Chapter VII: Part 7

But anyone can see for himself in this one little matter of entrances how slovenly the modern writer can be. If you turn to Mr. Galsworthy’s “Joy,” the play is opened without any effort being made to tell you the names and identities of the people on the stage; so, too, I remember, in the first act of the “Silver Box,” Mr. and Mrs. Borthwick discourse amusingly about politics without disclosing who they are. No doubt these little mysteries are easily solved by the regular up-to-date theatregoer armed with a programme, but the absence of the information irritates some of the duller members of the audience, and the play suffers. Mr. Granville Barker, in “Waste,” opens his piece with a room containing five ladies and one gentleman. He does not disclose you an identity by name for twelve lines, and Mr. Walter Kent, one of the characters, is not introduced by name until some nine pages of very clever dialogue have been spoken.

No one supposes that Mr. Galsworthy or Mr. Barker could not put these little matters right somehow, though they could not do it with the craftsmanship of Pinero or Shakespeare. Unfortunately they seem to have a very real contempt for the minor details of the playwright’s business, which prevents the full effect of their literary gifts being appreciable in a theatre. Mr. Galsworthy, it is very pleasant to notice, is growing out of these ways somewhat, and will probably, as his knowledge of the stage increases, come to respect its old world characteristics, and recognise that they are permanent, fixed, and unalterable. In his love of pantomime and the exhibition of real things on the stage, he has the true playwright’s instinct. His real police courts, real prisons, and real boardrooms are admirable, and he is on the verge of understanding the true gospel of the playwright according to Vincent Crummles, manager, who really knew all about it from the Shakespearean standpoint.

Of course, this little matter of opening a play and designing an entrance for a character is only one of many simple matters that a good workman or “wright” has to attend to, but it is a very important one, and sufficiently illustrative of the difference between good and bad craftsmanship. To extend the theme by citing further instances of elementary rules broken and followed would be to commence an essay on the construction of plays. But to anyone who wishes to pursue the matter, it is curiously entertaining to see how in all essential things the actor-playwright is invariably the better craftsman than the literary man who commences dramatist. Mr. McEvoy, one of our most interesting modern dramatists, who has still perhaps something of the craft to learn, writes in a spirit of noble optimism: “I, as a dramatist, who knows how to do things the right way, mainly because I never had to unlearn how to do them wrong,” in a few words, expresses the attitude of the dramatist of to-day towards the experience of centuries in the craft of playwriting. No one doubts that Mr. McEvoy and others may help a little in the evolution of the stage, but they lessen their chances of success by the belief so piously held nowadays that there is nothing to be learned from the playwrights that have gone before. It was reckoned a mad conceit that prompted Walt Whitman to sing:

“I conn’d old times
I sat studying at the feet of the great masters
Now if eligible O that the great masters might return and study me.”

The modern genius finds nothing to study in the old masters, and if they, poor fellows, were now eligible to return and study our world of genius, I fear they would lack even the courtesy of an invitation box.

It is a pity that it should be so, but for my part I think it is only a temporary matter, and that, like all other things connected with the stage, it will work itself out under the wholesome discipline of the Box Office. A man who will not learn some of the elementary rules of playwriting must ultimately become too expensive for the most patient patron. Nor should we blame the literary man who turns dramatist very severely because he has a contempt for the craft of the playwright. He was born for higher things. His journalist friends proclaim the value of his ideas, and the literary expression of them in his play, and it is only the carelessness of the players and the stupidity of the playgoers that hinder his success. It is all to the good for the stage that men of education and intellect should be players, and that good artists should be scene painters, but no one who is a player or a painter expects to succeed in his stage work without learning the rules of the game. Why should a literary man despise the craft of the playwright when he seeks to earn his wages as a craftsman?

There is nothing new in this distaste of a literary man for the baser duties of playwriting. Bulwer Lytton, who, whatever we may think of his literary qualities, had undeniable talent as a playwright, discovered when he wrote “The Duchess de la Vallière” the interesting fact that playwriting was a special craft and that “dramatic construction and theatrical effect” were mysteries to be mastered. “I felt,” he writes in his preface to the _Lady of Lyons_, “that it was in this that a writer accustomed to the narrative class of composition would have the most faults to learn and unlearn. Accordingly, it was to the development of the plot and the arrangement of the incidents I directed my chief attention, and I sought to throw whatever belongs to poetry less into the diction and the ‘felicity of words’ than into the construction of the story, the creation of the characters and the spirit of the pervading sentiment.”

Genius will shrug his shoulders at the name of Bulwer Lytton, but as a playwright two things are worth remembering about him—first, that in modern phrase he “got there,” and, second, that “he remains.” And if genius desires to write plays with a view to “getting there” and “remaining,” after the manner of Bulwer Lytton and other greater men who have stooped to the craft, let genius seriously consider whether, in his own interests as well as in the interests of the harmless necessary playgoer, it is not worth while to learn the rules of the game and commence playwright.

ADVICE TO YOUNG ADVOCATES.

