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ART. VIII.--THE SOCIAL SORES OF BRITAIN.

If an outside observer at once competent and impartial-endowed with a vision clear enough and information thorough enough to see facts as they really are, and with a judgment swayed by no prepossessions as to races or individuals, and guided by a true instinct as to what is really worthy and noble in national life--were to pronounce in plain language his estimate of the British people, he would assuredly amaze them not a little. Perhaps few contrasts are so great, or would be so startling could it be adequately painted and made clear, as that between the opinion which England entertains of herself, and the principles upon which it is founded or the results which could be adduced to justify it. Our habitual attitude towards other nations, our mental feeling with regard to them, if not our actual language to them, is Stand aside, for I am holier than thou!' yet there is scarcely one of those belonging to the same stage of civilisation as ourselves whose superiority in some essential points is not undeniable, at whose feet we might not be content modestly to sit, and from whom we might not learn many things which it greatly concerns us to practise and to know. We ought, no doubt, to be wiser, better, happier, socially superior, more successful, and in a more satisfactory condition than any other European State; we might have been had we earnestly and skilfully used our means and improved our unrivalled opportunities; but no one who is not blinded by the fond partialities of national self-love will dare to say that we are. Ethnologically, probably, the English race is sprung from a blending of the finest organizations Europe has produced, the Anglo-Saxon, the Dane, and the Norman, with just an adequate infusion of the Celt-whose blood always seems such a mischievous and embarrassing element when it predominates, but yet is such an invaluable and even necessary ingredient in the highest human types, when in due moderation and subordination. Physically, we believe, the unspoiled Englishman of the genuine sort is the strongest, healthiest, most energetic and enduring being on the face of the earth; for generations and for centuries he has had the fullest scope for the development of his faculties by an amount of individual freedom, and for the perfectation of his national life by an amount of political liberty and security, unparalleled in the Old World; he has had his energies stimulated at once by the difficulties presented by a somewhat harsh climate and unspontaneous soil, and by the facilities offered by more genial zones which his maritime propensities led him to colonize and conquer; while, to crown

VOL. XLVII.—NO. XCIV.

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the whole, his historical antecedents have bequeathed to him— not, indeed, yet duly fused, but existing side by side a depth and sincerity of religious conviction, and a freedom, or means of freedom, of religious thought, of which combined no other country has afforded an example. Yet, notwithstanding these rich gifts of nature and these rare advantages of circumstance, we are constrained to avow that in all that constitutes the happiness, the grandeur, in a word, the success and excellence of national life, we fall disgracefully short, not only of a very moderate, easily conceivable, and quite practicable and attainable ideal, but of what in several respects and at several times has been reached by other peoples, whom yet we presume to despise, and sometimes even to lecture. Our appreciation of the objects to be aimed at is faulty and astray, our estimate of the relative value of national qualities and achievements is often quite irrational, and even what we most directly aim at and most highly value, we only most imperfectly attain. The things we principally strive after are not the things we principally need, and the means we take to gain them are constantly clumsy, inadequate, or ill-adapted. We frequently fail most distinctly in the very fields in reference to which we most pride ourselves upon our special capacity and our manifest superiority; and are for ever singing pæans of glory and rejoicing when we ought to be pouring forth penitential psalms, and weaving garlands for our brow when, if we could see ourselves as others see us,' we should be sitting in sackcloth and strewing ashes on our heads. Our current language and tone, especially when we compare ourselves with other nations, is simply and ludicrously Pharisaic--

An eternal and triumphant hymn

Chanted by us unto our own great selves.'

We look round on our vast dominions, squalid with misery, steeped in crime, seething with discontent, and the predominant sentiment which swells our heart is that of the Babylonian despot, Is not this the great city which I have built by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?' Every fresh comparison we institute between our talents and opportunities on the one side, and our achievements and our condition on the other, throws new light on the singular inappropriateness of our national vanity, and makes its usual manifestations almost ridiculous. We had excellent original materials to work upon and to work with; we have had ample scope and verge enough for every experiment and for every acquisition; we have had a political constitution which enabled us to call to our aid all the practical ability, all the indomitable energy,

all the restless enterprise, all the matured wisdom, all the hived experience which might be found among the people; we have had a free press giving forth day by day the opinions, the knowledge, the suggestions, the exhortations of the highest intellects of the nation; we have had week by week twenty thousand pulpits echoing the sentiments of those who by courtesy are supposed to be wise and good, and who fill those pulpits avowedly and for no other end than to guide us aright; we certainly have had wealth and strength to accomplish any conceivable task which wisdom and righteousness might point out; and yet, not only to the fancy of frondeurs and alarmists. but in the estimation of the soberest observers, the social state of our country, amid much that is beautiful and good and something that is great and noble, is full of wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot there is no soundness in it.'

