183-2.] Legal Monopoly. 539 



or a restitution of rights, we should conclude most logically, that the 

 benefit of the community was quite a secondary consideration in the 

 administration of justice. Nevertheless, a general shout has been made 

 at the slight reduction of fees which the new rules have caused ; and 

 frequently have we heard it said, that no respectable man will in future 

 find it worth while to follow the profession of an attorney. We sincerely 

 hope that some may be deterred from entering a profession in which 

 there are by far too many already ; inasmuch as competition here, not 

 only does not effect, with respect to charges, any moderating result, but 

 is often pushed by the greedy to grasping and plunder. But we dispute 

 the assertion. Our opinion is, that those only who become the worst 

 members of the profession will be deterred, those alone who look to 

 thrive by corruption. To the honest man, all changes for the general 

 good must be pleasurable, in a moral sense, and, we believe, advantageous 

 in a pecuniary one : but if the practitioner who lives by honourable 

 means be injured by alterations which promote the public interests, let 

 honest industry be directed to some other and more profitable occupation ; 

 fiat jus titia, mat ccelum. But we again differ with those who argue that 

 an abatement in fees will injure the profession generally. A diminution 

 in law expenses will increase the number of actions, and will materially 

 tend, by removing the stigma which the black sheep of the law have won 

 for the profession, to revive a beneficial confidence in the public estima- 

 tion. We love justice, and resort to her if she be at hand. The first 

 step towards the success of the members of the law, we conceive, is to 

 establish their character for honour and honesty ; and this is not to be 

 won by the law's delay, or the insolence of office, but by administering 

 justice as cheaply and speedily as practicable. But granting this would not 

 be so, will you openly sanction general plunder for individual thrift ? Let 

 us hope that the clamours of the interested few, therefore, will fail to 

 retard a just and necessary reform. The complaints of which we speak, un- 

 fortunately for the public, have not sprung from the smart of blows hitherto 

 received, but at what they feared must follow which reminds us of the 

 bawlings of a child who is anticipating a whipping. The extortionists 

 are not merely detected, but exposed weighed, and their mounted scale 

 has kicked the beam. Doubtless, they see and dread the impending sword 

 of justice (it should be of retribution) suspended above them ; they have 

 raised an artful yell to excite compassion, and too well have they succeeded 

 in at least retarding the stroke. But now let us attend to the words of 

 the Lord Chancellor, who stated in the House of Lords, on the 6th of 

 March last, that the Common Law Commissioners had recommended 

 that some means should be adopted, by which plaintiffs might recover 

 debts under sixty pounds by a cheaper, and of course more speedy 

 process, than any which now exists. This measure, if carried into execu- 

 tion, would produce incalculable good. We would ask any one, excepting 

 those blinded by folly and interest, if it be not monstrous, that in the 

 great metropolis of a commercial country like this, to recover a sum of 

 two or three pounds, fifty or sixty pounds costs may be, and mostly are, 

 incurred j this is no imaginary case, but one of daily occurrence. We 

 witnessed, with a melancholy irritation, during the last sittings of the 

 Court of King's Bench, several actions brought to recover like trivial 

 amounts. The valuable time of the Chief Justice of England is consumed 

 in a paltry matter that could be equally well adjusted by a commission of 



2 O 2 



