The Sun.
London, England, 1858-10-18 00:00:00

under the old system, must have been devoured by
the delay and expense of a cumbrous, stall-fed sys-
tem, may now be administered without any unrea-
sonable delay, and at a moderate cost. And it is
well that this most beneficial change has been set
on foot. It is not as yet matured as I could wish it
to be, for I confess I heartily desire to see the High
Court of Chancery worthy of being regarded as the
inner shrine of the sacred temple of public justice,
and not the byeword for costly, vexatious, and
ruinous litigation. The blind idolatry of technical
procedure, the false worship of our superior courts,
roused that impatient and indignant zeal which
smashed the ancient tables of the law ; but this has
ended in the destruction of the idols and the reno-
vation of our judicial system. We are at present
dealing in each country with an improved but dis-
tinct system of procedure. That such a distinction
should be permanent cannot be rationally contended.
I look forward, therefore, with hope that, at an
early day, we may.frankly compare notes, and con-
struct one system, in which we may thenceforward
have a common interest, and which, I trust, may
soon be watched over by a department common to
both countries. Much has been done, much is under
consideration; but the work is great, and we must
not expect to be able to sow with the one hand and
reap with the other. There is one department,
which, of itself, might well claim the undivided
attention of the most diligent and thoughtful—l
mean the lunacy and minor department of the
Court of Chancery. Whether any man
should be allowed to have a private asylum for
making money by the custody and maintenance of
lunatics, where, generally speaking, his interest is
not on the side of duty ; where the continuance,
not the cure of the afflicted and helpless being
under his charge, is for his pecuniary profit ; where
inspeCtion cannot sufficiently secure the parental
care which the state owes to those who cannot be
entrusted with their personal liberty ; where the
withdrawal of a license may rebuke the offender,
but cannot provide a remedy for the unhappy vic-
tims of the offence ; whether it is not the responsi-
ble duty of the state to interpose its authority
where private interest is not only insufficient but
adverse ; and whether in every case where personal
liberty is interfered with there should not be the
means for promptly bringing the matter under the
notice of responsible authority, and making ade-
quate provision for the future custody and .treat-
ment (if necessary) in a public institution. These
are grave questions—well worthy of the deliberate
attention of this association. There is another sub-
ject vitally connected with all that we can hope for
in the improvement of our jurisprudence, and that
is the subject of legal education. Improved proce-
dure—amended. laws—much to be valued though
they be, yet if we do not secure the moral elevation,
the trained capacity, and the love of justice in those
who are to administer these laws. we deprive them
of their living power, and they take no root in the
respect and the affections of the people. Why,
may I ask, why should not the profession of the
law be dealt with as other professions ? Why
should not the proper qualification be required, and
the suitable education made compulsory, in order
to obtain the status of a barrister ? And when ob-
tained, why should preferments be set apart for the
barrister of six years' standing, or any longer
period of more seasoned incompetence ? Some
years since it was said, in the presence of
a Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, that " there was
neither 'honour nor honesty. to be found in
the country."
•An old sagacious physician who
was in the room observed that that was going
a little too far. " Perhaps,". said • he, " there
is no great market for the articles—for, surely,
supply will soon meet demand." In the several
inquiries on education, military, medical, and the
commission on, .the inns of court, there will be
found a concurrent testimony in favour of laying
the foundation• of a good liberal education before
the work of special instruction should begin.' This
instruction is not edification ; and, without educa-
tion, it is but handicraft. I must not be. tempted
to poach on the manor of Mr. Cowper ; but I know
he will not object to my recording the heartfelt
pleasure, with which I paid the testimony, that it is
our interest, not less than our duty, to educate a
man for his own sake, as a moral, intelligent,
accountable, and immortal being; and the more
careful' this training andleaching, the more com-
plete this education, the more certain the success of
special and subsequent instruction. If, then, the
progress of education would be ascertained by
periodic tests ; if university degrees were made a
plain reality, and not a pompous fiction ; if the inns
of court would (as I have reason to believe they
will) secure the required qualification before they
admit to practiee ; and if the policy of the public
service were such as to encourage and reward merit,
doing justice to those who devote themselves to the
admuustration of justice—then might we reason-
ably expect to have men worthy of that profession
which has given to the country its Hale and its
Somers, with Holt and Mansfield, with Bushe and
Plunket, these lights 'of other days, illustrious men,
who have left.behind them a track of glory which
has not ceased to shed its lustre on the 'profession
which nurtured their genius and their virtues.
