The following from Lord Granville refers to a conversation in the House of
Lords on the constitution of the Appellate Court of the Judicial Committee.
The Marquis of Salisbury had said that in his opinion it should be a court
of fixed constitution.
At present it was often difficult to discover who were the judges in the particular case. He believed the President of the Council in every case appointed the judges; but, as he understood, it was practically done by a gentleman for whom all had the greatest respect, Mr. Henry Reeve, the Registrar. This did not seem a satisfactory state of things for a tribunal dealing with matters which excited people's passions and feelings to the highest degree, and on which parties were angrily divided. Nobody conversant with the matter could harbour the unworthy suspicion that the Court was ever packed for the trial of a particular case—he had no apprehensions on that score; but it was because the action and constitution of the Court should be above all suspicion that he would urge the noble and learned lord on the woolsack to provide some fixed constitution, so that the Court should not be constituted afresh for each particular case it had to consider.
Lord Granville replied in the sense of his letter to Reeve, except that he said 'Mr. Reeve invariably consulted the Lord President, who, on some occasions, called a Cabinet Council.' The Lord President at that time was the Marquis of Ripon. Granville was followed by Lord Cairns, who said:—
He could testify from considerable experience to the way in which Mr. Reeve performed his duties. The fact was that there was a great unwillingness to attend, and undergo the great labour and responsibility of hearing important cases. Mr. Reeve, knowing this, and having an earnest desire to perform the duties of his office effectively—no public officer could discharge them better—was in the habit of making himself acquainted with the arrangements of those who might be expected to attend, with a view—not to decide who ought to attend to hear particular cases—but as to whose services were obtainable, in order that some kind of Court might be constituted…. It ought to be understood that no person had any power of selecting some and excluding others, and that the Registrar's endeavour to procure the attendance of individuals had merely arisen from anxiety lest there should be no quorum. [Footnote: Hansard, 1871, June 22nd, cols. 389-91.]
From Lord Granville
16 Bruton Street, June 23rd.—I see the report in the 'Times' is defective. I stated that the Lord President was undoubtedly responsible for all that you did. I paid a high tribute to your services to the Judicial Committee (which was cheered by the law lords); I said the difficulty was often great to collect sufficient members to attend; that you took great pains, by ascertaining the wishes and possible dates, to ensure this; that for ordinary meetings of the Court you acted on your own judgement; but that in all cases where there was a possibility of party or personal feeling being made a cause of want of confidence in the composition of the Court, you had always consulted me; and I had, on some occasions, not only consulted the Home Office, but the Cabinet, in order to do that which would ensure public confidence. I should not be sorry if you could show that I was not in the wrong. I was delighted to hear of your C.B. None could be more deserved.
The Journal records:—
July 7th.—I dined with Mrs. Grote; one of the first persons she saw after Grote's death.
8th.—A banquet was given at the Crystal Palace to the members of the Comédie Française, who had been driven over to London by the siege of Paris and the Commune.
This 'banquet' was of the nature of a lunch, beginning at two o'clock. Lord Dufferin was in the chair, supported by Lords Granville, Stanhope, Powerscourt, Lytton, Houghton, Mr. Disraeli, Tennyson, Macready, and others. When 'the desire of eating was taken away,' the chairman, speaking in French, proposed the health of the guests. M. Got responded. Horace Wigan, too, spoke; and Lord Granville, 'whose fluent command of extempore French excited general admiration,' gave 'The Health of the Chairman,' and, with a neat reference to the 'Letters from High Latitudes,' then 14, not 41 years old, said: 'L'accueil que vous avez donné à son discours doit rassurer Lord Dufferin et lui faire même oublier les succès oratoires que—Latiniste incomparable, et voué au purisme Cicéronien—il a obtenus dans les régions plus septentrionales.' To this chaff Lord Dufferin replied in English: 'Lord Granville has been good enough to allude to what he is pleased to describe as an oratorical triumph in a distant country; and I would venture to remind you—and you may take the word of an experienced person in confirmation of what I am about to say—that when anybody wishes to make a speech in a foreign language, he will find it much more easy to do so after dinner than at an early hour in the morning.'