250 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



As it was not to fill a vacancy, but to increase the number of judges 

 from five to six, there were plentiful charges of jobbery set afloat. 

 There is no doubt that the legal profession, and their clients too, 

 were in 1885 very insistent upon the necessity for an additional 

 judge, and the press teemed with complaints of the seriously 

 delayed business of the Courts. It was, however, from the Bar 

 that the severest denunciations of the appointment came, and it 

 was largely through this influence that the censure of a consider- 

 able section of the press was brought about. Objections were taken 

 to Mr. Kerferd's slender legal knowledge, to the political jobbery 

 which his elevation implied, and to the necessity for exploding the 

 popular belief that the Attorney-General had a prescriptive right 

 to any vacancy on the bench arising during his tenure of office. Sir 

 William Stawell, it was true, had claimed and exercised that right 

 without any objection, and his fitness had been universally acknow- 

 ledged. But there had been holders of the office in late years 

 whose promotion to the bench would have fairly startled the com- 

 munity, and it was sought by the Bar to show that no precedent 

 was established. Mr. Service, in his valedictory speech at Castle- 

 maine, vigorously defended the appointment, and commended 

 highly the tried ability of his colleague, who, during twenty-one 

 years of continuous Parliamentary life, had been Attorney-General 

 in four administrations, extending over eight years. He concluded 

 a warm tribute of praise by predicting for Mr. Kerferd a speedy 

 recognition by the general public of his merits and fitness for the 

 judicial position. The Bar showed its disapproval by refraining 

 from the usual courtesies extended to new judges, and some of his 

 colleagues on the bench were very coldly polite. But Mr. Kerferd's 

 conduct in his new position was marked by so much painstaking 

 patience and unfailing courtesy that many who had protested against 

 his appointment admitted that they were agreeably disappointed. 

 In fact Mr. Kerferd's sound common-sense, his industry in master- 

 ing evidence and his readiness to learn compensated for much, and 

 if he added no brilliancy to the bench, he certainly brought no 

 discredit on the deserved respect in which it had been held for 

 many years. In his short career, for he lived only four years after 

 his elevation, professional and public opinion had largely veered 