Here in the street poor Juvenis
May raise his head and proudly trudge
Alongside Judex—judicis
The Third Declension—Judge.

_Pater’s Book of Rhymes._

In England the legal profession has two branches. There is also the root of the matter, but that is seldom referred to. These two branches are called—(i.) The Upper Branch, and (ii.) The Lower Branch. In great affairs the Lower Branch tells the Upper Branch what it has learned about the case from the client, and the Upper Branch tells the Court what it remembers of what it has been told by the Lower Branch. The advantage of retaining these separate branches is that where error occurs it is difficult to assign responsibility therefor. The Upper Branch learns advocacy by passing examinations and eating dinners; the Lower Branch by means of further and better examinations and fewer dinners. Those rules of advocacy that have not been learned by that method are acquired afterwards, if at all, by practical experience in the Courts of Law at the expense of the client.

To offer advice to members of the Upper Branch of the Profession on the Art of Advocacy would be unseemly, and these hints are intended—merely as suggestions made in the friendliest spirit—for the Law Student of the Lower Branch who proposes to take up advocacy in those inferior Courts which are open to him. Long experience of sitting as Judge in an inferior Court has led me to believe that it is not necessary or convenient that the advocacy should also be inferior, and I humbly commend this point of view to the younger members of both branches of the Profession.

Perhaps the most important Court from the young solicitor’s point of view is the County Court. A solicitor is allowed to act for a client in a County Court. When he is acting he has what is called a right of audience. This does not mean that all he says will be listened to by the audience, even if it be uttered in an audible voice. Moreover, the advocate’s right of audience must not be confounded with the rights of the audience themselves, who are always entitled to leave the Court if they are bored. For this purpose the Judge is not “audience.” He is bound to go on sitting, and ought to listen. The commission of Judge is _oyer_ and _terminer_, but in actual practice in County Courts you will find that Judges are more ready to dispense justice _terminando_ than _audiendo_.

Law students who have afterwards risen to eminence in their profession have sought to practise advocacy in their earlier years by making appearances at the local Police Courts as defendants. Much of the law of the motor-car may be learned in this matter—and much that is not law. The young enthusiast will find, I fear, that the method is an expensive one, the legal educational value of the magistrate’s _dicta_ is slight, and the opportunities allowed by the magistrate’s clerk to the defendant for the practice of advocacy wholly unsatisfying.

Even in later life the young solicitor is not advised to begin his career as an advocate in the Police Courts. Criminals have very little cash, and ought not to receive much credit. As to licensing matters, these are wisely placed in the hands of matured and experienced advocates. A licensing Bench has always made up its mind—which is divided into two parts—long before the case is called on, and the advocate’s duty is to say nothing that could conceivably disturb the considered judgment of the Court. This is a delicate task not often entrusted to beginners, and although it is well worth while to study the technic of some of the masters of the game, yet it is to be remembered that only with a licensing Bench, and perhaps before some of the more remote Ecclesiastical Courts, is this style of advocacy required. The young solicitor will probably find more scope for his abilities as an advocate in the County Court than before any other tribunal. The Judges of these Courts are far more tolerant of advocacy and less dogmatic on legal questions than lay Magistrates, and are neither as omnipotent nor as omnivorous as Magistrates’ Clerks.

Thus much for advocacy in general. “I will now,” as Lord Chesterfield says, “consider some of the various modes and degrees of it.” I assume that you are a young solicitor entrusted by some hopeful and friendly client with a County Court Action. Your first duty as a solicitor advocate is to get something on account of costs. Do not omit this common opening. A gambit here is a mistake. The fact of your client being a personal friend makes it the more necessary. Many a friendship has not survived a fourteen days’ order to pay a debt and costs. This sum on account may prove your real and only solace (_solatium_) when you hear the judgment.

Always consider yourself before your client. Your client is here to-day and gone to-morrow, whilst you, I hope, may remain. Proper pride will instinctively teach you when to consider your own interests rather than your client’s. Remember Bacon’s saying that “Affected dispatch is one of the most dangerous things to business that can be.” All dispatch is indeed alien to the interests of your profession, whether affected or otherwise, but there are many forms of affectation which you will find useful to your advancement. I would not have you pretend to forget the names of the earlier cases you obtain, though I do not advise you to take cognisance of the Court number of your case. If you knew this it would save the Court officials trouble, and they are paid to take trouble. Later in life you will find it well to call the Defendant by the Plaintiff’s name and _vice versa_. It suggests to the Court and the audience that you have too many cases to attend to, though it will not gratify your particular client.

In examining a witness, never let him tell his own story in his own way. Many a case is lost by this. The leading question is a sign of ripe advocacy. But do not overdo it; remember over-ripeness is rotten. The seniors at the Bar are called “leaders” from their habit of using this form of question unless restrained by quasi-physical violence. Cross-examination is not merely the art of making the witness cross. If your opponent’s witness proves nothing against your client, cross-examine vigorously. By this means the truth is often brought out and justice is done. During your cross-examination notice carefully whether the Judge is taking a note of the answers you are obtaining, or writing letters. In either case do not prolong your cross-examination, for if the latter it is useless trouble, and if the former it is probable you are eliciting answers that will be used against you. In re-examination, endeavour to lead your witness once more through his proof. It is an excellent test of judicial complacency.

