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The Green Bag

petent) becomes a fair lawyer after reaching the bench, and in a few years is regarded as one of the good bargains of the state. The greatest Liberal lawyer from the

second to the third Premiership of Mr. Gladstone (1880-95) was Sir Charles Russell. He was never Lord Chancellor, because the woolsack, like the throne

of the United Kingdom, is closed to Roman Catholics. In 1885 Sir Charles Russell was the Liberal candidate for

South Hackney. Russell was not to be allowed a walkover, but the diﬂiculty was how to ﬁnd an opponent of ﬁrst rate ability who was willing to ﬁght a hopeless seat. Such a candidate was found in a young barrister, not over

burdened with professional work, of the name of Charles Darling. To make him at least the professional equal

of his redoubtable opponent, Lord Halsbury made him a Queen's Counsel. Equipped with a silk gown and with brains of a high

order, Mr. Darling,

Q.C., stepped into the South Hackney arena to oppose Sir Charles Russell, Q.C. The conferring of silk gowns on stuffed gownsmen (Le. Junior Counsel) is

another prerogative

Chancellor.

of the

Lord

He can confer or withhold

Mr. Darling again opposed Sir Charles Russell and was again beaten. In February, 1888, Mr. Darling was elected

Conservative MP. for Deptford and represented that suburban constituency until his promotion to the bench. He continued his pleasant recreations of writing, speaking, hunting, and painting, but it may be fairly said that he was not often seen in the law courts. How

ever, there was a providence in the person of the Lord Chancellor Halsbury “sitting up aloft." who, as Dibdin _expressed it, was “looking after poor Jack.” Mr. Darling was a delightful com panion, brightening up any subject,

however abstruse and learned, with his wit and fancy. His letters to the Times were always worth reading. In October, 1897, he wrote to the Times about a curious French coin. A week later he wrote a letter, attacking Mr. John

Morley (lately the Secretary of State for India). “The insincerity of the whole manoeuvre [¢'.e. Mr. Morley’s speech to his constituents about the

taxation of ground rents] is made plain when one reﬂects that did Mr. Morley and his friends really wish, on their return to Mike, to tax ground rents,

nothing is easier.

The Chancellor of

Lord

the Exchequer could do it in his money

Westbury refused “silk” to Mr. George

bill-which the Lords could not touch.”

Jessel (afterwards Master of the Rolls) as long as he remained in office. The

ing the obiter dictum, which we have

“silk” entirely as he thinks ﬁt.

Subsequent events have made interest

present Lord Chancellor (all of whose appointments have been made with a single eye for public ends) has scmples

underlined.

about conferring "silk” for fear of ﬂooding the Inner Bar and thus working

gladiators which from the times of

an injustice to existing K.C’s. To return to South Hackney, in 1885 Sir Charles Russell was returned to Parliament. Mr. Gladstone introduced

tained by the Tory Party.

his ﬁrst Home Rule Bill in 1886, and its

rejection by the House of Commons was followed by another general election.

We also quote the words

to show that Mr. Charles John Darling belonged to that band of intellectual Canning and Disraeli

have been re

On October 28, 1897, Lord Chancellor

Halsbury appointed Mr. Darling a Judge of the High Court. England is a. con servative country. When a judicial job is perpetrated, it is received with

disapprobation, butg‘with silent dis