|
THE formation of Lord
Salisbury's Government in 1885 caused my resignation of the Deanship, as he
did me the honour of nominating me to the office of Lord-Advocate, which I
held, with a short interval, from July 1885 to October 1888. I was elected
to represent the Universities of Edinburgh and St. Andrews in the House of
Commons, and held the seat without opposition on resuming office in 1886
after the short Parliament of that year.
It was a stiring time, when
the first Home Rule Bill of Mr. Gladstone was brought forward and discussed
and voted on. Although not directly connected with Edinburgh, I may venture
to relate a few incidents of that eventful year known only to myself, as
they may be held to have a historic interest. During my short period of
parliamentary life, I enjoyed the hospitality from time to time of Sir
Francis and Lady Jeune, afterwards Lord and Lady St. Helier. Like myself,
she came from the Highlands, and her kindness to me has been unbounded even
down to today. The house was the salon where the great in politics and in
art pictorial and literary and dramatic, were gathered together. I remember
well an incident one evening when the first Home Rule Bill was the
engrossing topic. Mr. Chamberlain and I came opposite one another in the
crush at one of her ladyship's "At Homes," and we had some conversation,
which I shall not quote, and will only say of it chat his share was
emphatic, expressed in his own clear-cut style. Only one expression I will
repeat. As we parted, he looked over his shoulder at me, and with a twinkle
through his monocle, said: "Strange bedfellows!" Another incident at a rout
comes up to my memory. It was at the same time. Lord and Lady Dalhousie—he
being then Secretary for Scotland—gave a great reception at Dover House. I
happened to be passing along a passage, when my progress was checked by the
crowd, and I found myself in front of Mrs. Gladstone, who was in
conversation with Mr. Parker, M. P., who had formerly been Mr. Gladstone's
secretary. I heard him say, evidently in sequence to a suggestion from her,
that Mr. Gladstone had been for a long time contemplating Home Rule with
favour: "Well, yes, yes, perhaps so, perhaps if one looks carefully into his
previous utterances one can find traces of it,' and then with a sudden rapid
burst: "but it did come rather suddenly, didn't it?" Those who remember Mr.
Parker and his mode of speech will appreciate the jerkiness, which cannot be
given in cold print. I only heard part of Mrs. Gladstone s reply: "Oh, well,
yes, and that is what dear Herbert says, that we must not be angry with
people who have got a shock." I heard no more, as at the moment I was able
to move on. I was no eavesdropper, and could not help hearing what I did.
One could not have repeated this conversation publicly, but after more than
a quarter of a century, and the speakers, and he of whom they spoke, being
dead, I hope that as an incident of past history of an important political
crisis, I do not do wrong in revealing it. When Lowell's letters were
published after his death, several years later, I could not help putting
together Mr. Parker's "rather suddenly" alongside of Lowell's pithy saying,
in a private letter to a friend m America: "Mr. Gladstone is a man who has a
marvellous power of improvising lifelong convictions."
Little did I think that I
would ever be in the same lobby close to Mr. John Bright. It happened in the
division on the Home Rule Bill, and as we crowded in with the Noes, I was
wedged up close beside him. Some one made his way through the press till he
was near to where I stood, and said to Mr. Bright: "We are :n a majority,"
and he replied—I hearing his voice for the first time, and in the shortest
speech he ever made—"That's right. He spoke in a calm, unexcited tone. It
forms a remarkable little bit of history, which no one heard except the
member who brought the message and myself. Who would have believed six
months before that, day, that he would feel himself compelled to join his
old opponents in the lobby, and would express satisfaction at the defeat of
his quondam leader, with whom he had worked m harmony for more than a
quarter of a century?
The constituency I
represented kept up my direct association with Edinburgh, and I feel at
liberty to refer to one piece of work I was able to accomplish, and which l
quite out with the region of party lines. I had for many years been
impressed with the thought that while the Scottish system of criminal
jurisprudence was excellent, efficient for the detection and punishment of
crime, and eminently fair to accused persons, yet that in many respects the
procedure was cumbrous and expensive, the forms being so complicated that
objections to the relevancy of indictments were very numerous, and often
successful, thus causing delays and additional and unnecessary expense. I
introduced a Bill to amend and simplify procedure. It was necessarily a
bulky Bill, containing seventy-seven clauses. My friends on the Treasury
Bench smiled pityingly on my parliamentary youthful enthusiasm. My colleague
Webster, the Attorney-General, took the Bill out of my hand and made a show
of weighing it, saying: "My dear Lord-Advocate, you have no more chance of
getting that through than of paying off the national debt by a cheque on
your banker." It was not surprising that he should think as he. did, seeing
that he himself had an English Criminal Code Bill, quite as long as my
Procedure Bill, which he was in vain struggling to carry through its three
readings. So far as I know, though twenty years have passed since then, it
has never been successfully proceeded with.
When Bills are down upon the
paper and are not reached at a sitting, the practice is that, before the
adjournment, the clerk at the table reads off the titles, and the member in
charge of a Bill names a day for which it is to be put down. The determined
ones always put their Bill down for the next sitting. In those days, it was
a very rare thing that there was an adjournment before midnight.
Accordingly, "This day" was the member's reply when his Bill was called. How
many times, amid the covert smiles of my colleagues, I said "'This day, I
cannot say, but they were not a few. Suddenly, one evening, a whip came
rushing to my room for me. A Government Bill relating to Ireland was being
pushed forward, and the Nationalists in protest rose and left the House,
with the result that the Bill passed through its clauses in a few minutes,
and the way was opened for my Criminal Procedure Bill. I hurried in. As no
one had expected it to come on, no one was prepared with amendments, and as
good luck would have it, the next Bill was a Scottish Licensing Bill, which
the opposition Scottish members were desirous to push through committee, and
therefore they gave me very little trouble. My seventy-seven clauses went
through in a little more than an hour and a half, and though amt with
hunger, having had no dinner, I left the House to get a morsel of food, with
a very elated heart. My secretary, Mr. William Mure, told me, when we met
next day, of his astonishment when he opened his Times and found that,
without his attendance, the bulky Bill had gone through.
All I shall say of the Act,
which my Bill soon became, is that its success has exceeded my most sanguine
expectations, and it will give an idea of the very marked simplification it
introduced into the procedure of the criminal courts, if I mention that in
the first year of its being in force, the printing bill of the Crown Office
was diminished by no less a sum than £1 550 per annum. It is generally
admitted that it has worked well, and has reduced compilication in procedure
to a minimum. If it were not my own bantling, I might say more, but I refrain.
I shall only add that my Front Bench friends who jeered at my sanguine
hopes, were the first to congratulate me on my good fortune.
Speaking of this mode of
placing Bills on the paper at adjournment, recalls to me a scene which took
place, in which the abnormally long and abnormally broad Major O'Gorman
figured. On a certain night, the clerk was called on to read out the Bills
on the paper, the. hour being just about midnight. An Irish colleague of the
Major's pulled his sleeve, and said: "Meejor, dear, I can't be sure when he
caalls me Bill whither to say his day or to-morrow." "Ah, me boy," said the
Major, "I'll soon find out that for ye." He rose up, and pulling out a
veritable turnip of a watch, he shouted in stentorian tones: "Mr. Spaker,
sor, I'm raather in a muddle; would the Right Ahnarable jintleman tell us
whether it's laste night or temorry maarnin'?" |
