London Legal Letter.
243
LONDON LEGAL LETTER. LONDON, April 12, 1893. VUE have just been having a great to-do over
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that favorite constitutional topic, the free dom of the press. The occasion was one of the home-rule debates in the House of Commons; and in an article dealing therewith the " Daily Chronicle," a morning newspaper, described the well-known Irish member, Mr. T. W. Russell, as the " tireless mercenary of Unionism." The ma ligned legislator accordingly complained to the House in due course of this breach of parlia mentary privilege; and had some influential po litical associates not dissuaded him from pressing his grievance to the bitter end, he would undoubt edly have secured a solemn declaration that there had been an abuse of privilege; and so without more ado the incident apparently closed. But more was to come; that august functionary, the Sergeant-at-Arms, addressed a letter, with the ap proval of the Speaker, to the editor of the " Daily Chronicle," stating that it was his duty to ask him to warn the person concerned that his conduct had been an abuse of the privilege granted to him, and that very serious notice must be taken of ¡t if anything of the kind occurred again. This paternal admonition was keenly resented, and a certain section of the press sought to make of it a grave infraction of their liberty; they main tained that the offence should have been cen sured in ordinary form or left alone, — neither the Speaker nor his subordinate having any con stitutional right to act as they had done. But on the whole, the action of the Sergeant-at-Arms has been applauded. The " Daily Chronicle's " leader writer certainly exceeded the limits of descriptive discretion, and the eminent journal was considered to have got off very easily. There is one thing English lawyers admire in your legal arrangements, — to wit, your system of vigorous bar associations. We read with pleasure in the professional organs of America how copious is the stream of interests which engross the atten^ tion of lawyers across the Atlantic in marked con trast with our condition at home. The annual meeting of the Bar Association will take place
next month; but it might as well not take place at all. The gathering is fixed for a Saturday afternoon, under the presidency of the AttorneyGeneral, when there will be a small attendance, a Report about no one knows what, a few short, dull speeches, and a vote of thanks to Sir Charles Russell for presiding. I am not one of those who really think our Bar Association could do much more than it does; for, as I fancy I must have indicated in a previous letter, such functions as it might assume are discharged by the managing bodies of the four Inn of Court, who, notwith standing occasional criticism, conduct the an cient institutions under their care in a most admirable manner. I have spoken as above of the Bar Association, because no English lawyer feels comfortable unless he maligns at least once a year that innocuous convention. Solicitors are greatly pleased with a voluminous report on " Officialism," which has been recently published by a special committee of the Council of the Incorporated Law Society. In view of recent inroads on private business, which the offi cial departments in some directions appear to be pressing on, the solicitors assert that the inter ference of the State with the private business of the public ought to be confined to the narrowest limits compatible with the public interest. They urge that it is impossible to withstand such a form of competition, backed up as it must be by the unlimited resources and interest of the State, and assisted by any required adaptation of existing laws and judicial arrangements to its own pur poses. The three points of attack are the bank ruptcy and winding-up department, the compulsory schemes of the land registry office, and the pro posals for the establishment of a public trustee department. As to land registration, especially, one cannot help thinking that the solicitors are out of touch with the times; we must erelong have compulsory registration of title. Its immediate introduction might not be feasible; but legislation is tending that way, and the arguments urged against it, though plausible enough, are to a large extent inconclusive.