The rules of the County Court are to be found in books, and need not therefore be committed to memory. Indeed, most law can be found in books by those who know where to look for it. Yet it is ill to stir the green mantle of the standing pool of law yourself if you can persuade another to do it for you. A slight knowledge of the first principles of elementary law will always be welcome in any Court. You may evade a detailed study of the more intricate points in your case by insisting that it falls within the rule laid down in one of Smith’s Leading Cases. For this purpose, however, you should learn at least the one rule you propose to quote. After all, the Judge has to decide the law, and ought to know it. The legal presumption is that everyone knows the law—this includes Judges. In cases under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, be careful how you quote a decision of the Court of Appeal. It may not have gone to the House of Lords, but if it did it is well to find out what happened to it when it got there. If an appeal to the House of Lords is pending the current odds against the legal value of the existing decision will be found in any sporting paper. If, during your argument, the Judge points out to you that there is a leading case deciding exactly the opposite of what you are arguing, ask him, with pained irritation, to be patient, and tell him you will distinguish it presently—but do not try to do so. Never give yourself away unnecessarily, rather give your client away, and you will find that generosity of this kind is never forgotten.

Allow the Registrar’s clerks to fill up for you the prolix and difficult forms in use in the County Court. They are not solicitors, and are therefore less likely to make mistakes in the work. If, however, a mistake is made you can always explain to the Judge how it arose, and you will not be blamed for it. In any case, where the law is really obscure and difficult, agree with your learned friend to leave the matter entirely to His Honour. By this means His Honour—if he makes no objection—will have to hunt up the authorities, and this will save you and your learned friend much useless labour, whilst the decision of the Judge will be far more valuable to your client. If you lose your case and your client loses his temper, blame the Judge, and urge your client to write to one of the Government departments—it does not matter which—to make a formal complaint of the Judge’s conduct. Government departments enjoy correspondence, and will treat your client’s letter with the respect and attention it deserves. On days when county cricket matches are being played in the neighbourhood of the Court, and generally on fine summer afternoons, your arguments will be the more admired if they are brief and occasionally to the point. If the case you have lost is for an amount of over £20, nevertheless ask leave to appeal. You do not want leave, but the Judge may not remember this, and may either grant or refuse it. In any case it gives you what you are probably longing for at that particular moment—an effective exit. Finally, remember that however genuine your contempt for the Court may be, you conceal it until you get outside—otherwise, seven days.

If the law student will peruse these suggestions and act upon them, and assuming him to be, as no doubt he believes he is, a young man of clear, strong, subtle intellect, of sound judgment, quick perceptions and brilliant forensic abilities, I can assure him that there is nothing between him and a very considerable and remunerative practice as an advocate in the County Court in matters which are not of sufficient importance to “stand” Counsel.

THE INSOLVENT POOR.

“Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every
side and can scarcely be escaped without a wound; great debts
are like cannon; of loud noise but little danger.”

—_Dr. Johnson._

The average man—the “man in the street,” as the journalist of to-day calls him—has no clear notion of the affairs of the County Court. He reads occasional paragraphs in the evening papers of some amusing incident, in which the humour of the Plaintiff or Defendant is capped by the humour of the playful and learned Judge, and the humour of the reporter, displayed in his dramatic sketch of the litigants, is the chief motive for the record of the case. I have often been told that my work must be very amusing, that I must see a great deal of life, and that County Court cases seem very entertaining, and I have come to the conclusion that those of the public who never enter a County Court, or read any sane record of its everyday work, which is too often dull, wearisome, and painful, and no fit material for paragraphs and headlines, live in the belief that the occupation of a Judge of a County Court is a legal form of small beer and skittles, in which the Judge’s part is to preside with free and easy good humour, and settle disputes with as much wit and readiness as he happens to possess. No one who has any experience of the actual proceedings of the Courts would recognise such a picture as in any way portraying the facts of the case.

In Manchester and Salford I was able to divide the work of the Courts into two classes, and to keep them distinct from each other. One contained an increasing number of Bankruptcy, High Court, and other cases, in which the litigants are of the same class and have the same legal assistance as in the High Court. The main differences between the High Court and the County Court in the conduct of such actions, being the simplicity of the procedure, and the rapidity and punctuality of trial in the inferior Court. The second, and to my mind the more important, if less interesting class of cases, was the large mass of debt collecting cases under £2, which were the original work of Courts created by the legislature for the “better securing the payment of small debts.” The first class of work is a somewhat onerous compliment to the ability with which the County Courts of the country are worked, but the second class ought always, it seems to me, to be the chief interest and care of County Court officials. And in the work connected with this smaller class of cases, the chief result of my experience has been a dull sense of the enormous mass of misery and wretchedness it is one’s duty to cause, and the despondent feeling that of necessity oppresses one in the presence of misfortune, that one can sympathise with, but not to any material extent alleviate. I should like, therefore, if it be possible to bring home to the average citizen the hopeless and almost degrading position of the insolvent poor, and to suggest for his consideration some of the reforms which, with or without legislation, might assist in bringing about a better state of things.

