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Rufus "
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FOR a son to write his father's life has at any rate the advantage that he is likely to command accurate information of his family origin and early days. Rufus Isaacs was born in 1860, the fourth of nine children of a prosperous Jewish fruit-broker. Other Chief Justices have come from humbler homes. Lord Tenterden was the son of a barber at Canterbury. But the barber did what the fruit-broker did not—provide his son with the best education he could afford.. Young Isaacs was sent to two Jewish academies, and for a few months to University College School. When he was 14 his education was thought sufficient, and he was put into the paternal business, where he was a complete failure. When he was just 16 he was sent to sea, though the popular story that he "ran away to sea" is unfounded. A year on a sailing ship before the mast, out to Rio de Janeiro, thence to Calcutta, and Back to England, was a strenuous experience. When he next went to Calcutta ; 44 years later, he was welcomed with the thunders of the Salute to the Viceroy. Fate has rarely achieved such a rrepurireta.
There followed three more unprofitable years at the fruit busi- ness, and four years, ending in bankruptcy, on the Stock Exchange. At last, aged 25, he began his real career by joining the Middle Temple as a student. To do that, as he had no academic quali- fication involved scraping up some Latin for the entrance examina- tion. He was called to the Bar in November 1887, succeeded rapidly to an ever increasing practice, and took silk in April, 1898. Lord Reading says he was " the youngest silk in terms of length of call ever created." In fact Sir William Follett had a more preco- cious record: not to mention Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, who was made Solicitor-General less than five years after his call to the Bar! So that is an inaccuracy: to call one of the City judges "The Common Sergeant" (p. 68) may only point to carelessness in proof-reading. There is a popular illusion, fostered by the cheap Press, that "great lawyers " are those who habitually defend murderers, or appear in sensational cases. Lord Reading can hardly share this illusion, but it looks as if he had tried to make a " popular " book by appealing to those who do entertain it. One can think of no other reason for ten pages being expended on an account of a sordid murder trial, and six more on a divorce case of no moment, except that the petitioner was a Baronet and the co-respondent a Peer. The space given to this sort of thing is unfortunate for two reasons. Firstly, it makes this "Life" unnecessarily lengthy. In the 28o pages of this volume, Rufus Isaacs has only just got to be Lord Chief Justice, and Lord Reading, at the age of 54. A second volume of the remaining 21 years of his life, and of his career as Ambas- sador, Viceroy, and Marquess, is promised at the end of it. Secondly, this method of appeal to " the more cultivated portion of the ignorant " gives a very misleading idea of Rufus Isaacs's practice. He did sometimes appear in cases that would be reported with heavy headlines ; but on the whole, his work was of a solid and serious sort.
••• He was a very good and accomplished advocate. But he was never a learned lawyer, though he _had to argue some cases inter apices juris. Principles and precedents were no doubt supplied to him by his learned and industrious " devil," who has since had a distinguished career as a Judge of the High Court. And Isaacs had the power to understand and make good use of the ammunition. With his brethren of the Bar his popularity was that of a charming gentleman, and ever-pleasant companion. After Isaacs started as a law student the one misfortune of his private life seems to have been his wife's persistent ill-health. Of his public and political career, the one misfortune was " the Marconi scandal." Lord Reading devotes some 5o tedious pages to that episode. They remind one how dirty a business political rancour can be, and inci- dentally how futile a tribunal can be provided by a Select Com- mittee of the House of Commons. The contrast between its in- efficiency and the speedy and impartial working of the judicial tribunal which more recently investigated the conduct of a Minister is striking. At the end of this volume Rufus Isaacs has only just become Lord Chief Justice. He did not hold that office long enough to make his name as a great judge. One may doubt if he would ever have been able to do so. Lord Reading's last pages indicate that his father had little or no enthusiasm for the work of the Bench, and it was too late for him to hope to become learned in the law. If the fruit-broker had fulfilled a parent's first duty to a clever son, possibly the name of Lord Reading as a Judge might have been almost as illustrious as that of Lord Mansfield.
The chief defect of this pious volume is that it is too long. Barry O'Brien's Life of Lord Russell of Killowen, and Sir Henry Cunning- ham's Life of Lord Bowen, might have provided models of a briefer,
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