Lord Carson
THE publication of Edward Marjoribanks' uncompleted life of Lord Carson deepens the regret so widely felt at the tragic and untimely death of the author. He had brought his task to the point in 1910 when Carson had been offered, and had accepted, the leadership of the Ulster party, and when, as a consequence, his career as an advocate became subordinate to that of the statesman. The book, therefore, has a certain finality, and Lord Hailsham has done wisely in publishing it, leaving the material which Marjoribanks had collected for the later phase of the work for other hands to use.
In the circumstances it is natural that the main interest of the book is legal rather than political. Following the method he adopted in his popular life of Marshall Hall, the author uses his subject as a vehicle through which to re-tell the story of the famous trials in which Carson was engaged as an advocate, from that of the Barbavilla crime in West Meath to the memorable action of the late Lord Leverhulme against the - Daily Mail. Marjoribanks had a conspicuous gift of narrative, and nothing could be better than the skill with which he recreates the atmosphere of the Oscar Wilde trial, the Archer- Shee case and the encounters with Havelock-Wilson, Ben Tillett and W. S. Gilbert. He is frankly a hero-worshipper, and Carson stalks through the pages as a sort of heavy-weight champion of the law courts by whom rival counsel are cowed, juries are hypnotized and even judges on the Bench are not seldom reduced to silence. Sir Edward Clarke, Rufus Isaacs, C. F. Gill and other famous advocates, all seem awed by this formidable man and go down like ninepins before his terrific onset. The pages are littered with this sort of thing : " Carson looked mournfully at the jury ; with his sad dignity, he seemed to be like a recording angel." " Carson became stern once again, and, like a figure of justice itself, he rose to his great height in righteous indignation." Whether he is for the criminal or against him, he is represented, not as an advocate arguing from a brief for a vulgar fee, but as a symbol of almost divine justice wringing verdicts from the hushed men in the jury box and shy encomiums from the timorous judge on the Bench.
No one stands in less need of this ecstatic idolatry than Lord Carson. His fame as one of the greatest advocates in the history of the bar is established, and his genius in cross-exam- ination was equalled only by that of Russell. He was not a great lawyer, and had few claims to eloquence ; but his mind went with deadly certainty to the core of the issue, and his strokes were sudden and devastating. There was in him a daemonic quality, both in the law courts and in Parliament, that gave him a power altogether independent of word or action. Whether he spoke or was silent, you could not be indifferent to him. The long, lean figure, the hatchet face with its heavily lidded and dreamy eyes, grim mouth and pugnacious chin, the sorrowful countenance, the rich brogue and the air of brooding aloofness all contributed to make his were personality a force to be reckoned with. There was about him the sense of an impending storm, which was none the less formidable because it did not break. For though he was ruthless and could be even brutal, he was never temper. tuous. His effects were calculated, and there was behind hits the feeling of a reserve of power which he had no need to call into play.
It was a saying of Carlyle that a barrister is a loaded blunder- buss : if you hire it you blow out the other man's brains ; if he hires it he blows out yours. Judged by his victories, Carson was the most deadly blunderbuss of his time, though I think the author is apt to attribute the victories too exclu- sively to his genius. It is not true, for example, that he destroyed • his old Trinity classmate, Oscar Wilde. Wilde destroyed himself. In the early part of the two days' duel Wilde was easily Carson's master. But he was doomed to defeat, not by the skill of the counsel, but by the appalling facts which, unknown to him, were in the possession of Carson.
With all that Mr. Marjoribanks says of the high professional standards set by Carson and his personal charm there will be agreement in informed circles. He had a fine sense of duty to his client. He would only take one case at a time, and did not indulge in the heinous practice of lending his name for large fees while leaving the work to juniors. He was generous in his acknowledgements to his younger brethren at the bar— a characteristic I have often heard contrasted with the habit of some of the most conspicuous of his contemporaries—and he did not exclude the humanities from his professional interest. There is no more moving story in the book than the magnificent battle he fought for a boy of fifteen, young Archer-Shee, who he thought had been wronged, and whose reputation he cleared before the lad died in the war.
Of the political phase of his career there is not much to say here. Mr. Marjoribanks passionately denounces the charge, which Mr. Devlin made in the House of Commons, that Carson turned his political coat because he was " on the make "—a phrase which Carson had just before applied to Mr. Churchill. He admits, of course, that he began life as a Radical. He is on the paternal side the grandson of an Italian architect, Carsoni, who settled in Dublin, and on the maternal a descen- dant of Cromwell's general, Lambert. His early career at the Irish bar was associated with the defence of the physical force prisoners, and it was not until Balfour became Irish Secretary and he was appointed Crown Prosecutor that he became con- spicuous on the other side. Moreover, he joined the National Liberal Club after Gladstone had introduced his first Home Rule Bill, and did not resign his membership until eighteen months later, by which time Balfour was at the Irish Office. This, of course, is not evidence that he was ever a Home Ruler, and Mr. Marjoribanks' denial that he ever was is emphatic, and should be final. But the facts are relevant to a genesis of the one personal force which the Ulster movement threw up, and encourage speculation as to the probable course of history had Carson thrown his powerful advocacy on the other side.
A. G. GARDINER.
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