To begin with, one may state that there are over a million cases entered every year in County Courts, to recover debts under £20, and it will give some idea of how few cases are seriously disputed when I state that there are only between eleven and twelve thousand cases in which the Plaintiff fails to succeed, and these latter figures refer to all cases up to and above the £50 limit. Many cases get settled, some plaints never get served, but I have no doubt that one is well within the mark in stating that 98 per cent. of cases under £20 result in judgment for the Plaintiff. It is clear, therefore, that the Court is to this extent a collecting agency rather than a Court for the determination of disputes, and it is, in this respect, that its machinery should be examined. Few who do not know by personal experience, something of the life of the poorer class of working men and women, recognise the enormous extent to which they live and have their being on credit. The extent to which credit is given, and recklessly given, to men, women, and children, by the competing tradesmen who supply the working classes, would be an absurdity if it did not lead to so much misery. As Judge Chalmers put it in an epigram born of his wide experience of the insolvent poor: “They marry on credit to repent on Judgment Summonses.”

Now the two main causes of this reckless system of credit are:—(1) the keen competition among tradesmen; (2) the existence of imprisonment for debt. It is not advisable here to say much of trade competition. If it were a competition to sell the best goods at the most reasonable price it would perhaps be healthy enough, but it seems to be rather a competition to give the longest credit for the most inferior article. The largest classes of competitors are the money lenders, the credit drapers, or “Scotchmen,” the travelling jewellers, the furniture hirers, and all those firms who tout their goods round the streets for sale by small weekly instalments. These of necessity give reckless credit, and, equally of necessity, collect their monies with much suffering to their poorer customers. It seems fairly clear that to a working man on small weekly wages, no credit can be given in any commercial sense. A tradesman, if he gives credit at all to such a man, ought to give it upon the ground that he has reason to believe that he is an honest man who can and will pay his debts. As a matter of fact, the two chief reasons, or rather excuses, for giving credit are both somewhat weak. Tradesmen will tell you that they have given a man credit either because he was in receipt of good wages or because he was out of work. In the first case they ought clearly to insist upon cash, and the workman ought to get the advantage of a cash price, and in the second case they should only give credit if they know the character of the man, unless, of course, they choose to call it charity, with which the County Court has nothing to do. But in truth, credit is given without enquiry, recklessly and equally to those in work and out of work, for necessities, luxuries, and inutilities, and given at a price which includes the profit of the credit giver, his costs of making weekly collections, the costs of his debt collector or solicitor, and ultimately a considerable tribute towards the maintenance of the County Court.

Now all this is only possible because of the second factor in our treatment of the insolvent poor, namely, imprisonment for debt. The insolvent rich—if we may use such a phrase—do not nowadays fear imprisonment for debt. At the expense of a few pounds borrowed from a friend, they file their petition in bankruptcy and shake themselves free of all their creditors as if by magic; for not being traders their discharge is of little importance to them, and they go absolutely unpunished. I set down a few cases from an Annual Report of the Board of Trade for comparison with some other cases, which I propose to set out later:—

“Bristol. No. 64, of 1896.

Liabilities expected to rank £36,631
Probable value of assets on realisation £100.”

Debtor, younger son of a duke. Creditors, mostly money-lenders
and tradesmen. His expenditure, which included losses by
betting, largely exceeded his income, and knowledge of his
insolvent position for some considerable period was admitted.

“Kingston. No. 21, of 1896.

Liabilities expected to rank £21,741
Probable value of assets on realisation £667.”

Debtor, formerly in the army, lived on his wife’s income, lost
money in Stock Exchange speculations and betting. No income
except £135 derived under marriage settlement.

“No. 471, of 1896.

Liabilities expected to rank £298,166
Probable value of assets on realisation £1,700.”

Debtor, a peer. At the time of his succeeding to estates
in 1864 his liabilities were £30,000, and have apparently
continued to increase in consequence of his expenditure being
larger than his income. His discharge was suspended three years
on account of unjustifiable extravagance in living.

