his employer's name. And the same door may bear the brass plates, and the same clerk borrow the processes, of a dozen country agents, as is now the practice in Dublin; and the result will simply be to bring into existence a new spawn of illegitimate agents, such as we find the Court endeavouring to suppress in the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries. Every consideration points to the propriety of leaving agents to make their own arrangements with regard to this matter as well as the division of fees. If any rule is to be laid down by statute we prefer one which will prevent the Court, in its proper anxiety for the safety of important writings and the despatch of business, from laying down too stringent rules with regard to the borrowing of processes."

The Present Condition of the Bar. - This subject continues to excite discussion both in England and Scotland, and we do a public service in bringing before our readers the more important contributions to the controversy. A clever book lately published1 has treated copiously of the real and imaginary grievances to be found in the legal profession. It has called forth some very true observations from a barrister writing in the Law Times, which are almost as applicable on this side of the Tweed as on the other (with the exception that in Scotland it has never been necessary for a client. merely seeking advice to have recourse to the mediation of an agent). The barrister writes as follows:

"The barrister's view of his profession is necessarily coloured by the circumstances in which he finds himself placed, and the picture which I consider is ably drawn in the book before me of the barrister absolutely without connection going to the wall, and of a barrister marrying a wealthy solicitor's daughter and getting into practice, is doubtless faithful as far as it goes. But I cannot help thinking that the writer has been too sweeping, leaving, as he does, no happy middle path by which the barrister without connection, but with indomitable pluck and perseverance, backed by sufficient ability, in course of time works his way into a livelihood. I quite admit that these are rare instances, and that, unless a man has private means, the fight is one which he enters upon with terrible odds against him. The author of the work under notice disregards altogether the fact that social connections, apart from marriage, bring business to the barrister; and I am inclined to believe that, as a body, solicitors are open to receive suggestions as to the ability of particular men at the Bar who are known to their clients. But I will here point out one terrible mistake which is made by the friends of young barristers. These so-called friends know nothing of the difficult science which the barrister has to understand to a certain extent before he can practise successfully; and it is frequently supposed that a certain facility in familiar conversation, and some confidence, suffice to carry a barrister through ordinary business. Too many students neglect the invaluable training of a pleader's or barrister's chambers, and go to the Bar with the smallest modicum of practical knowledge. The influence of friends is brought to bear; the attorney, in fear and trembling, writes the name on the brief, and it is duly delivered. What does the attorney obtain when he goes to consultation? Does he receive wise 'counsel? Does he not rather find that he could instruct his young adviser? I do not follow out the consequences; but it is very probable that this ill-timed pressure has destroyed a genuine chance in the young life.

"So much as to the grievance concerning the difficulty barristers find in obtaining practice. What is the proposed remedy? The author of the work before me has exhausted all the learning upon the subject to show that in the beginning of our jurisprudence attorneys had no existence: the client went

1 The Legal Profession. By a Doctor in jure civili. London: Ridgway.

direct to his counsellor or barrister. It is to this condition that the writer wishes the profession to revert. He certainly sketches, with much humour, the unhappy position of the local barrister in a County Court who finds himself opposed to those men from whom alone he hopes to get business. Instead of inclining to favour his hopes their desire is to act as advocates and get rid of him. The contest is hopeless, because he cannot meet them on their own ground and take instructions direct from the client. He is shut off from the public by the very men whose interests are opposed to his. Now, whilst I feel strongly the great advantages attaching to the present system of placing a middleman between the barrister and the public in litigious business in the Superior Courts, I cannot help thinking that in County Courts, where the attorneys encroach upon the province of the barrister, and desire to do so more and more, until a barrister is never seen in those courts, it would be only fair that the barrister should be set free from the etiquette which prohibits him from pursuing his calling unless instructed by those who don't wish to give him work. So again in matters of opinion-why should not any person desiring a barrister's opinion be entitled to go to his chambers and pay one or two guineas, and receive a written opinion in the same way as he would consult his physician? The author of the 'Legal Profession' makes one of his best hits when describing the position of a suitor who finds himself in Pump-court, and desires an opinion of a common law barrister. Within twenty yards on either side are numbers of able men, ready and willing to give their advice for a guinea or two. Why should those doors be closed to him? But they are closed by etiquette, and the suitor must go up to a solicitor in Lincoln's-inn-fields, and pay him to take the opinion of the very same counsel who were within his own reach in Pump-court. An ordinary answer to this is that a client is rarely able to state his own case in a form upon which a barrister could safely give an opinion. I don't think this answer worth much; and, beyond a doubt, eminent men in times past have given opinions upon cases laid before them without the intervention of the attorney.