These are strong expressions, but they are not extravagant, and a few moments' reflection on notorious facts will suffice to justify them. Look first at our administration of justice. In no country in the world is the purity both of the Bench and of the Bar so free from the faintest shadow of suspicion or reproach. Nowhere does the morality of the entire profession-within professional limits, and according to conventional ideas-stand so high. Nowhere is the independence of the judges fenced round with such ample securities, both by public opinion and by actual enactment. Nowhere is their dignity or their reputation for ability so well sustained; nowhere are their decisions more respected or more implicitly obeyed. No country has had the benefit of greater writers on Jurisprudence; nowhere are the necessities of the case more strongly felt, and nowhere has the entire subject been more thoroughly studied or more ably expounded. We ought to have a perfect system of judicial administration, if any country can, for no people need it more, or are more willing and able to pay for it, and to provide it. Yet what is the state of the case? The essentials of good administration of justice are, that it should be prompt, certain, uniform, accessible, and cheap. Ours is notoriously the reverse of all this; it is so slow that commonly many months, and sometimes years, elapse between the commencement of a suit and its final decision, and this even in common-law cases, and when there is no appeal. Our appellate jurisdiction is in such a condition of inadequacy and confusion, that some reform is apparently about to be forced upon us. The delays in Equity are even worse, and have become proverbial. Chancery suits still occasionally last till the suitors die, and the property is eaten up. Few Assizes pass without a number of cases being made

remanets, that is, being left over till next term, at a ruinous cost to the litigants, who had got their witnesses and documents and lawyers together, and who are thrown over simply because the judges have no time to hear their causes. For the same reason many other cases are almost forcibly referred to arbitrators, greatly to the disgust of the parties, who desired an authoritative decision from the Bench. All this arises merely from insufficient and defective machinery, which the energetic legislation of a single session, or the devotion of one single competent legal statesman, could supply. Then, as to uniformity and certainty, the decisions of our judges are, as is well known, doubtful in the extreme, and sometimes varying in different courts; of late we have seen several instances, and instances of the greatest importance, where, of five judges, three have gone for the plaintiff, and two for the defendant; in a word, the uncertainty of the law has become as proverbial as the delays of Chancery, and with as ample reason. It is so to an equal, or anything approaching an equal, degree in no other country. Elsewhere there is often corruption, ignorance, or incapacity; but nowhere do ability and purity co-exist with such uncertainty as to the results as in England. Lastly, the cost of obtaining justice, or judicial decisions, is so enormous as to be itself a denial of justice of the worst form, and to the greatest extent. Honest solicitors constantly advise their clients against legal proceedings, even where their cause is good, in consequence of the doubtfulness of the result and the certainty of the expense; and not a day passes over us in which citizens are not forced to submit to wrong and oppression, or think it wisest to do so, because to right themselves would cost so much and take so long. That is to say, in this free and civilized land, where liberty and law are thought to have reached their culminating point, we habitually and deliberately acquiesce in injustice, because justice is so difficult and so expensive to pro

cure.

We do not mean to assert that in these matters we are quite as bad as we used to be, or that we have made, and are making, no moves in the right direction; no doubt the County Courts, whose jurisdiction is being progressively enlarged, is a most material step, but the actual state of things in this year of grace 1867, is still undeniably and without exaggeration such as we have here described; and probably, in no European country, unless perhaps Spain and the Roman provinces, can similar enormities be found. In France, in Switzerland, in Prussia, even in Austria we believe, where no political matters are involved, in the Scandinavian countries, and in Belgium and Holland, justice as between citizen and citizen, between rich and poor, is incomparably cheaper, prompter, and more uniform

than with us. We well remember a speech delivered some years ago in the Council of State at Geneva by an enthusiastic reformer, denouncing the abuses of the courts of law, wherein the orator averred that the extravagant costs of law-suits had arisen to such a height as to amount to a substantial denial of justice to the poor, and seriously to menace the reputation and prosperity of the nation; and when called upon to specify the sum, he declared that he had known it reach even jusqu'à vingtrois francs!'-an anti-climax which to his audience appeared by no means as ludicrous as it does to us. How often do we see a law-suit that costs as little as twenty-three pounds?

If we turn from Civil to Criminal justice, the facts are even more startling and discreditable. The very first duty of a Government is usually understood to be the protection of the life and property of its citizens, not only against the oppression of power and wealth, but against the outrages and depredations of ruffians, to prevent and punish crime, to maintain order, and give security to the well-disposed. How does our Government discharge this duty? Our whole system, a system to which we blindly and foolishly cling, and the associations connected with which colour our entire sentiments,--is adapted to a condition of circumstances utterly different from the present. We have outgrown it, but we will not alter it. It took its origin in days when the poor and feeble had to be protected from the high and powerful, when liberty and property were menaced from above, not from below; when the peasant and the citizen needed defence against the rapine of the noble or the tyranny of the Crown; when, as a rule, the accused and not society was in danger of being wronged;—and we are maintaining and endeavouring to apply it now when the danger that threatens us, and against which we need protection, is of altogether a different order, and comes from a different class. The comfort and safety of the community, the persons and possessions of industrious and decent citizens, the security of our daily life, are menaced now only by a criminal class, whom it is our reproach and our curse to have fostered and rendered possible, who live by outrage and depredation, who by profession and character are the enemies of the society in which they exist; and we are satisfied to contend against them, and endeavour to repress them, by the old, inadequate, outworn machinery of trial by jury, amateur magistrates, counsel for the prisoner, legal chicanery interpreting every doubtful point in favour of the accused; in short, by applying to criminals whom it is the object and interest of society to convict, the system which was contrived with a view to render conviction difficult. This criminal class is numerous, increasing, organized, daring,

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