The Bulletin’s Day Book

The Marquess of Reading, active now in the appeal of the British Central Relief Fund to aid German Jewish refugees, is the subject of an important biographical work, “Lord Reading and his Cases,” which is arousing considerable interest in England.

In discussing Lord Reading’s career at the bar, the London Morning Post declares of him: “He was never merely Mr. Legality. He plied a forensic rapier with exquisite skill, and was more than a match for the axe-wielders…. He was able in the end to justify the saying of the late Lord Birkenhead in a rectorial address: ‘The world still holds glittering prizes for those whose courage is high and whose sword are sharp.'”

Derek Walker-Smith, author of the book, expresses surprise at not having found “a single case of his (Reading’s) having had a serious clash in court either with counsel, witness, or judge.” Commenting on this statement E. S. P. Haynes, writing in the New Statesman and Nation, says “presumably he has never seen Lord Reading in court. If he had, he would not have been surprised.

“I remember more than thirty years ago introducing Mr. Rufus Isaacs into the Chancery Division for purposes of cross examination,” he continues. “In those days the academic atmosphere of the Chancery Division was even more pronounced than it is now, and there were particular King’s Counsel appropriated to each judge. The Chancery judge in this instance was visibly ruffled when he saw Mr. Isaacs appear in his court and the famous Common Law advocate had scarcely uttered a sentence before the judge barked out, ‘Mr. Isaacs, you are not addressing a Common Jury.’

“Instantaneously the Court became like a Bateman drawing, for Mr. Isaac’s head appeared to be in the roof of the Court and the judge to be sinking below the level of his desk. ‘I do not understand,’ said Mr. Isaacs, ‘what can have elecited such an observation from your Lordship.’ This was an un-expected instance of amazing dignity. The intelligent Jew has many excellent qualities; but the power of quelling impolite judges is not usually one of them.”

Walker-Smith, himself, sums up the factors leading to Reading’s great success in the following:

“The success is undoubted; but how was it achieved? We have seen something of the armory of his equipment, of its strength and its limitations. He had not the dominating personality of a Carson, the soaring eloquence of a Marshall Hall, the profound learning of a Sumner, nor the masterly invective of an F. E. Smith. What, then, was his secret? He had all the quieter attributes of success. Learned in law, quick and resourceful in argument, penetrative in cross-examination, he had the indispensable adjuncts of forensic success. In addition, he was possessed of a memory quite out of the ordinary and a capacity to unravel and elucidate the intricate mysteries of figures which was unrivalled; in cases like the Whittaker Wright case he was in a class by himself.

“To these qualities he added a strength supple and resilient rather than forceful and assertive, and an unvarying self-discipline…. With Rufus Isaacs it was in the Courts as in his conduct of life; he did not challenge; he charmed. And, as a result, opposition did not yield–it did not have to; it simply dissolved.”