ON THE DISLIKE OF LAWYERS


"I have spent a large part of my life in advising business men how to get
out of their difficulties," said Mr. Asquith the other day. It was a
statement wrung from him by a deputation which was inflicting on him the
familiar talk about lawyers and the need of "business men" to run our
affairs. I suppose there has been no more banal cackle in this war than the
cackle about a "business Government" and the pestilence of lawyers.

I am not a lawyer, and have no particular affection for lawyers. I keep out
of their professional reach as much as possible. But it is as foolish to
ban them as a class as it would be to assume that a grocer or a tailor is a
great statesman because he is a successful grocer or tailor. Running an
empire is quite a different job from running a grocery establishment, and
it is folly to suppose that because a man has been successful in buying and
selling bacon and butter for his own profit he can _ipso facto_ govern a
nation with wisdom and prudence. Who are the most distinguished grocers of
to-day? They are Lord Devonport and Sir Thomas Lipton. Both excellent men,
I've no doubt. But would you like to hand over the Premiership to either of
them? Now, would you?

The great statesman has to prove himself a great statesman just as the
great grocer has to prove himself a great grocer. He has to prove it by the
qualities of statesmanship exercised in the full glare of publicity. If the
grocer makes a howler in his trade the world knows nothing about it. If the
statesman makes a howler all the world knows about it. He has to emerge to