half the cases that litigants were ready to try twelve months before.
The appointment of an additional Chancery judge is by many advocated for the purpose of battling with these arrears. It is, however, notorious that, owing to the higher scale of costs in Chancery than in Common Law, solicitors prefer the former for the purpose of trying their actions. In consequence of this, a large number of cases that should properly come before the Common Law judges are tried in the Chancery Division. Surely the effect of removing this gross anomaly should be seen before further expenditure be imposed upon the nation.
Few probably will go so far as Jeremy Bentham in laying down that the State should provide for the administration of justice free of expense to litigants; but there is a very general consensus of opinion in favour of a simplification of procedure and a limitation of the powers of appeal, and these are reforms that a willing legislature might well undertake.
Mr. Justice Jeune.
To return to the judges of the High Court, it will be instructive to inquire how they earn the liberal salaries set forth in the foregoing table. Commencing at the top, it will be well to consider the position of that august official the Lord High Chancellor of England. And whatever remarks we may find it necessary to make, we wish it to be distinctly understood that we mean no disrespect to Lord Halsbury, the present learned and capable occupant of the post. It is merely our object to criticise the office, and our observations, therefore, will have no personal bearing. In the first place, it is worthy of note that the most highly paid temporal office in England—that of the Lord Chancellor—is given rather as a reward for political than for legal success. Of course, to occupy the post of Attorney-General, the stepping-stone to that of Lord Chancellor, a man must be a lawyer of considerable ability. It has, however, been very well said that a good lawyer can be nothing else; and it is obvious that an Attorney-General must be a man of some political as well as legal capacity. It is quite conceivable that there may be a dearth of legal talent on any political side, and that a moderate man may be chosen as the chief law-adviser of the Crown in consequence. Indeed, such a state of things has happened before now. It by no means follows, therefore, that the Lord Chancellor is necessarily a man of transcendent legal ability. It is probable, in fact, that, as a rule, he is not so good a lawyer as the judges who receive half his salary. And here it may be well to remark that, although the Lord Chancellor is nominally at the head of the bench, he can exercise no efficient control over the judges. He can make appointments to the bench, but judges, once made, can, as
already stated, only be removed by the act of both Houses of Parliament. Thus a judge, even if obviously suffering from mental decay, may continue to exercise his functions, to the miscarriage of justice, for a considerable period before the legislature can be set in motion to bring about his retirement.
The Lord Chancellor occasionally (when any of the Lords Justices are absent from illness or other cause) sits in the Court of Appeal, which is held in two sections—one hearing cases from the Common Law side, and the other those from the Chancery Division. The principal duty of the Lord Chancellor, however, consists in presiding over the House of Lords—the final Court of Appeal both in Common Law and Chancery matters. The House of Lords, as an appellate court, consists of the Lord Chancellor, the Lords of Appeal, and such peers as are, or have been, holding high