"The great grievance which, in my opinion, the Bar has is this. So long as pre-audience was accorded to barristers in the County Courts, and so long as they had exclusive audience in the Bankruptcy Courts, and previous to the County Court Act of 1867, which sent so much business to the County Courts, the position of the Bar was intelligible. The courts could be approached most conveniently, and in general only, by the Bar. Recent legislation, however, being in favour of economy, has paid no regard to the position of the Bar, and has thought only of the pocket of the suitor. As the author of the 'Legal Profession' fairly points out, a barrister's position is largely changed. Hundreds of causes annually which, before 1867, would have found their way into barristers' chambers, are now remitted to County Courts and conducted by attorneys. In police courts, in County Courts, in judge's chambers, and before arbitrators, and particularly in the Bankruptcy Courts, attorneys appear as advocates, and it is no exaggeration to say that a great deal of what has been always regarded as the proper business of the Bar is now disposed of by attorneys. What corresponding benefit has been accorded to the Bar? None. And not only so; the offices which have always been given to the Bar are exciting the envy of the 'lower' branch, and the patronage on which many of the unemployed members of the Bar have lived is demanded, in part at least, for the attorneys. I must confess that to me it is simply astonishing that the Bar can see the bread being taken out of its mouth, and make no sign. The reason, however, is obvious. Let any junior barrister put himself at the head of a movement for setting at defiance the rules of etiquette which prohibit him from giving advice to the public, and from conducting causes in County Courts on instructions furnished direct by the suitor. He would never get a brief from an attorney as long as he lived. Those who are in practice have still stronger reasons for remaining quiet. And this makes the prospects of the Bar all the more alarming. If legislation goes on as it has gone, and if Mr. Lewis succeeds in his crusade against the abuses of the Bar, and its monopoly of patronage, the Bar will be a profession carefully to be avoided."

A solicitor, writing with regard to the same book, refers to the late Mr. J. G. Phillimore's opinion that the superiority of the French to the English Bar is due to the study of the Roman law and the absence of the "malignant" and "absolute power of attorneys over the English Bar;" and to the remark thereon of the writer of the book, that

""A far more feasible way out of this state of things, if it really exists, than the suggested amalgamation, is to restore to the Bar the privilege that,' as it is alleged, 'it formerly possessed of advising clients directly, without the intervention of attorneys. Let the public go to the attorneys, if the public pleases, and ask their advice in the first instance; and let the attorney then, if necessary, instruct counsel; or let the public go to counsel, if the public pleases, and ask their advice in the first instance, and let the counsel, if they think that judicial proceedings are necessary, instruct attorneys.'

"Now I venture to suggest to the writer of these remarks, that the rules which in practice preclude the Bar from giving advice to the public without the intervention of an attorney, have grown up side by side with the present system of instructing counsel in all matters which can be considered as properly coming within the province of counsel, and I think I express the feeling of my branch of the Profession when I say that, if the Bar were to abrogate or disregard those rules, it would be a considerable breach of good faith. I believe it is the general experience that, at any rate, London solicitors of the best class will not practise in County Courts, and invariably instruct counsel, if the case will bear a fee. There are some few attorneys, I know, who have an eye to the Bar, and who feel that they are only pursuing their career to that end, by speaking whenever an opportunity offers. There are a few others with what is vulgarly termed 'the gift of the gab,' whose greatest delight is to hear their own voices, and who think they would be law officers if they were at the Bar.

"There seems to me a very simple way out of the difficulty which threatens to bring the branches of the Profession into collision, but which the author of the Legal Profession' wholly engrossed in the grievances of the Bar--does not notice. I do not consider it a grievance that a barrister who has not the ability to form a connection, either by social intercourse, by seizing opportunities of displaying talent in public places, or by literary labour in connection with the law, should go without business. He should have calculated his chances before launching upon untried seas, and should have begun his career as a solicitor. The author recognises that some of our most eminent judges began life as attorneys. To this, however, it may be fairly replied that even if five years be spent in obtaining admittance as an attorney, he cannot at any time elect to be called to the Bar. What I say is, make this possible. Make it possible for the attorney on passing an examination to be called to the Bar forthwith, and make it possible for the barrister to leave his sphere and practise as an attorney on the same terms. 'The freest interchange' is wholesome.

"A variety of opinions exist concerning the advisability of in any way encroaching upon the independent position of the Bar. It is undoubtedly a splendid institution, of which I am most proud. Barristers, as a class, are highminded and incorruptible. They are not brought into collision with the passions which the attorney may excite or appease, and which must in a ineasure affect the judgment of the advocate. I would, therefore, see the position of the Bar preserved intact. At the same time I acknowledge that the desire of the Legislature to provide 'cheap law' has caused a considerable diminution of the business of the Bar. This, however, was due to no action on the part of the attorneys, on the contrary; and I am sure that the changes have not benefited London solicitors."