These are samples of the glorious achievements of the insolvent rich. Now let us turn to the shorter and simpler annals of the insolvent poor. For them the maxim, “_Si non habet in aere luat in corpore_,” is still a living truth, only they hear it as quoted to me once by a poor woman in the words of some Scotch draper: “If I canna ’ave yer brass I’ll tek yer body.” The law is not the same for the speculator who lives extravagantly above his income to the injury of his creditors and the working man on five-and-twenty shillings a week who fails to live within his means. The latter is only in a very limited sense the creature of bankruptcy. The luxury of legal insolvency is almost denied to him. He is ordered to pay his creditor, and the costs his creditor has incurred in obtaining judgment, and the fees of the County Court, at so many shillings a month, and if he fails to pay his instalments his creditor proceeds, at further cost to the debtor, to collect them by means of a judgment summons. Then, upon proof that he has or has had the means to pay the instalments due, he is committed to prison for default. Few citizens, I think, recognise the number of persons who are thus committed to prison. In 1909[2] no less than 375,254 summonses were issued, 234,753 heard, 136,630 warrants issued, and 8,904 debtors actually imprisoned. Nor can it be granted that of those who pay between the issue of the summonses and the day of imprisonment, all, or nearly all, are in a position to pay, in the sense of possessing surplus money sufficient to discharge the debt. Friends and relatives come to the rescue, fresh credit is obtained to pay off the old debt, and thus the result of a committal order is too often to thrust the unfortunate debtor one step deeper into the slough of insolvency in which he is already sinking beyond recovery. At the same time it is of no use railing at the system. The Select Committee of 1893 reported generally in favour of it, mainly, I think, because the working class themselves uphold it. They uphold it for one reason—and a powerful one—because without imprisonment for debt there would be no reckless credit, and without reckless credit there would be no possibility of prolonging a strike after their own accumulated funds began to give way. All that any individual Judge can do is to administer the system with as much sympathy and mercy as is compatible with its honest working, without prejudice to his right of private protest as a citizen against its social iniquity.

Having now pointed out the position of the small debtor in the County Court, I want to draw attention to an existing system of small Bankruptcies known as Administration Orders which are very little used or appreciated by either the Courts or by debtors, but which with some improvements might do much to mitigate the evils of the existing system of imprisonment and check the recklessness with which credit is given to the poor.

This Administration Order was the creation of the Bankruptcy Act of 1883, and in a few words the system may be thus described: Where a debtor has a judgment against him in a County Court and is unable to satisfy it forthwith, and alleges that his whole indebtedness does not exceed £50, he may file a request for an Administration Order. In this request he gives a full list of all his creditors with particulars of their debts, and states whether or not he proposes to pay them in full and by what monthly or other instalments. Notice is given to creditors of the date of hearing, and on that day the Judge either makes or refuses the order, or makes a modified order at his discretion. As soon as the order is made all proceedings against the debtor, in respect of the debts scheduled, are suspended, and the creditors individually cannot attack him. He can, however, if he does not pay his instalments, be committed for default or the order can be rescinded. The fund created by his payments is appropriated—(1) for the Plaintiff’s costs in the action; (2) for the Treasury fees, which are 2s. in the £ on the total amount of the debts; and (3) for the debts in accordance with the order.

This is the system which Mr. Chamberlain, on the second reading of his Bill, March 19th, 1883, described as a system whereby the “small debtor would be in exactly the same position as a large debtor who had succeeded in making a composition with his creditors or in arranging a scheme of liquidation. Although he had not abolished in all cases imprisonment for debt, yet, if these provisions became law, it could be no longer said that any inequality existed in the law as between rich and poor. The resort to imprisonment[3] to secure payment would be much rarer, and a large discretion would be vested in the Judges to arrange for the relief of the small debtor by a reasonable compensation.”

These were brave and wise words, interesting to-day as showing the then intentions of the author of the system, hopeful to-day as suggestive of what may be expected from those in authority when they recognise the failure of the system in achieving the objects for which it was invented.

The advantage of the Administration Order over the individual collection of debts is manifest, but the imperfections in the system are equally manifest. The limit of £50, and the exorbitant Treasury fees to be paid in priority to the dividend to creditors, are of themselves sufficient to account for the failure of the system. Thus it is not surprising to find that in many of the Courts this section of the Act is a dead letter, and the Administration Order is unknown. There is, and I think rightly, a wide discretion given to Judges of the County Courts who are supposed to study the needs and wants of their particular localities, and minister to these wants in a quasi-pastoral spirit. Without the active assistance of Judges and Registrars such a system as this could not be either known to—or understood by—the insolvent poor. Many Judges probably think the system worthless, and in consequence it is not used. Thus in 1909, on two circuits, 5 and 8, Bolton and Manchester, 821 orders were made, while on five large London circuits, 40-44 inclusive, only 37 orders were made. I have myself found a considerable increase in applications for Administration Orders since I have encouraged debtors whose affairs were in a hopeless state, to make their application, and taken occasion to explain to debtors appearing on Judgment Summonses the provisions of the section enabling them to apply. How hopeless is the condition of many of the insolvent poor, and what they are reduced to by reckless credit given to them by some classes of tradesmen may be seen from some of the following cases extracted from the Administration Order Ledgers of Manchester and Salford:—

“M. No. 358.—Labourer; wife; 9 children; 18s. per week; 12
creditors; 7 judgments; debts £40. 9s. 8d. Has nearly finished
paying these at 5s. in the £ by instalments of 6s. a month. The
Treasury got £3. 4s. Court fees on the 7 judgments, and £4 fees
on the Administration Order.

