Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 22.pdf/703

 Mr. justice Darling approbation. It is extremely rare that the dissatisfaction appears in print. What cannot be remedied had better be endured.

On the occasion however

of Mr. Darling's appointment to this high oﬁice, the disapproval of the public found voice in a leading article in the Standard, the most conserva tive of Conservative papers. As far as

we

know,

no

judicial

appoint

ment had ever been unfavorably com mented

on

by

the

press

during

Queen Victoria's reign except in the case of Colin

Blackburn,

afterwards

Lord Blackburn. Blackburn (unlike Mr. Darling, who was educated privately.) was at Eton and

Trinity College, Cambridge. He (unlike Mr. Darling) was neither a literary man, nor a politician, nor a witty speaker.

He had reported in the Queen's Bench with Macaulay’s devoted friend Thomas Flower Ellis, and had written a book “On Sales” which was the standard

Lord Chancellor.1

669 “Who is the new

Judge? Who is to take the place of Mr.

Justice Erle? He is a certain Mr. Colin Blackburn. Everybody has been going about town asking his neighbor, Who is Mr. Colin Blackburn? . . . The only reason that can be assigned for this

strange freak of the Chancellor is that this new Puisne Judge is a Scotchman." (The Times for June 29, 1859.) As results proved, never was a more competent law yer appointed to the bench than in the

person of Mr. Colin Blackburn. He presided with conspicuous fairness at the trial of the Manchester Fenians (1867), and charged the grand jury on the trial of John Edward Eyre, Governor of Jamaica. He died many years afterwards, having won a higher place in the judgment both of lawyers and of the public even than Lord Campbell himself. History repeats it self. The appointment of Mr. Justice Darling was regarded at the time (1897)

work until superseded by that of Mr.

as a political job.

Judah T. Benjamin, K.C., formerly Minister of War for the Confederates.

and as results have proved,a better

Thus it will be seen that Mr. Haldane,

K.C., is not the ﬁrst lawyer of eminence who has ﬁlled the post of War Minister. Blackburn had had some commercial practice in Liverpool, but after twenty one years at the bar he was still a Junior,

when in 1859 to the amazement of every one he was appointed a Puisne

Judge of the Queen's Bench.

As a matter of fact

appointment could not have been made. Mr. Justice Darling becomes every day

more indispensable as a public servant. It would be difficult to replace him.

'In many respects he is one of the best common law judges we have. The ﬁrst case in which his name appeared in the Times was a registration appeal-a point turning on election law—in which the two former political opponents in

Bench Lord Campbell had discovered

South Hackney agreed in their judg ment. The third judge of that court was the late Mr. Justice Wright (a man

the merits of his fellow Scot. It is indeed said that Mr. Blackburn wrote

sincerely regretted), who had been a Liberal candidate in a neighboring

out some of Lord Campbell's judgments,

constituency to South Hackney. Politics

just as Francis Hargrave (the counsel in the Habeas Corpus case of James

are a power in England, but happily an English judge puts away politics with other childish things.

Lord Campbell was then Lord Chan—

cellor. While presiding over the Queen's

Sommersett, the negro) is admitted to have primed Thurlow with authorities

and arguments for his judgments as

‘ Lord Chancellor from 1778 (with breaks) to 1792.