The East India Association. At a meeting of this Association held on the 1st May, a paper was read by Mr. W. Taylor, entitled

"Publicity the Handmaid of Justice," or "The Silent Chamber at Whitehall." The subject is one of considerable interest to the legal profession as well as to the public, and is likely ere long to attract general attention.

The position of British rule in India, and the constitution of the Indian Government, give rise to an anomaly, rendered the more glaring owing to the practice of the India Office in London, where the authorities have chosen to envelope their proceedings in a mystery and secresy for which there is no express warrant in the Act of 1858, and which (save in exceptional cases) is contrary to the practice adopted under the rule of the late East India Company. The anomaly is this. By the Government of India Act, 1858, in conformity with the principle laid down in a series of acts and regulations from the time of Lord Cornwallis downwards, the Government of India (under the name of the Secretary of State in Council of India) is amenable to the law, and may be sued by the meanest Ryot (or cultivator) within the British dominions, if his rent has been enhanced contrary to law and regulation. There are however numerous and large territories in India ruled by princes nominally independent, or by feudatories of the British Crown, who are entrusted with the administration of their districts so long as they comply with the conditions of their tenure. In these districts there are no British Courts of Justice, although British authority is there no less supreme than in the strictly British possessions; for it must, as Mr. Taylor remarked, never be forgotten that the British power is paramount through all parts of India. In each of these territories or districts there is a British resident or superintendent who represents on the spot British interests and British authority, and it is perfectly well known that whatever he orders can and will be enforced by the irresistible weight of the British power. In a question of succession to the Raj (or nominal sovereignty) of the territory his decision is invariably called for. This and other questions calling for his decision may depend upon purely legal considerations; yet while the resident is often a military officer, without any judicial knowledge or experience, the appeals from his decision are relegated to what is called the Political Department of Government, and are decided, without any evidence taken or sifted by a Judge, on the report of the officer who has given the decision in the first instance. The last decision in India is pronounced by the Governor-General in Council. If the party aggrieved is persevering enough, he appeals to the Secretary of State in Council; and here, Mr. Taylor observed, the proceedings become immersed in a secresy so profound as to exclude every ray of light. Nothing transpires beyond the small scrap of paper which announces at the door of the chamber the subject of the deliberations within.

This secresy, Mr. Taylor showed, is productive of great mischief. The suitors and their agents resorted to the most absurd and grotesque devices in the hope of influencing the mysterious tri

bunal. He mentioned an amusing instance. One day a drama was enacted, described the next morning in glowing colours in the Daily Telegraph, announcing that "the sombre hues of Westminster Abbey" had been enlivened by a pageant of a novel description, consisting of a Hindoo and suite in gorgeous oriental costume, who went in procession and knelt at the tomb of Lord Canning. The fact was that a certain Rajah had then an appeal pending before the Secretary of State in Council, in which he relied on a dictum of Lord Canning and a principle of Hindoo law. The "Hindoo" who led the procession was none other than the steward of this Rajah, and a very orthodox Mahommedan. This Rajah had really a good case, and succeeded in the appeal. Nothing could be more absurd than to suppose that the result was influenced by the ridiculous performance above mentioned, but the successful suitor very likely believes to this day that it was.

Mr. Taylor then proceeded to mention the recent decision of the Privy Council in the Dyce Sombre case (Mrs. Forrester's appeal), in which an injustice committed in the Political Department was, after a perseverance for thirty years by the aggrieved party, redressed by the Judicial Court of last resort. In this case the district to which the wrongful act related had been annexed to the British possessions, and so a door had been opened for a remedy by the ordinary Judicial Courts. No redress would ever have been got from the Political Department.

Mr. Taylor advocated publicity as the remedy for the state of things described in his paper; and urged the necessity of a measure providing that every question involving private rights arising in India should, except for reasons of State duly assigned and recorded, be disposed of by a public tribunal, with full opportunity for the parties to be heard, and to have due legal assistance.

It may here be called to mind that a provision already exists in the Act constituting the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, empowering Her Majesty to refer any question whatever to that tribunal; and it may be thought that advantage might have been taken of that provision for the decision of a large portion of the class of cases referred to in Mr. Taylor's paper. It appears, however, that the India Office has thrown its weight into the scale against any such exercise of the prerogative, and on a recent occasion successfully resisted a motion made in Parliament for an address to the Crown in favour of such a course. The result is, that a wrong done by the Indian Government outside the strictly British Possessions is practically without remedy; and it does seem that a case is made out for extending to questions of the nature above referred to the opportunity of public hearing and judicial consideration from which they are at present excluded, owing to the fiction by which the British Government treats as independent these territories where British power in fact reigns supreme.

R. C.