" IN PRATO QUOD VOCATUR RUNINGMEDE."
" Data per manum nostram in prato quod vocatur Runingmede, inter Windelesorum et Stance, quinto decimo the Junin, anno regni nostri septimo decimo." *--(Text of Magna Charts, final clause.) " Fair Liberty pursued, and meant a prey To lawless power, here turn'd, and stood at bay." —(From passage in Denham's " Cowper's Hill" describing Runnymede.)
"Magna Charta is such a Fellow that he will have no Sovereign."
—LORD COKE.
" The Constitution has its political Bible, by which, if it be fairly consulted, every political question may and ought to be determined. Magna Charta, the Petition of Right, and the Bill of Rights form that code which I call the Bible of the English Comeau- tion."—EARL OF CHATHAM.
" There is then a most real and vital relationship between that striking, half-barbaric scene at Runnymede, hundreds of years before the name of America was known, and this convention of revisers of the fundamental law, assembled in the Capitol of the State of New York."—(Dn. MURRAY BUTLER'S address on Magna Charts made before the Constitutional Convention of the State of New York, Juno 15th, 1915.)
" The Great Charter is still the keystone of English liberty. All that has since been obtained is little more than as confirmation or commentary ; and if every subsequent law were to be swept away, there would still remain the bold features that distinguish a free from a despotic monarchy."—HALLAN.
THE attempt to sell Runnymede, the spot which not only Englishmen but the whole English-speaking world revere as the most sacred, the proudest, and most hallowed spot of earth in their history, is an ineptitude of officialdom which leaves one gasping.
All that the ordinary man can do is to say first that it is impossible, and then that it is " just like them." If any- thing could harden the British heart against officialism and make it more antagonistic than it is already it would be this amazing proposal to dispose of Runnymede as Lot 8 at an Auction. All through the week England has been feeling what the Vicar of Egham is alleged to have said—that if an auctioneer came down to sell Runny- mede, the people of Egham, in which parish it lies, would put him into the Thames.
But we must be fair even to the Bureaucracy. We are quite sure that nobody in the office of the Woods and Forests or the Board of Agriculture—which, by the way, was only very remotely, or rather technically, concerned through its power of veto--consciously plarmed to commit this unspeakable outrage upon the feelings of all Englishmen, all Americans, and all the inhabitants of the Dominions. The Commissioners are men of culture and good sense, and possess historical English names and English hearts. A similar plea of innocence of inten- tion must be granted in the case of the permanent officials from the chiefs of sections to the humblest clerk in the office. Yet such is the force of officialism that the minds of all concerned in the proposed sale appear to have been petrified. They were unable to regard Runnymede as anything more than so many acres of pasture land situated in the parish of Egham. It was nothing to them that the barons held their armed assembly on the mead—an assembly where the Lord Mayor of London and the Archbishop of Canterbury met the feudal nobility on equal terms, supported by bands of free tenants deter- mined to see that every right gained by the King's men against the King should be gained also by the barons' men against the barons. It was nothing to the gentleman who gave the order for Lot 8 to be put up to auction that it was on the very spot " now offered for sale " that, in Denham's noble words, Liberty turn'd and stood at bay. It was nothing.to them that the great green pasture by the Thames is so closely associated with the foremost event in the history of English freedom that the words Magna Charts and Runnymede are hardly mentioned apart.
Still more strange, they seem to have been unable to rise even to the height reached by the Parliamentary draftsmen in the year 1814. In that year the Egham Commons Inclosure Act was passed. The Act expressly provides that Runnymede and Longmead " shall remain at all times hereafter open and unmclosed." That, of course, does not make the ground legally unsaleable. You can sell a place subject to public rights ; but the • We hare purposely adopted the historical sad illogical half-Latin. haN- English bona "Magee Chaeta." draftsmen of a hundred and seven years ago evidently had far more feeling about history than have the officials of to-day. They recognized that it would never do to keep the English people away from " those blessed acres " where their liberty had been " signed, sealed, and delivered." We must assume that the officials in the Commissioners' Office had the Act of 1814 before them. But, in that case, how was it that the provision just quoted did not serve as " a pointer " and make them say : " That's queer. Why were they so extra particular about these meadows ? We'd better perhaps look into that. Besides, I am sure I've heard that word Runnymede before. It seems somehow familiar."
In truth, it is the hopeless, helpless, and inadvertent crime of the decision to put up Runnymede to public auction that most fills one with terror. If such things as this can be done, who is to prevent somebody some day inadvert- ently selling Westminster Hall or the Tower, or parts of them, as a large quantity of carved and other stones, situated within easy distance of the Thames and with unrivalled access, some much damaged ; the whole to be disposed of without reserve"? We shall be condemned for exaggeration, but really it would not take any larger dose of indifference to our history to sell the Hall of Rufus or Caesar's Tower than to sell Runnymede.