The country is deeply interested in surrounding the
profession with all the security which can be
afforded by liberal education and enlightened
policy. On the moral results may much depend
the pure, dignified, and impartial administration of
justice, and with this are bound up the order, the
freedom, and the maintenance of civil society.
Is is not, then, without reason that juris-
prudence has been placed at the head of the
sections of this association. Why should not it
also have a separate and principal depart-
ment of administration ? How otherwise can we
collect, and record, and make timely use of the
practical suggestions which come from those who
are engaged in working the laws ? How can we
bring public opinion steadily to' bear in judicial
procedure without regular judicial statistics ? How
is our code of judicial decisions to be maintained as
part of a binding system of law, if these decisions
be not authenticated, reported by responsible offi-
cers, and published under responsible authority ?
The suit between A B and C D involves a decision
in which the public is a party deeply interested.
But there is ' no public provision made for an au-
thentic report of such decision, or that it should be
dealt with otherwise than as the private litigant—
the casual, perhaps incompetent reporter, or the
speculating publisher may secure. If there were a
department of council with the Chancellor at its
head, and, under this, a secretary for the affairs of
justice, with a seat in the Houpe of Commons, and
a staff sufficient to enable this department to •super-
vise the administration of public justice in the
United Kingdom, with a view to the amendment of
the law, and the exigencies of public justice, there
would be, to use the words of the late Lori Lang-
dale, a very busy and most valuable department.
And, if the legislature mi ghtrequire the occasional
assistance of such a departMent m aid of current
legislation, it could be given without in any degree
interfering with the constitutional freedom and
accustomed privilege of any member of either house
of Parliament. Nor is there O. session in which
examples of impeded or erroneous enactments
could not be found, to.prove the. need of some such
protector of the public, who suffer frequent injus-
tice under the present system. lam not disposed
to indulge in any visionary expectation of a perfect
system of laws, or that we can by any contrivance
secure absolute purity of administration. " Human
institutions," says South, "cannot wholly be con-
structed on principles of science, which is proper
to immutable objects. In the government of the
visible world, the Supreme Wisdom itself submits
to be the author of the better, not the best, but of
the best possible in the:subsisting relations. Much
more must all human legislators give way to many
evils rather than encourage the discontent that
would lead to worse remedies." But the use of
timely remedies is a standing duty. The continued
neglect of functional irregularity leads to chronic
disease and organic disorder. All analogy and all
experience, from the pruning of the tree to the re-
pair of the building, teach us that the conservative
spirit is necessarily remedial, and that the demands
of time cannot safely be postponed. " says
Sir Matthew Hale, is the wisest thing under hea-
ven. He that thinks that a state can be exactly
steered by the same laws in every kind, as it was
two or three hundred years since, may as well ima-
gine that the clothes that fitted him when he was a
child should serve him when he was grown up as a
man. The matter changeth the custom, the con-
tracts, the commerce ; the dispositions, education,
and tempers of men and societies change in a long
tract of time ; and, so must their laws in some
measure be changed, or they will not be useful for
their state and condition." The living law must
not be left to perish in the arms of the dead. Law
is a rule of present obligation, and the statute book
should therefore be cleared of all that is not now
proper to bind the free citizens of this generation.
Some laws have been but the scaffolding of our
social system ; the removal of such cannot weaken
the foundation or shake the superstructure. Others
have lost the sanction of public opinion, and a law
which cannot be enforced without offending public
feeling ought not to be retained. Again, there
arc laws which are now happily superseded by the
improved intelligence and moral convictions of so-
ciety, laws which may perhaps:have aggravated the
evils which they were called on to remove, for these
could not yield to higher influences ; moral evils pro-
perly require moral remedies. Thus is there a great
work of reconstruction, in which we are called upon
to proceed as wise master-builders, with the caution
of men who profess to honour jurisprudence as the
chief department of social science. Ignorance or empi-
ricism, with a rude or unskilled hand, might level in
an hour the work of a century ; but we seek for
sound experience, the test of free discussion, the