§ MR. WARTONasked Mr. Attorney General, Whether it is true that he has supported the application of Mr. Butcher, a solicitor of Bury, in Lancashire, to become a Commissioner to administer Oaths in the High Court of Justice; whether Mr. Butcher is a solicitor of only three years standing; whether other gentlemen at Bury in the profession, of equal respectability and longer standing, have been refused Commissionerships; whether Mr. Butcher is the Secretary to the Bury Liberal Association; and, whether he has any further knowledge of Mr. Butcher's qualifications?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)The hon. and learned Member is quite right in supposing that I supported Mr. Butcher's application to be appointed a Commissioner to administer oaths in the nigh Court of Justice, and I was very happy to do so. The date of his admission is also correctly stated in the Question. The House should know that all respectable solicitors of six years' standing can obtain the power to administer oaths. That period was anticipated in Mr. Butcher's case under the following circumstances. That gentleman practises at Radcliffe, a place of some 17,000 inhabitants, as well as at Bury. At Radcliffe there was only one resident Commissioner, and a further appointment was thought advisable. 1388 The only solicitor who, in point of standing, had any claims superior to those of Mr. Butcher, signed the usual memorial in favour of his appointment. I may add that Mr. Butcher obtained the prize of the Incorporated Law Society, and also is Secretary of the Bury Law Association. He is, as the hon. Member has stated, no longer Secretary of the Liberal Association. Under these circumstances, if I have rendered any assistance to Mr. Butcher so as to secure him his appointment, I am exceedingly glad to hear it; but I am by no means sure that Mr. Butcher owes anything to me. Prominently among the names of those who, like myself, supported his application is that of Mr. Ormerod Walker, the late Conservative candidate for Bury, and a gentleman whose position caused him to be regarded as the head of the Tory Party in that town. Knowing, as many of us do, how carefully the present Chancellor has guarded against allowing any political predilections to influence him in the exercise of his patronage, I am sure that, in all probability, Mr. Batcher owes far more to Mr. Ormerod Walker than to me.
§ MR. WARTONMay I ask whether the hon. and learned Gentleman proposes to proceed with the Corrupt Practices Bill to-night?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)was understood to say that the Bill would not be taken that evening.