“M. No. 399.—Labourer; 22s. a week; wife; 11 children, two
earning 5s. a week; 14 creditors; 10 judgments; debts £44. 16s.
1d. Was paying 10s. in the £ at 10s. per month. Paid £6; order
then rescinded. Treasury taking £4. 8s. fees; creditors, £1.
12s. The Treasury had previously had £3. 17s. Court fees on the
10 judgments.

“S. No. 429.—Railway Porter; 16s. 10d. a week; wife and 1
child, aged three; 19 creditors; 13 of the creditors travelling
drapers; debts, £33. 10s. Order, 10s. in the £ at 5s. 6d. a
month. Before the Order was made he was, under the 9 judgments,
bound to pay 39s. 6d. a month, and liable to committal if he
failed. The Treasury had already had £3. 4s. 9d. Court fees
on the judgments, and will get a further £3. 6s. fees on the
Administration Order.

“S. No. 551.—Labourer; wife and 6 children, two earning jointly
10s. per week; wages, 18s. a week; 18 creditors, of whom
11 were travelling drapers; 16 judgments; debts, £20. 10s.
2d. Already liable to pay 35s. a week to different judgment
creditors. Order made, 10s. in the £ at 4s. a month. Court
fees already paid to Treasury £4. 14s. 3d. Under the Order they
will have another £2. In this case the State has added more
than 30 per cent. to the original indebtedness of the man in
the vain endeavour to make him do what he was unable to do,
_i.e._, pay his debts without the means to pay them.

“S. No. 460.—Ostler; wife; no children; 21s. a week; 25
creditors; 9 judgments; debts, £32. 7s. 6d.; 14 of the
creditors travelling drapers. Order, 10s. in the £ at 6s. per
month. Apart from the Order he was bound under the judgments
to pay 22s. a month. Here the Treasury have already had £2.
8s. 6d. Court fees, and will get a further £3. 4s. fees on the
Order.”

In the three last cases the insolvency was chiefly due to a careless wife. The porter’s wife was quite young and an easy prey for the travelling draper.

From these cases it is at least clear that if such debtors are to be left to their various creditors, a large portion of their time will be spent in evading the service of Judgment Summonses or appearing in Court, either by themselves, or more usually by wife and baby, to show cause why they should not go to gaol. Without the assistance of some form of bankruptcy and discharge their case is hopeless, and their future must be one of chronic insolvency.

One of the chief objections to the present system raised by creditors is the exorbitant fees charged by the Treasury. Parliament enacted that these fees should “not exceed” 2s. in the £ on the total amount of the debt. The Treasury interpreted this to mean that there should always be 2s. in the £, whatever composition was paid, and ordered accordingly. So, if a man’s total debts be £50, the Treasury draw £5, whether the debtor pays 20s. in the £ or 2s. in the £, and draws this in priority to creditors and whether the Order is fully carried out or not. As we have seen, the Treasury have often, before the Order is made, drawn considerable sums on judgments forming part of the Order, and creditors contend, and I think rightly, that these fees are excessive.

Some time ago I collected the views of the Judges on these fees, and forwarded them to the Treasury. Speaking generally, they were adverse to the fees, but the Treasury, although they have the power to mitigate the fees, cannot see their way to do it. I put this matter in the forefront of possible reforms, because it can be done by a stroke of the departmental pen without legislation, and if done would do much to render these orders more useful to—and therefore less unpopular with—creditors. I have often pointed out to grumbling creditors that these fees were probably not intended by Parliament to be exacted, for I have never thought it part of my duty to apologise for the rapacity of a Government department. And when I saw the figures for 1909, “Treasury income from fees on Administration Orders £12,824, money paid to creditors £45,059,” I could only concur in the view that it was little short of a scandal that such an income should be drawn by any department out of so miserable and helpless a class as the insolvent poor, especially when it is done at the expense of those to whom they owed money.

The Treasury, of course, have a departmental view perfectly sane and satisfactory after its sort. If I understand the view aright it is this:—These Orders do not pay their way according to our calculations. There is an income of nearly £13,000 a year coming to us under an Act of Parliament, and our duty is to take what is provided, asking no questions for conscience sake. If one could get beyond the department to the individuals composing it, and make them realise in the midst of their great affairs that this sum of £13,000 a year, trumpery but acceptable, at Whitehall, is a grievous tax in the cottages of the insolvent poor, some reform would perhaps be made. Indeed, I cannot but think that the departmental view of the small work of the County Court is altogether wrong in principle, and that the time is at hand when Parliament should enforce a more modern view of its duties on the department. The constant cry is that the Courts do not pay. The answer is that they ought not to be asked to do so. The toll-bar principle ought to be gradually abolished, and the Courts of the country ought to be as free to Her Majesty’s poorer subjects as the high roads. Nowhere is this more true than in the County Court, where the fees throughout are exorbitant and excessive, pressing with the greatest harshness on those who are already over-burdened with debts.

