Lord Cairns' rejoinder was the most convincing and masterly speech
of the debate. Of the part of it in which he maintained that the selection was to be made from amongst the class of exist- ing Judges, we have spoken elsewhere. But his argument to prove that Sir Robert Collier was not made a member of the Privy Council because he was a judge, but was, on the contrary, made a judge in order to make him a member of the Privy Council, was unanswerable. The Prime Minister had virtually admitted it, the Lord Chancellor had virtually admitted it, and the London Gazette proved it, for Sir R. Collier was made a Privy Councillor our the 3rd November—which a palette judge, as such, would never be made—and only appointed a judge of the Common Pleas off 7th November, the Privy Councillorship being conferred solely with a view to his subsequent further elevation. This proves that the status of judgeship was conferred on him solely for the purpose of satisfy- ing the Act, and that it was not as a judge, even of fourteen days' standing, that he was selected for the Privy Council.
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