Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/99

 hood tend constantly to impair the repute of their profession.

The assertion that the bench is easily reached from the bar requires a word of explanation. There are only three hundred and fifty-eight tribunals of justice in Japan, presided over by eleven hundred and ninety-seven judges and procurators. The judges are not old men of long practical experience, as in America and Great Britain, nor have they won their way to the bench by distinguished ability shown at the bar. A barrister, immediately on receiving his diploma, may pass by way of examination to three years of probationary practice as a judge, after which he becomes, again by way of examination, a permanent occupant of the bench or a public procurator. Access to the bench is therefore easy. But the remuneration attached to judicial offices is insignificant. A junior judge receives a salary of only £70 a year; the president of the Court of Cassation has £550. Soon, possibly before this volume is published, there will be a substantial addition to these exceedingly slender stipends. But even supposing them increased by fifty per cent, they will still be too small to inspire ambition. Yet it is the hope of reaching the bench that animates many students of law; for although the pecuniary reward is not large, its recipient is beyond the range of official caprice, being secure in the possession of his office for life, and further, in no other profession can a young man anticipate