • says,' that in no part of his career would the salary of a Vice-Chancellor have tempted him Sir Edward i5 an eminent layer, but, we belisyell0 took the first offer that was made to, him, and though making ip,opox year in equity practice, became Chancellor in Ireland for 80804. —and 4, very good Lord Chancellor he made. Sir JameS Scarlet; whole'intone was still largerand close upon 20,0001., gave it 'up to be .I.sit'4,qw: Baron with 70001. a year. A. Puisne JudgeebiptiSir Robert Atcarei,m cepted when he was Solicitor-General, with a' productive business do virtue of his office, exclusive of private practice. Lord LYncilitnit,' with all his surpassing accomplishMents and prestige, became Maste.r4, the Rolls with 7000/. a year, rather than continue to depend =lig. greater but more precarious income as advocate. For a mere satitels' at the Irish Chancellorship, Lard Camphell abandoned his "very profitable pursuits. Is there not, too, the examnle- of the late Attorney-General, Sir John- Jervis, to whom reference. has been so, .frequelitlY Wade-704 he not, though wallowing in luscious fees, forego them all to leap at once, when an opening offered, into the, Chief Justiceship of the Common Pleas'? But really the difficulty is not in finding fit men tabs judges, or adequate salaries to remunerate them, but to discover the most fit. Now there are only two classes of advocates from whom the benches can be replenished,— either the class of clever men, remarkable for fluency of, speech, quick- ness at technicalities, readiness of retort, and a tact for holding fast both the ear of the court and the jury; or a second class, not so popularly gifted, but eminent for learning, acuteness, and gravity of intellect, high integrity, and great knowledge of the law, of human nature, and the ge- neral principles ofjurisprudence. The former, on the floor of the House of Commons, mostly battle for the-tap:hal prizes—the Great Seal, the Rolls, or a Chief Justiceship ; the Utter- not usually so well qualified for a political career, seldom rise higher than the Punine Judgeships. But which, it may be asked, is the most fit and deserving of the highest ju- dicial appointments ?

Experience throws light on the question. No two advocates were more eminent at the bar than Lord Erskine and Lord Abinger ; but can it be said that they were not less eminent as judges ? Of Lord Erskine no diversity of opinion can exist; it was his extreme urbanity towards those around him that alone, while he was Lord Chancellor, averted the ex- posure of his judicial incompetence. Sir John Jervis has vouchsafed a good weld for- Loydiilbingik Matt not many will be found to second his appreciatiori., The new flafoniqrtusoNf wheihyAionie enYsterious. influence and; foii lotabfrodendite fluMpoim an besin,mlexpeotedly: linehed , into i the bigliegt plaileinwslia eigvesitlinictitioneiOintlbes.made:imgreit figure' on. the btinebitond'Weignotorioneljoindebted intiteemmmon Fleas,: foirthelittle activitYliddiardayeitithoro,i teribeigiftud individual who-sat next him: Xianipleirate:sdptiiitious ihthilidas‘lis_pl&evideist; and :node nofelimi, dation. The intellectual qualities that make the great advocath tend. the great jeldgii Jiro itficeitsdinflaivaslhoherveffielt makel the:poet f or

phat;anidetedistingaishititeina saliva Tarsi:Kee alldumboidt ar Iler.f. sellidlifitinirthsrionartassioyint m Ophomnial riteititnisAinel the distinetioni • agremiblyfto Tontine propane

timisi makse tahitf'l atprizesitheTewaid•,4f ainceesfalfpalilicat .panif tiinalehipawnliulaninagile ormildlieigoinedimpArst in-improving ithe,atyla of 1Fordimin4ioquinioot -Wioltoving thatinionif sterling,quiditiee than clap. trap appeals to • milgiirc minds !were. catentiab leolifutuni judicial honours next, in.'relnoving-thsi: chief obstitoleuthathae,cceisitintly, 'stood in the way or marred the progress of law reform, from having elevated to the highest and most influential positions,. men!whe have chiefly sought them

from lust of power or: meaner impulse. „ •