The wills of public men are matters of legitimate public
interest, but it has always to be remembered that dispositions made some years before death may have considerably diminished the amounts returned for probate. Scholars do not commonly acquire wealth; it is not therefore particularly surprising that Lord Lindsay of Birker's will should have been proved at little more than £5,000. Sir Stafford Cripps, who is shown to have left something over £15,000, was credited with high earnings at the Bar. But he gave up legal work many years ago, and he had been a generous supporter of various causes—sometimes political, like the part he played in financing Tribune—all his life. There is more satisfaction in gifts during lifetime than in bequests after death, so long as dependants are adequately provided for, and that question hardly arises in Sir Stafford's case.
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