REGULATION OF THE SALARIES OF THE JUDGES.
During this, session the chancellor of the exchequer brought forward a measure for augmenting the salaries of the judges, and at the same time for prohibiting the sale of those ministerial offices which the chiefs of the respective courts had been allowed so to dispose of. It was proposed at first to allow the puisne judges £6,000 a year; but the scheme ultimately adopted was to give £10,000 a year to the chief-justice of the king’s bench; £7,000 to the chief-baron of the court of exchequer; £8,000 to the chief-justice of the court of common pleas, and £5,500 to each of the puisne justices of the courts of king’s bench, common pleas, and the exchequer. This arrangement met with considerable opposition, some of the members as Messrs. Hume, Denman, and Hobhouse, arguing that the dignity of a judge did not depend upon money, and that the cheapest mode of doing the judicial business of the country was the best. On the contrary, Mr. Scarlett argued that the arrangement was improper because it diminished the emoluments of the lord chief-justice of England; and he moved an amendment, which was lost, that the sum of £12,000; should be given to him. Mr. Brougham, in a different spirit, proposed that £500 a-year should be taken from the salary of the puisne judges, but that alteration was also rejected.