In distributing the blame for this perilous and spectacular inadvertence, we desire to condemn very strongly any attempt to saddle Lord Lee with a portion of the responsibility. To do that would be most unfair. Lord Lee is asserted, we know not whether on sure grounds or not, to have been Minister of Agriculture when the decision to sell was taken by the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. Be that as it may, we are convinced that Lord Lee was never a participant in this ineptitude. We have seen no statement by Lord Lee on this matter, but we nevertheless feel perfectly safe in declaring that he had nothing to do with sanctioning the sale. Is it likely that he would act such a part ? He, remember, is the man who has set us all an admirable example in public service by giving the nation the historical house of Chequers— one of the most beautiful as well as, owing to its con- nexion with Hampden and Cromwell, one of the most historical houses in England. Is he the kind of man who would have deliberately joined in an attempt to deprive us of the physical possession of Runny- mede, now part of the demesne of the Crown ? Lord Lee will, we feel sure, do nothing to save himself by giving away his subordinates at the Board of Agriculture, presuming they possessed a veto over the sale and refused to use it ; but it will take a new Magna Charta to make us believe that he had the matter brought before him, con- sidered it, and then deliberately decided it was quite a right and proper thing to sell Runnymede. What renders the whole of this bungled business trebly inept is the fact that at this very moment a great move- ment is taking place throughout the English-speaking world for making Magna Charta day—that is, June lbth- the day on which the whole English-speaking race shall be united in the solemn celebration of the laying of the corner- stone of their liberties. Though the fact has been hitherto ignored by the general public, and noted only by historians and lawyers, Magna Charts is our racial bond of union. The constitutions of the English-speaking nations rise separate and apart like a series of giant mountain peaks. But the chain of rock out of which each peak grows is the Magna Charts. This is not rhetoric or sentiment. It is hard legal fact. Magna Charts is accepted in every court of the realm of England. It has always been held to be a part of our Common Law. It is not a statute, though it has the force of a statute. In a sense, indeed, it is of greater force than a statute, though we admit that in England its clauses are repealable by statute. Just in the same way Magna Charts is part of the law of the United States. The Common Law of England is part of the law of the United States, and therefore so is Magna Charta. The same can be said of the greater number of the State Constitutions and of the law adminis- tered in the courts of those States. We are not learned enough in American jurisprudence to say exactly in what State courts Magna Charts would not be quotable, but if we may hazard a guess, we should say that it could only be „ in Louisiana, and possibly in Florida and New Mexico, that is, in the States of French and Spanish origin. Again, Ft is possible that in the Dominion of Canada and in the Union of South Africa even the Courts of Appeal would hot technically be bound by the clauses of Magna Charta. In Australia and New Zealand, however, and in any colony in which the Common Law is binding, Magna Charta is of course supreme, unless deliberately " in part repealed."
The strength of feeling in America in regard to the setting aside of June 15th as Magna Charts. Day and having simul- taneous annual celebrations may be seen by consulting the files of the Landmark, the organ of the English-speaking Union. The proposal has been taken in hand by that most vigorous and useful body, and we.are sure that it will have the support of every other society and organization in the kingdom which is working for a good understanding with America. How strong the movement has become in America may be seen from a perfectly admirable address on Magna Charts which was delivered by Dr. Murray Butler, President of Columbia University, in 1915, an address which is republished in a memorable volume of essays entitled Is America Worth Saving ? (Fisher Unwin, 10s. 6d. net) reviewed by us in this issue. The place at which the address was given on the seven hundredth anniversary of the signing of the great Charter was intensely appropriate. It was the Assembly Chamber at Albany. Albany may be said to stand in about the same relation to that vast, turbulent, and tumultuous city of the sea, New York, as in the old days did " the meadow called Runnymede " to the proud city on the tide waters of the Thames. The passage in which Dr. Murray Butler began his address is so picturesque and so full of deep historic feeling that we cannot do better than use it to end our chapter of amazement at the action of the beaureau- crats of England. Though democrats, we prefer the barons, and are almost tempted to say that we prefer King John :— " This day seven hundred years ago that monarch whom John Richard Green has called the ablest and most ruthless of the Angevin rode out from Windsor Castle, followed by a group of retainers and dependents, to meet the assembled barons of England. They gathered with their knights some two thousand strong, with Robert Fitzwalter as marshal at their head. The place chosen for the meeting was within easy eyeshot of Windsor Castle, and had been for generations a favourite meeting-place of kings in council. Runnymede—which is Running-Mede, a meadow of council—was in 1215 already a memorable spot. Here under an ancient and venerated oak, whose boughs and branches had looked down upon the ceremonies of Druids, at a spot where the valley of the Thames widens out to tempt the traveller's eye with its quiet beauty, the Saxon kings had been wont to gather their people about them to discuss questions of more than usual importance. One likes to think that the assembly of wise men, the Witenagemot—the elder statesmen of that day—had more than once gathered at Runnymede under its spreading oak. There perhaps an Alfred, an Athelstan, or an Edgar had sat in royal state to take counsel for the people of Saxon England."
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