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Warming to his accusations, Lord Chief Justice Hewart continued: "Last week Lord Justice Slesser came to me in a state of agitation. He told me he had been informed by the Master of the Rolls that he was not to preside in Appeal Court No. 2 and that, lest he should preside, the composition of both appeal courts would be varied [by the Sankey bill] contrary to the practice of the last 60 years."
Gripping the bench in front of him, Lord Hewart wrathfully went on: "I replied to Lord Justice Slesser that, as the permanent head of the Judiciary of this country. I could not advise him. but I could tell him what I would do if I was faced with any such menace—I WOULD DECLINE TO SIT! "Where is this sort of thing to end?" concluded the Lord Chief Justice, shaking an accusing forefinger at the Lord High Chancellor. "Where is it to end, My Lords? Will someone tell me one day that they are going to have a new revenue judge because they do not like the way the old one decides his cases or because they do not agree with his views? Disgraceful! We in the law courts have nothing to do with political views. My friend Lord Justice Slesser holds some opinions with which I profoundly disagree, but he is a judge in whom I—at any rate—have complete confidence, a scholar and a lawyer. . . . The proposed bill would put Justice at the mercy of party whips. Intolerable, My Lords'! Unfair to the bench, unfair to the bar, unfair to the public!"
This onslaught left the House of Lords gaping and gasping. "I had nothing to do with drafting the obnoxious clause," bleated the Master of the Rolls, Baron Hanworth of Hanworth, onetime High Steward of Stratford-on-Avon and President of the Magna Charta Society.
Three days later His Majesty's Government girded themselves to reply to the Lord Chief Justice, sent in as their champion the Lord High Chancellor.
This time it was fat Baron Hewart who wore a contemptuous, judicial smile, while lean Viscount Sankey, in defending the Government against charges of attempting to rig Justice, shouted, "Moonshine! Moonshine!! MOONSHINE!!!"
How long such tirades might have continued had not Rufus Daniel Isaacs been in the House is conjectural. This Jew of Jews, this Disraelian paragon of Empire, the great Marquess of Reading, was Lord Chief Justice of England (1913-21), be fore he became High Commissioner and Special Envoy to borrow wartime millions in the U. S. through J. P. Morgan ;; Co. Gently interposing last week, Rufus Daniel Isaacs proposed to rephrase the offending clause, "so that it should not operate to the prejudice of anybody now a Lord Justice."
This would fix up Hewart's friend Slesser, and Hewart showed by his expression that he would assent. Sankey, in vast relief, snatched off his full wig, wiped his perspiring brow and exclaimed : "Lord Reading's suggestion saves everybody's face."