[p. 103]
|103| has been held to be very meritorious and accompanied by general praise. Proposals going further, which the present Lord Chancellor, Brougham, later made in a speech of seven hours for the improvement of justice, and which were received with great applause, have indeed occasioned the appointment of committees, but up to now have remained without further result. As much as in Germany a silent labour of several hundred years, of scientific culture, of the wisdom and love of justice of the princes has effected, the English nation has not obtained from its popular representation, and in the new Bill there are no special elements contained which would give a preponderance, in place {partly of the crude ignorance of the fox-hunters and the country squires}, partly of a culture acquired merely in society, through newspapers and parliamentary debates, partly of the skill of the jurists acquired mostly only by routine, rather to thorough insight and actual knowledge. The conditions which in Germany are set, even for a higher birth, wealth in landed property etc., for taking part in the business of government and of the state in the general and in the more special branches – theoretical study, scientific training, practical preliminary exercise and experience – are made as little in the new Bill as in the hitherto existing organisation upon the members of an assembly in whose hands the most extensive governmental and administrative power is found. {Nowhere is the prejudice so firm and unembarrassed that whoever is given an office by birth and wealth is given by them also the understanding for it, as in England.} The new Bill also contains nothing of such conditions; it likewise sanctions the principle that a free rental of ten pounds, drawn from landed property, fully qualifies for the office of judging and deciding upon the capacity for the business of government and of the administration of the state, which is in the possession of the Parliaments. The
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