Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 04.djvu/433

 fondness for using when about to reverse Lord Campbell. Following this method, indeed, he frequently decided a great deal more than the facts of the case required, and the authority of his judgments has been thereby much weakened; but where he had a comparatively clear field, as in the subject of domicile, he succeeded in building up a great portion of the existing law (see an estimate of his judgments in Writings by the Way, p. 397). With one exception, however, the cases in which he took part have only a legal interest. In 1864 he sat as a member of the judicial committee of the privy council to hear the appeals on the ‘Essays and Reviews’ cases (‘Bishop of Salisbury v. Williams’ and ‘Fendall v. Wilson,’ 2 Moore P. C., N. S. 375; and see Life, iii. 6–10), and delivered with keen relish the judgment acquitting the defendants on all the counts—a judgment by which, said the author of a suggested epitaph for Lord Westbury himself, ‘he took away from orthodox members of the church of England their last hope of everlasting damnation.’

Meanwhile his zeal for law reform remained unabated, though the result fell far short of his plans. He had long recognised the urgency of simplifying the transfer of land, and of carrying out the proposal of a general registry made by the Real Property Commission of 1830. He had been an active member of the commission of 1854, which in 1857 reported in favour of registration of title. When in opposition he had supported the bills introduced by Sir Hugh Cairns, and in 1862, taking up the subject again in the House of Lords, he succeeded in passing ‘An Act to facilitate the proof of title to and the conveyance of real estate.’ It offered two alternative modes of registration: that of an indefeasible title, or that of a merely possessory title to become subsequently indefeasible; but, against Lord Westbury's own convictions, registration was made voluntary. He expected great results from the act, and was slow to recognise its failure. Speaking after it had been in operation for nearly two years, he said: ‘If there is one measure on which I can put my finger with the hope of being hereafter remembered, it will undoubtedly be this bill, when its utility and the relief which it is calculated to give to owners of landed property shall have been fully developed’ (21 April 1864). It proved a failure nevertheless. Few indefeasible titles were registered, and the number decreased every year, while the possessory clauses were not made use of at all; and in 1868 a commission (of which Lord Westbury himself was afterwards made a member, though he took no part in the proceedings) was appointed to consider the causes of its failure. These they found to be the expense and the trouble of registration, which were proved to be greater than in the case of an ordinary sale, and which arose from the necessity imposed by the act of (1) showing a marketable title, (2) defining the boundaries of the property, and (3) registering partial interests (see also Lord Cairns's evidence before the commission of 1878). It would be difficult to say whether the act of 1862, known as Lord Westbury's Act, has had most effect in rousing people to the advantages of simpler modes of transfer or in discrediting by its failure subsequent attempts to accomplish the same end.

Most of the personal incidents which enlivened Lord Westbury's chancellorship have grown dim now, though at the time they were in everybody's mouth. One of them, however, bids fair to be historical. The occasion was the debate in the House of Lords on the sentence passed by Convocation on ‘Essays and Reviews.’ In language of solemn mockery, characterised by Bishop Wilberforce as ‘ribaldry,’ he told the bench of bishops that they had probably incurred the penalties of præmunire; he described a synodical judgment as ‘a well-lubricated set of words—a sentence so oily and saponaceous that no one can grasp it,’ and he warned them that ‘whenever there is any attempt to carry Convocation beyond its proper limits their best security will be to gather up their garments and flee, and, remembering the pillar of salt, not to cast a look behind’ (15 July 1864). The epithet ‘saponaceous’ was never forgotten.

In 1865 Lord Westbury was forced to retire from office. Circumstances connected with the granting of a pension to a Mr. Edmunds, who, as clerk to the commissioner of patents, was found to have appropriated public moneys to his own use, and certain transactions with reference to appointments in the Leeds Bankruptcy Court, had excited public indignation, and Lord Westbury was freely accused of having unworthily used his position to advance his relatives. The two cases were separately examined by two select committees, who agreed in acquitting him of having acted from unbecoming motives, but found that he had shown himself lax and inattentive to the public interests. A vote of censure, framed in moderate terms, was moved in the House of Commons, and, having been carried in spite of the defence made by the government, Lord Westbury at once announced his resignation, in a speech so full of real grace and dignity, that it almost turned indignation into sympathy. It was