THE ALL SOULS' FELLOWSHIPS.
(To THE nDIT011 OF THE "Seemiroa.1 Sin,—Yon have quoted as a very sufficient reply" to my former letter an answer written to the Times by Mr. Roberts,— will you allow me to express dissent from your opinion, and to say that I regard the facts of that answer as not wholly accurate, and its reasoning as altogether inconclusive ? In the reply, there are three clauses which I will deal with. separately. It is stated,—(1) that "the Commissioners were requested to suspend the election by a large majority of the' College." Granted. But surely this only aggravates what I calls the injustice of the proceeding. The College, then, it seems, are- mainly responsible ; under no compulsion from the Commission, but spontaneously, they retract the notice which they them- selves had published. If the blame is removed from the Com- mission, it recoils with double force on the College. When their advertisement appeared in July, it was generally known that the. University Bill would become law in a month's time. Now, either this highly relevant fact completely escaped the thoughts. of the College authorities—which would be, to say the least,. strange forgetfulness—or else, in full view of the fact, they faired the notice. In so issuing the notice, either they intended to- carry it out unthinking of interference from the Commission, or else they did not intend to carry it out, calculating that the- Commission would, if petitioned, relieve them of the necessity, In the one case their action has been inconsistent, in the other- unstraightforward. Ibis perfectly obvious that the notice ought not to have been printed, if the College had no intention of abkliug, by it.
(2.) "It was well understood that the notice was provi- sional, subject to any action the Commissioners might take."' But it was not known that any action would be suggested by the College, which makes all the difference. Moreover, what is meant by the vague phrase, "well understood?" Was it so, "well understood" that to publish the notice was necessary, to- contradict it superfluous? The understanding was somewhat singularly conveyed, and clearly regarded as unimportant, if it failed to reach the persons principally concerned with it. I cannot, of course, speak for all the candidates, but some certainly were not in the secret. It would have been the simplest thing to. give them fair warning ; it is more original than right to rely on a. floating rumour for alteration in the terms of an official announce- ment.
(3.) "Vacancies are by no means always filled up," and " there- is no obligation to elect to advertised vacancies." By the strict- ness of the letter of the law, there may be no such obligation, but by the force of equity and of custom there is every obligation.
Mr. Robarts fortifies his argument by an example of non-election,. for which, by the way, he is indebted to All Souls, but with the. exception of one other case—where a college to which I have' before alluded could not find a duly qualified Welsh clergyman, with the necessary taste for seas and foreign plantations—I believe that the example quoted is a single, solitary instance. However it be, as a matter of practice, only one reason. obtains for not filling up an advertised vacancy, a reason not uncommonly tacked on to the advertisement, viz., "'the absence'. of a candidate of sufficient merit." But this contingency is so- rare as to be practically unheard of. Yet I would ask why,, supposing that after the notice there was no obligation to elect• candidates of sufficient merit, was any appeal made to the ex- ceptional powers of the Commission ? Why not allow the- candidates to go through the examination, and then refuse to- elect more than one ? Or was it to save some portion of them a railway journey, after all their lost labour ?
There are one or two minor points in Mr. Robarts's reply that may be answered. He affirms that,—(a) a Fellowship cannot be. won by three or four months' reading ; (b), it is no injury to a young want() study jurisprudence and history during that period
(c), there me no mathematical certainty that the best candidate- will be elected, My rejoinder is that, (a), All Souls' is notoriously- the one college where a fellowship can be won on three or four. months' reading, and the proof is that the successful candidates. there are often, if not most often, classical scholars, who have not been through the Law and History schools, but who, after " Greats," have devoted a short time to reading jurisprudence' and history ; (b), at the outset of a career, it may or may not be- an injury to spend some months on work with perhaps no bear- ing on that career, and beyond question it is an injury to be in- duced to do anything whatever by a promise afterwards with- holden ; (c), roughly speaking, the best candidate is or ought to be elected, but since I contend only that some indefinite two can- didates will have been unfairly treated, whether they are ideally the best or not is immaterial.
I imagine the only true reply on the whole question to be this : that while the College has not used due care in issuing the notice,. such a mistake cannot be allowed to stand in the way of Univer- sity interests, which demand a quick change in the administra, tion of the All Souls' revenues, and any little hardship inflicted on a few individuals weighs as nothing in the balance against mas- eive principles of reform. And for those who like arguments of pure expediency, such a reply will perhaps be conclusive.—I am, &c.
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