These and other matters have, however, been reported upon by commissioners and mentioned in Parliament. The only immediate reform that can be made is the reduction in Treasury fees. That can be done forthwith and without legislation if Parliament desires it, and ought to be done without delay. After that it will be time to put forward a more satisfactory scheme of small bankruptcies, open to all weekly wage-earners, whatever the amount of their debts, with an official receiver responsible to the creditors and the Court. Parliament ought at least to find time to carry out the recommendations of the Select Committee of the House of Lords in their report on the working of the Debtors’ Act, printed in 1893. The most important suggestion there made was: “That the question of costs in respect of Judgment Summonses and Orders of Commitment is one deserving serious consideration, and that it would be advisable that a Departmental Committee of the Treasury should carefully consider the matter as early as possible.” This question of costs and fees in all small proceedings is one that wants an immediate and searching investigation and reform of a not wholly departmental character.

Meanwhile faith, which will remove mountains, enables me to believe that the Departmental Committee of the Treasury are giving it a wise and most deliberate consideration. Hope also buoys me up to look forward to a time when Parliament will amend the Statutes of Limitations in regard to small debts, curtail imprisonment for debt, and enact at least as favourable laws for the insolvent poor as exist for the insolvent rich. Charity, meanwhile, compels me to grieve that so little is done to stop the reckless credit which is offered to the poorer classes, and to urge the consideration of such measures as may assist the insolvent poor, who of all our fellow citizens seem to me to demand pity and sympathy, in place of punishment, rigour, and harsh laws.

WHY BE AN AUTHOR?

“Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a
weariness of the flesh.”

_Ecclesiastes_ xii., 12.

The connecting of the making of books with study is an old world idea that it is difficult for a latter-day reader to understand. A modern world recognises that book-making in all its branches is a natural pursuit for those of the unemployed who honestly strive to live by their wits. But if the making of books was allowed to be a national nuisance in the days of Solomon, much more must it be so to-day, when books are fast ceasing to be saleable, and have to be given away with out-of-date or up-to-date newspapers, pounds of tea, and other doubtful merchandise.

If, therefore, the supply of authors could be mitigated, much of this long-standing trouble might be abated; and it becomes a reasonable thing for a citizen—especially one who has himself been guilty of some of the minor literary misdemeanours—to inquire why authors become authors, instead of following some useful trade, and what human motive it is that drives people to authorship. I do not pretend that I have found the answer to the question, “Why be an Author?” If I had I should have solved one of the riddles of the universe. But I can, perhaps, set forth a few suggestions upon the lines of which future scientists will be able to pursue the problem to its ultimate solution.

To make a rough attempt at the classification of the common motives of authorship is a bold thing to do. Experimentally I should set down—“in the order of going in,” to use a cricket phrase—the four following, namely:—

(1) Vanity, or conceit.
(2) Greed.
(3) The fun of the thing,
and
(4) Having a message to deliver.

And first of vanity or conceit. How easy this is to diagnose in the literary works of others; how impossible to admit, even for a moment, that it is at all a permissible suggestion about the motive of our own work. And yet if one will be honest with oneself, what is there in life that ministers to the delightful pleasure of vanity so thoroughly and satisfactorily as the sight of one’s first printed production. I remember well the first book I ever published. It was, curiously enough, a Life of Queen Elizabeth, a subject I returned to in later years. It was not a large book—but then at the time I published it I was not a large person, being only nine years old, and the physical act of writing was burdensome to me; spelling also had more difficulties about it than perhaps it has to-day. No, it was not a large volume: to be exact it contained two pages demi octavo of rather large print. It was not however, intended to be printed in book form at all. It was rather a first effort at journalism, and was written for the pages of an excellent periodical called _Little Folks_, which had offered a prize for the best life of the Maiden Queen. The prize, no doubt, was, as these things often are, carelessly adjudged to some budding author, who has probably never been heard of since. Anyhow, I did not get it, and my MS. was returned,—you send a stamped envelope if you want it returned, never forget that—mine was returned “highly commended.” That Editor has saved himself a lot of nasty abuse from literary historians of the next century by those two words, “highly commended.” He made a mistake, no doubt, about the prize; but I, who have had to give many hundred decisions in my later years—not perhaps verdicts of such moment, but concerning smaller matters, where right decision is equally advisable—know the difficulties of coming to a true result, and have long ago readily forgiven him. Doubtless the poor fellow did his best, and if he is still alive—more power to his elbow, if he has gone

Where the Rudyards cease from Kipling,
And the Haggards ride no more

then—peace to his ashes.

The world was not however to lose this masterpiece. I remember showing it to my father when it came back in its stamped envelope, and he put it in his pocket, gravely expressing a desire to read it. I am not sure that he did read it, but he had it printed—at Guildford, I believe, when he was away on circuit.

I remember him placing the parcel in my hands on his return and my delight in opening it, and my wild surprise at the discovery of the contents, and the awed silence that came over my soul when I saw the print on the pages and knew I was an author. I can hear my father’s good-natured laugh over the affair, and my mother’s insistence on my autograph on the front page “with the author’s compliments.” I spelt compliment with an “e.” It is absurd having two ways of spelling one word. Afterwards I have a dim remembrance of walking about on air for a few days, and finding it difficult to sit on chairs for any length of time, and quite impossible to learn lessons. All my spare time was taken up by reading the great work in solitary corners, and marvelling at the beauty of the language and the respectability of the spelling. When I went for a walk in Kensington Gardens I shrank from the gaze of the populace, much as a real grown-up author might do, who had lived at the Isle of Man or Stratford-on-Avon. After a time I became normal again, but the mischief was done: I had, in the seventeenth century phrase, “commenced author.”

