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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
