Lord High Scrap

"Most painful! The most painful debate in the House of Lords in 50 years!" croaked 79-year-old Baron Merrivale of Walkhampton, fusty onetime Lord Justice of Appeal, last week.

In the oblong, dimly Gothic House of Lords, a furious drama unrolled between two Empire characters each fit to be popped straight into Gilbert & Sullivan. One was the Lord Chief Justice of England, tiny, rolypoly Baron Hewart. The other was the Lord High Chancellor, tall, severe, ascetic Viscount Sankey. Distinctly Gilbertian. with exactly the right lilt, is Lord Sankey's famed remark: "My first brief fetched two guineas--but afterward, roses, roses all the way!" Not since Sullivan set tunes to Trial by Jury has Justice provided a more diverting tale than that told on himself by Lord Sankey: ''When I became Lord High Chancellor and went to the office of my new post, I found a letter there stating that I must resign as a judge of the King's Bench and send my resignation to the Lord High Chancellor. So I posted a letter to myself, resigning from King's Bench, replied with a letter thanking myself for the services I had rendered the State as a Lord Justice, and answered that with a letter wishing myself many happy years as Lord High Chancellor."

As for the Lord Chief Justice of England, rolypoly Baron Hewart has a viciously humorous temper, flies into apoplectic rages at any rumor that he may resign: "I'll never resign! I'll never retire!! Never, never as long as I live!!!"

Abruptly last week into the House of Lords waddled the Lord Chief Justice with fury on his tongue for the Lord High Chancellor. "I have not been Lord Chief Justice for almost 13 years with my eyes closed!" burst out Baron Hewart before the astounded and, as usual, nearly empty House of Lords. "I see what is going on and I read what is going on!"

Going on was an attempt by Lord High Chancellor Sankey to ease through Parliament a seemingly innocuous bill creating two new Lord Justices and empowering Viscount Sankey to name the presidents of the two Appeals Courts. Stormed Baron Hewart: '"Such an office is unknown to the Constitution and the law! If the odious features of the bill before this House are not removed, I will adjourn my court every afternoon and come here to fight them--not clause by clause but line by line and word by word!" In effect the Lord Chief Justice thus threatened to go on strike. The implications of such a strike were incalculable, for Baron Hewart is the permanent, non-political No. 1 justice of the English bench, whereas Viscount Sankey. although ranking higher as Lord High Chancellor, is subject to removal with every change of Cabinet. Last week the long, lean Viscount sat toying with a rolled up copy of the bill and faintly smiling, while the short, fat Baron accused him broadly of a maneuver to rig the judiciary and more precisely of specific machinations to obstruct the seniority rights of Lord Justice Slesser ("Slosher"), a rabid Socialist.

Warming to his accusations, Lord Chief Justice Hewart continued: "Last week Lord Justice Slesser came to me in a state of agitation. He told me he had been informed by the Master of the Rolls that he was not to preside in Appeal Court No. 2 and that, lest he should preside, the composition of both appeal courts would be varied [by the Sankey bill] contrary to the practice of the last 60 years."

Gripping the bench in front of him, Lord Hewart wrathfully went on: "I replied to Lord Justice Slesser that, as the permanent head of the Judiciary of this country. I could not advise him. but I could tell him what I would do if I was faced with any such menace--I WOULD DECLINE TO SIT! "Where is this sort of thing to end?" concluded the Lord Chief Justice, shaking an accusing forefinger at the Lord High Chancellor. "Where is it to end, My Lords? Will someone tell me one day that they are going to have a new revenue judge because they do not like the way the old one decides his cases or because they do not agree with his views? Disgraceful! We in the law courts have nothing to do with political views. My friend Lord Justice Slesser holds some opinions with which I profoundly disagree, but he is a judge in whom I--at any rate--have complete confidence, a scholar and a lawyer. . . . The proposed bill would put Justice at the mercy of party whips. Intolerable, My Lords'! Unfair to the bench, unfair to the bar, unfair to the public!"

This onslaught left the House of Lords gaping and gasping. "I had nothing to do with drafting the obnoxious clause," bleated the Master of the Rolls, Baron Hanworth of Hanworth, onetime High Steward of Stratford-on-Avon and President of the Magna Charta Society.

Three days later His Majesty's Government girded themselves to reply to the Lord Chief Justice, sent in as their champion the Lord High Chancellor.

This time it was fat Baron Hewart who wore a contemptuous, judicial smile, while lean Viscount Sankey, in defending the Government against charges of attempting to rig Justice, shouted, "Moonshine! Moonshine!! MOONSHINE!!!"

How long such tirades might have continued had not Rufus Daniel Isaacs been in the House is conjectural. This Jew of Jews, this Disraelian paragon of Empire, the great Marquess of Reading, was Lord Chief Justice of England (1913-21), be fore he became High Commissioner and Special Envoy to borrow wartime millions in the U. S. through J. P. Morgan ;; Co. Gently interposing last week, Rufus Daniel Isaacs proposed to rephrase the offending clause, "so that it should not operate to the prejudice of anybody now a Lord Justice."

This would fix up Hewart's friend Slesser, and Hewart showed by his expression that he would assent. Sankey, in vast relief, snatched off his full wig, wiped his perspiring brow and exclaimed : "Lord Reading's suggestion saves everybody's face."

Amid cheers and stamping at this amiable retreat by the Lord High Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice rose from where he had been sitting just back of Lord Reading. "As we have agreed on what is really fundamental," he intoned with returning dignity, "let us make peace and get on with our work." In a few minutes the Lords slipped the amended bill through second reading. Then, as the House adjourned, the Lord High Chancellor, preceded by the Purse Bearer, preceded in turn by the Sergeant-at-Arms carrying the Mace, made the most unusual gesture of stopping in his tracks before the Lord Chief Justice. Impulsively Sankey held out his hand to Hewart who gripped it warmly, ended with a hearty shake the House of Lords' most painful scene in 50 years.

In England's so-called High Court of Justice the Chancery Division is headed by the Lord High Chancellor with a stipend of -L-6,000 per year, while the King's Bench Division is headed by the Lord Chief Justice at -L-8,000. Appeals from the High Court of Justice may be carried to the House of Lords which, when sitting as a Court of Appeal, has been compared to the U. S. Supreme Court. Ecclesiastical cases, however, and appeals from the highest courts of India, the Dominions and the Colonies go to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, "supreme judicial authority of the Empire." In any case it is Lord High Chancellor Sankey who pre sides, either over the House of Lords as a Court of Appeal (as Speaker of the House of Lords he gets an additional -L-4,000) or over the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Also, in the words of the late, great Jeremy Bentham, the Lord High Chancellor is "the chief and most constant legal adviser of the King in all matters of law . . . keeper of the great seal, a various, multifarious and indefinable office . . . the possessor of a multitude of heterogeneous scraps of power too various to be enumerated." The Lord Chief Justice of England actually presides in King's Bench division over the great majority of important cases of appeal.

Memorable was the furor year ago when Lady Hewart suddenly collapsed and died at a glittering reception given for the retiring Lord Mayor of London (TIME, Nov. 13, 1933) Widower Lord Chief Justice Hewart began his career as a reporter on London's Evening Star. Bachelor Lord High Chancellor Sankey is devoted to his sister with whom he goes on long walks and tramp ship cruises. Husband Lord Justice Slesser used to spell his name Schloesser, began life as an engineer, now hobnobs as a leading Fabian with George Bernard Shaw and has published volumes of Collected Verses (1900-32, 1933).

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