Looking back at the matter from the cold, grey standpoint of a grandfather, there is this to be said for my first book. It is out of print. It is so rare that I doubt if an American millionaire could buy one. The last copies of it that I saw fell out of an old desk many years ago, and were made into paper boats by my children. Luckily I have plenty more materials for paper boats for the next generation when they shall need them.

I have written down this little experience because, to my mind, it is perhaps the one certain instance I can testify to, of a book being written wholly and entirely from motives of vanity or conceit. The prize did not attract me in the least; it was, I believe, a book of religious tendency. There was no greed about the matter. I did not do it for the love of the thing, for in those days I spent my spare time in carpentering and producing pantomime in a toy theatre. As for any sense of having a message to deliver that was absurd, because I copied the bulk of it out of Little Arthur’s History of England, carefully paraphrasing the language to hide from the over-curious the source of my authorities. There is no doubt that this book was written and produced solely by the author’s—and perhaps his parents’—strong sense of vanity and conceit. I can speak about the author impersonally to-day for he seems to me such an entirely different person from myself.

I have asked many living writers whether they have ever knowingly written anything purely from motives of vanity and conceit. They all answer me in a pained and haughty negative. For myself, I rather glory in it. It is good to have done something that nobody else has achieved. It is a big thing to have written at least one book that does not lie on the shelves of the British Museum, a book the original edition of which no gold can buy, a book that has given, to one reader at least, moments of more thrilling joy than any book that was ever printed.

But although we may accept the statements of living authors, that they never feel moved to authorship by vanity, yet if we look at the records of those who are gone we shall find schools of literature whose mainspring has been conceit. Of such are the French _Philosophes_ of the reign of Louis XV. of whom Carlyle writes: “They invented simply nothing: not one of man’s powers, is due to them; in all these respects the age of Louis XV. is among the most barren of recorded ages. Indeed, the whole trade of our _Philosophes_ was directly the opposite of invention: it was not to produce that they stood there, but to criticise, to quarrel with, to rend in pieces, what has been already produced;—a quite inferior trade: sometimes a useful, but on the whole a mean trade; often the fruit, and always the parent of meanness in every mind that permanently follows it.”

And indeed in all critics there must be a marrow of conceit stiffening the backbone. Else how could they—who fell out of the ranks footsore on the march to battle—come along so complacently when the fight is over, to talk to the soldiers covered with the grime and sweat of their work, and tell them how easily it might all have been done without soiling the pipeclay.

All critics however do not write merely from this motive. There are many of course writing from the far higher motive of greed. Then there are some few who do it for the rare fun of the thing—to enjoy the intense annoyance it gives to foolish, sensitive artists—these are the mud flingers and corner boys of the trade, and of course a few critics have lived who played the game and knew it and brought a message of heaven-sent sympathy to the artist. Maybe such a one exists to-day, in some corner behind the clouds, struggling to let his rays shine encouragement on honest endeavour.

But apart from the writings of critics vanity and conceit have always been strong motives of authors. They are found especially in schools of literature, where the form is preferred to the substance. Take our eighteenth century writers and read the story of their lives. Can it be denied that they were a vain crowd? Even Swift, Pope and Addison—the greatest of them—were not without it. As for the smaller fry, with their degrading squabbles and jealousies—their very faces seem to me pitted with the small-pox of conceit. And throughout this period you have one symptom;—the writer exalting the letter above the spirit,—and when you find that, it is invariably the indication of disease, and the disease is vanity.

This is not only the case in writing. It is so in nearly all pursuits. When you begin to believe in technical excellence of form as an end in itself, it is necessary to become to some extent narrow, vain and conceited or you will not achieve your end. In those arts in which form is more essential to the art than substance, vanity and conceit are more commonly found. Thus actors, singers, dancers, and schoolmasters are often not without vanity. You may notice, too, that the minor technical pursuits of life produce a certain conceit. It is occasionally observable in the semi-professional lawn-tennis amateur. In a lesser degree too by many golfers the same vice is sometimes displayed, but more often in the club-house and on the first tee than during the progress of the game. When a man is deeply bunkered style becomes a secondary consideration.

But generally speaking all writers who think literature an affair of quantities, metres, syntax and grammatical gymnastics, all men who reverence literary form rather than practical substance, are bound to write in a spirit of vanity and conceit, which is the only petrol that can push them along the weary road they have chosen. It oppresses you to-day to find this spirit in nearly all the great writers of the eighteenth century. How Oliver Goldsmith stands out amongst them as the one great writer with a human heart; how we readers of to-day love him and reverence him with an enthusiasm we cannot offer to Addison himself.