also the man of
independent means who is indifferent to promotion and content to spend
all his time at the place of his first appointment. He is exactly like
the magistrates in old days, but he and his kind get rarer every year.

At best, moreover, this permanence, of which so much is thought, is an
illusory guarantee, for it is often suspended by one Government or
another, and the magistrates are constantly at the mercy of political
crises. Their moral efficiency is indeed sorely tried.

I affirm, therefore, that this diminution of moral efficiency affects
technical efficiency, because magistrates dare not insist on technical
exactitude when cases arise between the State and individuals, or
between those who are protected by Government and those who are not.
Though cases in which the State is a party do not occur very often,
those in which friends of the Government are involved are of daily
occurrence in a country where Government is a faction waging incessant
warfare against all other factions.

It has been said with much reason that parliamentary government on a
basis of universal suffrage is legalised and continuous civil war. It is
usually a bloodless civil war, but its weapons are insults,
provocations, calumnies, personalities, libel actions. These go on from
one year's end to the other. In a country where such a state of affairs
is prevalent, the magistracy ought to be absolutely independent in order
to be impartial. Yet it is precisely in a country like this that the
magistracy, not being independent and autonomous, is obliged to avoid
offending the party in office which, moreover, is extremely exacting,
for it lives in constant fear that it may be turned out of power.

--Is there nothing to be done? Would you advocate a return to the
practice of purchasing judicial appointments?--

In the first place, this would not be anything so very terrible, and
secondly, it might be quite possible to secure all the advantages of
purchase without its actual practice.

I can show you that it is not so very terrible, for the case is parallel
with that of the exceptional jurisdictions, the mention of which filled
you with horror till you remembered the commercial courts and the
councils of experts, all excellent institutions. We are appalled at the
idea of a magistrate purchasing his office, and yet we employ advocates
and solicitors and other legal officials and trust them with our most
precious interests, yet they hav