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Amid cheers and stamping at this amiable retreat by the Lord High Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice rose from where he had been sitting just back of Lord Reading. "As we have agreed on what is really fundamental," he intoned with returning dignity, "let us make peace and get on with our work." In a few minutes the Lords slipped the amended bill through second reading. Then, as the House adjourned, the Lord High Chancellor, preceded by the Purse Bearer, preceded in turn by the Sergeant-at-Arms carrying the Mace, made the most unusual gesture of stopping in his tracks before the Lord Chief Justice. Impulsively Sankey held out his hand to Hewart who gripped it warmly, ended with a hearty shake the House of Lords' most painful scene in 50 years.
In England's so-called High Court of Justice the Chancery Division is headed by the Lord High Chancellor with a stipend of £6,000 per year, while the King's Bench Division is headed by the Lord Chief Justice at £8,000. Appeals from the High Court of Justice may be carried to the House of Lords which, when sitting as a Court of Appeal, has been compared to the U. S. Supreme Court. Ecclesiastical cases, however, and appeals from the highest courts of India, the Dominions and the Colonies go to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, "supreme judicial authority of the Empire." In any case it is Lord High Chancellor Sankey who pre sides, either over the House of Lords as a Court of Appeal (as Speaker of the House of Lords he gets an additional £4,000) or over the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Also, in the words of the late, great Jeremy Bentham, the Lord High Chancellor is "the chief and most constant legal adviser of the King in all matters of law . . . keeper of the great seal, a various, multifarious and indefinable office . . . the possessor of a multitude of heterogeneous scraps of power too various to be enumerated." The Lord Chief Justice of England actually presides in King's Bench division over the great majority of important cases of appeal.
Memorable was the furor year ago when Lady Hewart suddenly collapsed and died at a glittering reception given for the retiring Lord Mayor of London (TIME, Nov. 13, 1933) Widower Lord Chief Justice Hewart began his career as a reporter on London's Evening Star. Bachelor Lord High Chancellor Sankey is devoted to his sister with whom he goes on long walks and tramp ship cruises. Husband Lord Justice Slesser used to spell his name Schloesser, began life as an engineer, now hobnobs as a leading Fabian with George Bernard Shaw and has published volumes of Collected Verses (1900-32, 1933).