* * * * The Lord Chief Justice and Electoral
Reform In the House of Commons on Monday Mr. Baldwin moved the adjournment of the House in order to discuss the nomination by the Liberals of the Lord Chief Justice as a member of the Electoral Reform Conference. He argued that no high judicial authority ought to figure as a party nominee. Mr. Lloyd George replied for the Liberals that Lord Hewart had been nominated on the assumption that the inquiry would be non-political—like the Speaker's Conference ; and he then brought the debate to a sudden end by announcing that Lord Hewart had withdrawn his name. The Times of Wednesday published a letter from Lord Hewart in which he stated that he had withdrawn solely to preserve harmony, but that he could in no way admit that the position of the Lord Chief Justice was analogous to that of a High Court Judge who had previously sat in the House of Commons. He held that as a peer of the United Kingdom he had not only the right but the duty to give his advice when invited to do so on such a subject as electoral reform. He is demonstrably right if his writ of summons to the House of Lords means anything, but we should prefer any mistakes to be on the right side—the right side being always the complete detachment of the judiciary from politics.
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