--- Chief-Justice of the King's Bench, 6,500--- Chief-Justice of the Common Pleas, 5,000--- Chief-Baron of the Exchequer, 5,000--- Nine Puisne Judges, 4,000 Now, amongst the class of advocates there are always to be found about half-a-dozen whose annual emoluments average from eight to twelve thousand pounds.Of this number there is not one who would not disdain the office of puisne judge, since his profits are actually two or three times as great as theirs.To these advocates of the first class may be added as many more, who would equally disdain these subordinate situations, in the hope every day of succeeding to the advocates who shall succeed to the principal situations.There are two methods of obviating this inconvenience: the one by increasing the emoluments of the judges.
(This course has been adopted upon many occasions, and they have been raised to their present amount, without success.) The other consists in lowering the profits of the advocates: a desirable object in more respects than one, but which can result only from rendering the whole system of the laws more simple and intelligible.
In the department of education, there is a nearly similar rivalry between the profession of the clergy and the office of professor, between the profession of advocate and the office of judge, in the department of the laws.In proportion as he is what he ought to be in order to be useful, a clergyman is a professor of morality, having for his pupils a larger or smaller number of persons of every class, during the whole course of their lives.On the other hand, a professor (as he is called) has for his pupils a number of select individuals, whose character is calculated to exercise the greatest influence upon the general mass of the people, and among their number the clergy are generally to be found.
The period during which these individuals attend the lectures of the professor is the most critical period of life---the only period during which they are under obligation to pay attention to what they hear, or to receive the instruction presented to them.Such being the relation between the services of the two classes, let us see what is the proportion between the amount of reward respectively allotted to each.
In England, the emoluments of the clergy vary from £ 20 to £ 10,000 a-year, while those of the professors in the chief seats of education---the universities---are between the twentieth and the hundredth part of the latter sum.In Scotland, the emoluments of the professors differ but little from what they are in England, but the richest ecclesiastical benefice is scarcely equal to the least productive professorship.It is thus, says Adam Smith, that ``in England the church is continually draining the universities of all their best and ablest members;and an old college tutor, who is known and distinguished as an eminent man of letters, is rarely to be found''; whilst in Scotland the case is exactly the reverse.It is by the influence of this circumstance that he explains how academical education is so excellent in the Scottish universities, and, according to him, so defective in those of England.
Between two professions which do not enter into competition with each other (for example, those of opera-dancers and clergymen,)a disproportion between their emoluments is not attended with such palpable inconveniences; but when by any circumstance two professions are brought into comparison with each other, the least advantageous loses its value by the comparison, and the disproportion presents to the eye of the observer the idea of injustice.
