JUDGES: THEIR PROFESSIONAL LIMITATIONS
I do not, however, appeal to Lord Gorell's judgment on all
points. It is inevitable that a judge should be deeply impressed
by his professional experience with a sense of the impotence of
judges and laws and courts to deal satisfactorily with evils
which are so Protean and elusive as to defy definition, and which
yet seem to present quite simple problems to the common sense of
men of the world. You have only to imagine the Privy Council as
consisting of men of the world highly endowed with common sense,
to persuade yourself that the supplementing of the law by the
common sense of the Privy Council would settle the whole
difficulty. But no man knows what he means by common sense,
though every man can tell you that it is very uncommon, even in
Privy Councils. And since every ploughman is a man of the world,
it is evident that even the phrase itself does not mean what it
says. As a matter of fact, it means in ordinary use simply a man
who will not make himself disagreeable for the sake of a
principle: just the sort of man who should never be allowed to
meddle with political rights. Now to a judge a political right,
that is, a dogma which is above our laws and conditions our
laws, instead of being subject to them, is anarchic and
abhorrent. That is why I trust Lord Gorell when he is defending
the integrity of the law against the proposal to make it in any
sense optional, whilst I very strongly mistrust him, as I
mistrust all professional judges, when political rights are in
danger.
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