experience where a private member, surprised at getting first place in the ballot, adopted a friend’s suggestion to attempt a long-needed practical reform.  The subject has too much technical difficulty to be explained here, but the Bill was drafted in an hour or two, passed the House of Commons early one afternoon without alteration, and the House of Lords with slight verbal changes.  It became law in two or three weeks, and the Act is now used with beneficial results in the Courts almost daily.  A real injustice was prevented and practical inconvenience removed, but the measure was nearly wrecked by some theorists who wished to extend the principle of the Bill logically, as they said, but in a manner which would have made it virtually unworkable, without benefit to a single human being.  A small matter, but instructive.

Much may be learned from the procedure of Grand Committees.  In some, at least, the average length of speeches is about three minutes, and they are confined to the definite point in hand.  Members vote according to their view of the merits, knowing what they are voting about, and may defeat the Government without causing a political crisis.  A case has occurred where the representative of the Government, who knew little of the subject in question, was left in a minority of one against a solid vote of the rest of the Committee.  “Downstairs” the point might have been decided the other way by a score or two of members rushing in, as Sir George Trevelyan once described it, “between two mouthfuls of soup,” asking, “Are we Ayes or Noes?” and shepherded into a division lobby accordingly.

Another step needed to aid Law Reform would be the appointment of a Minister of Justice, whose business it would be to consider proposed reforms, to see that they were put into proper shape and to assist in getting them passed.  The same Minister might have the duty of attending to arrangements for the convenient and prompt administration of justice, but should have no judicial functions of any kind and should not interfere in any way with the action of the Courts.  It is impossible to guard too jealously against substituting decisions of any department of Government for the law of the land as declared and administered by the regular Courts of Justice.  Mr. Samuel Garrett, the President of the Law Society, dealt with the question very fully in January, 1918, in an address which has since been published.  We may view the establishment of another new Ministry with something like horror, but a strong case is made out for it here.  Definite functions are suggested for such a Ministry, and it is probable that it might in the long run save expense as well as promote efficiency.  Mr. Garrett very forcibly says: 

“Law Reform hangs fire for want of an officer of State armed with the power of conducting the necessary inquiries and investigations, and supplying the necessary driving force to initiate and prepare the requisite legislative measures and to pass them through Parliament, and with strength to overcome the vis inertiae of a preoccupied and ill-informed public and the active opposition of vested interests.  Without such an officer the cause of reform is hopeless.”  It is now and in the immediate future that such reform is, and will be, most pressing.  A reformed is naturally also a reforming Parliament as it was after 1832.