CHAPTER II.

Debates on Sir R. Collier's Appointment-The Ewelme Rectory-Mr. Dixon's Vote of Censure on the Education Act-Abortive Bills-Regulation of the ParksContagious Diseases Acts-Regulation of Mines-Army Estimates and Army Reorganization-Scotch Education Bill-Women's Disabilities Bill-Sir C. Dilke and Mr. A. Herbert on the Civil List-Discreditable Scene in the House-Local Taxation-Defeat of the Government-The Budget.

THE question of Sir Robert Collier's appointment was dealt with very early in the Session, and public feeling was in the end satisfied by a formal Parliamentary condonation, which was equivalent to a moderate expression of disapproval. In the House of Lords a vote of censure, moved by Lord Stanhope, was lost on a narrow division by two votes, after a debate in which the Lord Chancellor satisfied the House, at all events, of the honesty of his intentions.

Lord Stanhope said that the Government by this act had unduly stretched the power of the Crown, and unduly set aside the intention of the Legislature. After recapitulating the circumstances under which the Bill was brought in, he read Lord Chief Justice Cockburn's condemnation of the transaction, and declared that the Government must be found guilty either of negligence or of presumption. If any defects existed in the Act the Government had only to wait three months, when they might have come to Parliament to amend it. Refusing to discuss the merits and qualifications of Sir R. Collier, as entirely apart from the question, he declared, on the authority of the Lord Chief Justice of England, confirmed by his own inquiries, that the English Bar had set the seal of its almost unanimous and unqualified condemnation upon the mode of appointing Sir R. Collier to a seat at the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Mr. Justice Willes had indeed expressed a contrary opinion, but his published letter was not likely to add to his reputation. He regretted the discourtesy with which the Lord Chancellor had treated the Lord Chief Justice of England, and entreated their lordships, as an hereditary Chamber, superior to hustings influences, to vindicate the dignity and independence which they had hitherto worthily maintained.

Lord Portman said that Lord Stanhope, like the Lord Chief Justice, had pronounced condemnation without waiting to hear the evidence. Arguing that the present was not a case for the grave censure of their lordships, he said that if this was to be a great party fight he was probably the leader of a forlorn hope, but, if otherwise, he appealed to the honour and judgment of their lordships. Was Lord Stanhope prepared to take a prominent part in the Government which must succeed the present if this party move were successful in both Houses? Arguing that Sir Robert Collier,

as Attorney-General, was undoubtedly qualified by his position and attainments to succeed to the "cushion" of either of the Common Law Courts, he contended that he could not be disqualified from sitting on the Judicial Committee. He cited the opinion of Mr. Justice Willes, and further, denied that the Bar were so unanimous as had been represented. Their lordships might think that an error in judgment had been committed, but that was not a sufficient ground for grave Parliamentary censure, and he moved an amendment accordingly.

Lord Salisbury utterly repudiated the charge that their lordships were condemning the Lord Chancellor without waiting to hear his defence. Two Lords Chief Justice had in vain tried to elicit this explanation, and now when Lord Stanhope made the same demand the Lord Chancellor, instead of rising, put up the Lord Warden of the Stannaries to repeat a speech that he had made to Lord Portman in his private room. Maintaining that the appointment of Sir Robert Collier was a colourable evasion of the law, he adverted to the course taken by the Government on the Ewelme Rectory as the effect of the same state of mind, and manifesting a similarity of idiosyncrasy in regard to the respect due to Acts of Parliament. It was necessary to put a stop at once to conduct which was calculated to destroy the confidence that had hitherto existed between the Legislature and the Executive. It was an advantage in one sense that votes of censure in their lordships' House were not followed by the resignation of a Ministry, because it enabled them to visit acts like the present with heavy censure without taking the machinery of Government to pieces at a moment when it was most undesirable to do so. It was especially necessary to guard the exercise of judicial patronage from abuse, and sharply criticizing the appointments of Mr. Beales and Mr. Homersham Cox, he said it became their lordships as the highest Court of Judicature to prevent these things from being done by branding them with their displeasure.

