In a high room overlooking Downing Street sit six solemn men at a
table piled with books.
I recognize Lord X. and Lord Y. and Lord Z. diligently reading,
saying "Ha!" or "Hum!" or looking grave, or reflectively wiping the
lenses of their spectacles. Two attendants in evening dress, like a
couple of lost waiters, tip-toe round the apartment pulling out more
books from the well-stocked walls to place before their omniverous
lordships. The room is carpeted with maroon felt, a few portraits in
oils gaze down on the assembly with polite indifference; and there
are four fire-places set in squares of veined marble. The
furnishings resemble those of ideal offices in the "efficiency first"
advertisements: the inkpots are bigger and more efficient-looking
than ordinary inkpots, the desks are more prairie-like in size than
common desks, and the chairs more comfortable than less exalted
chairs.
Yes; but what is happening? I would think if I did not know that a
millionaire's will was being read in a country house library. A few
barristers in wigs and gowns sit quietly reading as if they were in
chambers. Facing the peers is a barrister standing at a little
reading-desk, and in the comfortable hush his crisp voice goes on and
on. An attendant discreetly feeds one of the four fires, pokes a
second, looks critically at a third; one of the peers calls for yet
another book ... the Voice goes on and on and on....
This is the highest court in the British Empire. Behind that door in
the corner is, theoretically, the King. The Voice that goes on and
on is speaking on the steps of the throne. This is a sitting of the
Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
Whenever that old cry, "I appeal to Cæsar!" goes up in any part of
the Empire this room becomes busy. In this room the last word is
given on legal differences throughout the Empire. If the courts in
Australia cannot satisfy someone about his right-of-way the trouble
is smoothed out once and for all here in Downing Street. If there is
a row in Canada about mining rights, in New Zealand about water
supply, in India about delicate matters of caste, or even--as in a
case coming on soon--about a contract for the supply of ground nuts,
the Privy Councillors hear it on behalf of the King and give their
final and irrevocable verdict.
This room is the final appeal for four hundred million British
subjects, or nearly a third of the human race. Legal controversies
over eleven million square miles--and strangely, throughout the
Church in this country--are settled here. Its decisions go to the
uttermost ends of the earth. No court in the world has ever had so
wide a jurisdiction.
When I walked in, the two attendants looked up curiously at me, for a
strange face is a novelty. The highest court in the Empire, although
it is as public as the Law Courts, seldom attracts a visitor.
I sit down in a kind of superior pew. Behind me are shelved the
legal records of Canada, a library in themselves. "Revised Statutes
of Nova Scotia," I read. "Quebec Revised Statutes," "New Brunswick
Acts," "Laws of P. E. Island," "Revised Statutes of Alberta," and so
on--the ideal bedside library! "Canada," however, is not the
official title: the Dominion laws are catchlined "North America."
Opposite are the laws of India, Australia; and so on throughout the
Empire.
* * *
What do litigants in distant parts of the earth think of this room?
Surely they imagine the King's Privy Council sitting robed as peers
in the neighbourhood of a stained glass window, trailing ermine
sleeves over richly carved chairs, light falling on coronets, with
perhaps the King, in full Garter robes, dropping in to see how things
are going on!
Nothing of the kind! The highest court in the Empire sits in less
state than a police court. There is no jury and no impassioned Law
Court rhetoric. Counsel leans over his little reading-desk and talks
to their lordships in a quiet, conversational voice. It is more like
a directors' meeting than an Empire's appeal court. I half expect
someone to rise and declare a dividend!
"And now," says the Voice in the quiet tone of a secretary reading an
annual report, "I would like your lordships to look at page four
hundred and two."
Their lordships comply.
What strange things go on here! One day they discuss an obscure
passage in the Koran, the next they are debating the inner meaning of
the Hedaya. When they deal with South Africa's Roman-Dutch law they
bandy the names of Grotius and Vinnius, authorities the Law Courts
never hear!
Stranger things than this happen. Did you know that in parts of the
British Empire the old French law, long expelled from France, lives
on, regulating men's lives. Appeals from Mauritius and the
Seychelles Islands refer to the Code Napoleon! When Quebec submits
its troubles to London this room hears, like an echo from long ago,
mention of the ancient Custom of Paris; and the two men in evening
dress go tip-toeing round the room to look over the shelves for
Beaumanoir and Dumoulin!
Just think of that!
* * *
As I creep away from the Privy Council, feeling that it is one of the
most wonderful places in London, that Voice goes on and on, quiet,
conversational, and--the echo will be heard in Bombay!