Page:A hundred years hence - the expectations of an optimist (IA hundredyearshenc00russrich).pdf/265

 And, while criminal law will be less active, civil litigation will also probably be much less heavy. The same causes which will tend to make us more careful to avoid committing offences against the common right of others, will make us more scrupulous to perform contracts. And as a consequence of the improved morality which there seems every reason to anticipate, a hundred years hence, it will no doubt have become possible to execute a reform which many thinkers have desiderated as an element of perfected polity. It is hardly necessary here to recapitulate the arguments in favour of the contention that the cost of civil suits should be borne, as the cost of criminal prosecutions is always supposed to be borne, by the State. That the man who brings successfully an action at law, or successfully defends one, should be able to do so only at an expense to himself, is against public policy: and there are even now numerous cases every year in which even the unsuccessful party in a lawsuit is really doing the public a service. In a perfect state of public morality he would always be doing so: and in a hundred years' time he will certainly be more often worthy of public thanks than he is now—he will be less often seeking to impose or defend a wrong. As matters stand, it is notorious that the grant of costs following the judgment in a civil suit is only a partial relief to the successful suitor. He has