The Duke of Argyll, with great vehemence, vindicated the refusal of the Lord Chancellor to defend his conduct to Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, or to enter into the lists with him in the public press. Inquiring whether this was a letter from Sir Alexander Cockburn or from the Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench, he maintained, with great warmth and some asperity, that it was not written in his official capacity, and justified this opinion by the railing the almost ribald-accusations contained in the letter. The Government had placed upon the Judicial Committee a lawyer who was eminently fit, and they did nothing but give a formal qualification to one who had already the substantial qualification which Sir R. Collier must be presumed as the Attorney-General to possess. The Government had not, therefore, violated the spirit, meaning, or intention of the statute. The present was a party motion and nothing else. It might be concurred in by some candid friends on the Ministerial side, but the Government, if censured by

their lordships, would appeal to the other House and to public opinion, which was never permanently unjust to public men.

Lord Westbury said it seemed by the speech they had just heard as if the weakness of the Lord Chancellor's case were to be covered by unjustifiable abuse of the Lord Chief Justice. Warmly defending the course taken by the latter, who had been for many years a personal friend and supporter of Mr. Gladstone, he asked the Duke of Argyll whether, upon any subject, he had ever known such unanimity of condemnation. He should regard this as a decree coming up from the Lord Chancellor, upon which it was his duty to sit on appeal, and in which it would be his duty to reverse the Lord Chancellor's judgment. It was an error in judgment, and nothing more; and he admitted that the Government had not been influenced by any unworthy motives. Twitting the Lord Chancellor, as Lord Salisbury had done, upon the silence he had hitherto preserved during the debate, he declared that, if this were a matter of private property the act might be impeached as a fraudulent exercise of a power, and the Lord Chancellor, if it came before him, would be compelled to set it aside as a fraudulent abuse of the power. Humorously describing the joint action of the Prime Minister and the Lord Chancellor, he said that the appointment of Sir R. Collier, if before a Court of Equity, must be revoked. If, unhappily, it should be irrevocable, their lordships must do what they could to prevent any gross abuses in future of powers given for one purpose and employed for another. After pleasantly criticizing the letter of Mr. Justice Willes as illustrating the two kinds of justice dealt out by the Courts of Law and Equity, he protested against the Head of the Law being driven to justify his conduct by the parsimony of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Time was when the Lord Chancellor of England would have told the Prime Minister and the Cabinet what was necessary for the due administration of the law.

Lord Romilly, on the other hand, declared that the appointment had been perfectly right and proper. The object of the Act was that fit persons should be appointed to the Judicial Committee, and if the Government had taken any other course they would have sacrificed the real meaning of the Act to a mere technicality. He hoped their lordships would not pass a vote which would lead to disastrous consequences.

The Lord Chancellor wished that he had been asked his reasons simpliciter, and that a vote of censure had not been founded upon this appointment before any explanation had been sought in that House. Lord Stanhope might, on moving for papers, have given notice of his intention to ask a question, and he might have shaped his motion according as the explanation had been satisfactory or otherwise. Sir A. Cockburn's letter to himself was in his opinion. not one to be answered. A controversy between them would have been in the highest degree unseemly, and the Lord Chief Justice was not the censor of the Prime Minister and the Lord Chancellor.

Since Lord Ellenborough's time it had been held that the Lord Chief Justice had better not interfere with politics. Yet these party motions and attacks were all founded upon his letter. The spirit of the Act was to provide a Court for the speedy hearing of Indian and Colonial appeals which had run into arrear. That Court had sat, and the number of Indian appeals disposed of had been exactly doubled. All admitted that Sir R. Collier was admirably fitted to be appointed a member of the Judicial Committee. Entering minutely into the reasons for the Act, and the changes made in it in the other House, he described the applications made to the existing Judges of the Superior Courts to accept seats in the new tribunal. Two refused, owing to the absence of a provision for their clerks, and others appeared to be averse from acceptance. The Premier then expressed a doubt whether it was desirable to go on hawking about these appointments, and Sir R. Collier, hearing of the difficulty, offered to accept it. Thus he consented to take the leavings of the other Judges, and yet this was called a job. Never was there a grosser misapprehension than to call this a colourable qualification, and four out of seven of the Equity Judges agreed with the Government. In conclusion, he said that although he should regret their lordships' vote of censure, yet, regarding this as a party manœuvre, he should hold his ground until the House of Commons passed a similar motion.

