London Legal Letter.
193
LONDON LEGAL LETTER.
London, March 3, 1894. EVEN in a legal letter it is impossible to avoid some reference to the political situa tion, which is engrossing all our minds at present to the exclusion of almost everything else. It would be difficult to exaggerate the excitement which Mr. Gladstone's resignation has occasioned, as is most natural on his withdrawal from an arena where he has played so conspicuous a part for more than sixty years. His disappearance as an active factor in public life will seriously affect many personal ambitions, for the up ward career of not a few well-known men mainly depended on the favor with which they were regarded by this veteran statesman. Everything points to his place being taken by Lord Rosebery, although a considerable section of the party would prefer Sir William Vernon Harcourt; it will certainly be a bitter disappointment to the latter to miss the highest place, which he has certainly coveted for long, although of late it must have been borne in upon him that fate had not this garland in store. Sir William Har court in his earlier days aimed at the woolsack, for which his position as Solicitor-General seemed to prepare him, but he drifted into politics pure and simple, and his allegiance to a strictly legal ambition dwindled. I should not care to say exactly how the shuffling of the official cards will affect legal appointments, but the impending dissolution and subsequent appeal to the country must cause at least one of our great advocates some concern. 1 mean the Attorney-General Sir Charles Russell; he is no longer a young man, and as his party are not likely to secure a second term of office in succes sion, his elevation to one of the higher posts in the judiciary might be postponed for a long time. Since Mr. Gladstone came into power in 1892 it has always been supposed that some arrangement would be made whereby Lord Coleridge would retire, and enable Sir Charles Russell to become Lord Chief Justice, for Lord Coleridge is not only an ardent Liberal in politics but personally a great friend and admirer of the Attorney-General. It has persistently been
rumored that the Lord Chief Justice was willing to withdraw on condition of his son Mr. Bernard Coleridge, Q.C., securing a puisne judgeship, but that since the government declined to give any undertaking on the subject he refused to ac quiesce in the scheme for his own retirement. Mr. Bernard Coleridge is a clever young man with no inconsiderable gifts of platform oratory of the lighter description, but his intrinsic posi tion at the Bar would certainly not justify his elevation to the Bench for some time to come. As you are aware Sir Charles Russell is precluded from occupying the woolsack on account of his being a Roman Catholic. A bill was introduced in 189 1 for the removal of the religious disabili ties which attach to the viceroyalty of Ireland and the Lord Chancellorship, which its enemies playfully described as the Sir Charles Russell relief bill; the measure was however defeated on its second reading by the comparatively narrow majority of thirty-two. Mr. Gladstone's speech in its support is considered one of the finest he has delivered in his later years. Great interest has been excited in social circles by the betrothal of Mr. Asquith, the Home Secretary, to Miss Margot Tennant, daughter of Sir Charles Tennant, a wealthy Scotch Liberal. Mr. Asquith is a widower, and his matri monial ambitions have been constantly canvassed since his sudden rise to a political position of the first rank. Miss Tennant is one of the most strik ing personalities in London society, where she has always been one of the foremost figures; besides intellectual endowments of an exceptional order, she is an accomplished horsewoman and hunts regularly; she only the other day met with an accident in the field from which she has now almost recovered. Every one agrees that her social prestige will be of immense advantage to her future husband. The marriage will probably take place in June. Comparatively few of our great lawyers succeed in achieving much social distinction; probably one reason is that the absorbing nature of their vocation is incompatible with the exigencies of West End life; there are some exceptions however, of whom the most notable are Sir Charles Hall, the Recorder of
