In Lord Maugham the House of Lords gets the most
exclusively legal Lord Chancellor it has had, I should think, since the days of Lord Cranworth, before the Crimean War. The least political appointment was Lord Sankey's in 1929, but Lord Sankey, though he had never sat in either House, had interested himself considerably in public affairs, par- ticularly ecclesiastical affairs, and had commended himself considerably to the Labour Party by his chairmanship of the Coal Commission of 1919. Lord Maugham, since the days when he was known as a great sportsman, has confined himself to being a great lawyer. He will certainly discharge the legal side of a Lord Chancellor's duties with distinction and as keeper of the King's conscience he will be unexcep- tionable. But the House of Lords is, after all, a political Chamber, and it is rather a doubtful compliment to it to appoint as its chief officer and member a man whose interests have always been rather conspicuously other than political. * * * *
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