Lord Cairns admitted that, since the tragical news from the East and the dark cloud which had appeared on the Western horizon, the proportions of the present question had greatly dwarfed in his estimation. Contending that the spirit and essence of the Act had been clearly and palpably violated, he said it was a novel doctrine that the judgment of Parliament was not to be passed until the Lord Chancellor had given his explanation. If he had been so desirous to explain, he might have done so on the motion for papers. No new fact had been stated to-night that had not been publicly known before, and the fitness of Sir R. Collier was not in question. After replying to some of the arguments used by previous speakers, he referred to the history of the Act, and said he agreed in the only proposition laid down in Mr. Justice Willes' letter, that the appointment was legal. All the Equity Judges and all the Bar would agree with that. If it had not been legal Sir R. Collier could not have taken his seat, and the present vote of censure would have been unnecessary. The marrow of this question was whether Sir R. Collier was chosen by the Prime Minister as a member of the Judicial Committee because he was a Judge, or whether he was made a Judge because he had already been chosen a member of the Judicial Committee. The date of his appointment as a Puisne Judge was November 7, while on November 3 Sir R. Collier was sworn in a member of the Privy Council at Balmoral. Since Puisne Judges were "invented" not one had ever been made a Privy Councillor before he took his seat on the Bench. He inferred, therefore, that Sir R. Collier was made a Privy Councillor, not with

a view to the Judgeship, but to the Judicial Committee, and that when the Prime Minister made his choice he selected one who was not one of the Judges of the land when his mental choice was made. The essence of the Act was, therefore, practically violated. He honoured Lord Chief Justice Cockburn for the courage he had displayed, and vigorously protested against the doctrines heard from the Ministerial Benches in defence of this appointment.

Lord Granville said that he never remembered so much intellectual ability shown in a matter which lay so much within a nutshell. Declaring that the speech of the Lord Chancellor must have carried conviction into the mind of every unprejudiced person, he remarked that it was now admitted by Lord Cairns and others that the appointment of Sir R. Collier was legal and valid. Lord Salisbury had expressed his unwillingness to turn out the Government when the horses were extricating the vehicle from a bog, but it was not the best way of helping the drivers to pelt them with mud from the banks. It was anything but a Conservative policy that noble lords opposite should be constantly trying to damage the Government by votes of censure. They would only blunt the instrument in their hands by its too frequent use, without producing any practical result. He should regret if the vote of censure were carried, not only for the sake of their lordships, but because of its evil example in the future administration of justice.

Lord Longford supported the motion.

Their lordships divided, when Lord Stanhope's vote of censure was negatived by 89 Not-Contents against 87 Contents.

In the House of Commons the Government was significantly acquitted of any serious offence by a majority of twenty-seven, which was said exactly to correspond with the number of official votes.

Mr. Cross moved the vote of censure on the appointment, declaring that it was a violation of the intention of the statute and of evil example in the administration of judicial patronage. At the outset he stated that he did not intend to question Sir Robert Collier's fitness except for this particular promotion, nor the actual legality of the appointment. He maintained that, whereas everybody believed the Act to provide a safeguard for the qualifications and judicial experience of the persons promoted, without which Parliament would not have passed the Act, the Government had broken faith with Parliament by doing away with that safeguard. Tracing the history of the Judicial Committee from its first foundation, and through the various changes in its constitution, and dwelling specially on the Bill of 1870, he maintained that Parliament had always pronounced against elevating practising barristers to the Judicial Committee. The intention of the Act of last year was not to change the qualification of the persons selected, but simply to provide salaries which would induce certain members of the Committee to attend more regularly. As was shown by the language, which he quoted, of Sir Robert Collier and other mem