Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 02.pdf/440

JUDICIAL REMUNERATION. great. The Lord Chancellor receives .£8,000 per annum; the Chief-Justice, .£5,000; the Chief-Baron, .£4,600; the Master of the "Cheap justice is an ambiguous commodity. If Rolls, the three Lords Justices of Appeal, it be meant that causes are decided soundly at a and the Vice-Chancellor,,£4,000 each; small cost to the suitors, that is an invaluable the two judges of the Bankruptcy Court, boon; but if they are not decided soundly, such .£2,000 each; the Admiralty judge,,£1,200; justice is dear at any price. An unsound judge and the remaining eleven judges, .£3,500 can never be cheap. It is no answer to say that each. he will be right pretty often, and that when he There are in England fifty-seven County is wrong his error can be put right on appeal. Court judges. By a statute passed in 1888 But that implies, in these latter cases, the addi tional cost (in time and trouble as well as money) their remuneration was fixed at .£1,500 per of the appeal, and the extra cost of a more nu annum and travelling expenses; and all are merous court of review. Besides, the loser may paid alike save some few whose salaries had, be unable to afford an appeal, and on such a for special reasons, been previously fixed at person the loss of the case will fall more hardly .£1,800 and .£1,650, but whose successors than on a richer man. The truth is, that the are to be brought to the,£1,500 platform. fewer the courts of a country are, the better; and Edinburgh and Glasgow are the only two the better they are, the fewer of them will be. towns in the British Empire where judges of needed. If judges are well paid, justice may be equal rank discharging the same functions cheap; if they are ill paid, the average product are paid unequal salaries. There are also will probably be bad. Adequate remunera'.ion is twenty-six metropolitan police magistrates; the best bait to catch good judges, and the surest the senior receives .£ 1,800 a year and a incentive to produce good work." knighthood, the rest,£1,500 per annum. Some interesting data are given as to the There are also scattered throughout England salaries received by the judges in Great numerous recorders and stipendiary magis Britain and Ireland, a comparison of which trates, and in some instances a County Court with the salaries paid our administrators of judge is also a recorder. In Ireland there are twenty-three County the law in this country may well furnish Court judges and chairmen of Quarter Ses food for reflection. The thirteen judges of Scotland receive sions, with salaries ranging from,£1,200 to .£49,400 among them, or an average of £ 1,800 per annum. In India the salary of a judge of the Su .£3,800 each. In England there are thirtyfour judges, counting Lords Watson and preme Court ranges from,£4, 500 to £j, 200; in the more important parts of Australia Morris as English judges. The Lord Chan 1,700 to .£3,500, though in western cellor receives .£10,000 per annum; the from Lord Chief-Justice, .£8,000; the three Lords Australia it descends to .£700; in Canada Ordinary of Appeal and the Master of the the range is from .£800, for a province of Rolls,,£6,ooo each; and the remaining the importance of the County of Inverness twenty-eight judges of first instance and of or Dumfries, to .£1,644; >n Jamaica from appeal, .£5,000 each; in all, .£182,000, or,,£1,000 to,£2,000; and in New Zealand on the average, .£5,353 each. In Ireland from .£1,500 to;£ 1,700. there are twenty-two judges who receive In continental Europe judicial salaries are, among them .£8 1,300, or .£3,695 on the like ordinary incomes, small. As a typical average each. The diversities of salary are instance one may take Germany, — a country HE " Scottish Law Review," in an arti cle under the above title, says : —