TITLE. (Hansard, 5 May 1933)

§ Mr. R. W. SMITH
I beg to move, in page 1, after the word "Solicitors," to insert the words "and Notaries Public".
The reason for this Amendment, as one has to be careful to explain to English Members, is that certain parts of Clauses were added to the Bill in Committee. The hon. Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams) will no doubt want to know what they were. In Clause 17 it is stated, No person shall be admitted as a. notary public in Scotland until he shall have been admitted and enrolled as a solicitor. 1182 As we are re-enacting terms of the Act of 1896, which applies to notaries public, it was felt that the words "and Notaries Public" should be inserted after "Solicitors" so that the Title shall correctly describe what is in the Bill.

§ Mr. C. WILLIAMS
The hon. Member spoke about "Clauses," but has referred only to this one Clause. May I ask him what the other Clauses are?

§ Mr. SMITH
The one to which I referred dealt with notaries public. The other Clauses which have been amended are perfectly well described by the words, Consolidate and amend the law relating to solicitors in Scotland.

§ Mr. JAMIESON
I beg to second the Amendment.

§ Mr. C. WILLIAMS
Before we pass away from this Amendment, I would like to point out that although a good many Bills come before us in the course of a year, it is very rarely that we are asked to amend the Title of a Bill. We have very strict rules against that sort of thing. Here we have an addition of words to cover notaries public, and I would like to havesome little explanation on the matter, because otherwise the House may not understand it. A pul3lic notary is what I might describe, not having particular knowledge of the subject, as another form of Scottish lawyer, or a gentleman who is legally trained for the administration of the law in one way or another. What I would like to know, if there is any responsible person here in charge of this Bill who is entitled to speak again, is why those words were left out in the first place? It looks as though public notaries had been rather slighted. What has happened in the meanwhile?
When a section of individuals is left out of a Bill as it is introduced in its original form, and is then inserted afterwards, it usually means that much pressure has been brought to bear upon Members of Parliament. I am sure that no Scottish public notaries would try to put pressure on to me, but they might try to bring pressure to bear on Scottish Members, and I would like to have some assurance that these gentlemen are getting into the Bill in a proper and legitimate way. I am sure that our two excellent Scottish 1183 Law Officers would see that these gentlemen did not get into the Bill otherwise than in a legitimate way, but it is not fair that the House should be asked to make this remarkable change—well, I will not go so far as to say it is remarkable, but quite interesting change—I am trying to make a very dull subject interesting—without some explanation. Has this been the subject of one of those peculiar bargains which sometimes take place? Can it by any chance be that my hon. Friend who is the leader of a small group here is a public notary and has insisted on having his name put in; or is it the case that some Socialist above the Gangway is a public notary, or has a relative who might be a public notary, and wants to be put in? I do want to know these things. [Interruption.] I can assure the hon. Member that I have no relative who is a public notary either in England or Scotland, so far as I know. When we are inserting a new group of persons into a Bill, a big group and an important group, we ought to have a further explanation beyond that which has been given to us so far.
The main part of the speech of the hon. Member who moved the Amendment was devoted to the hon. Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams). Why the hon. Member for Torquay should form the main part of a speech made in moving an Amendment on a Scottish Bill I cannot understand—unless the hon. Member thought the hon. Member for Torquay had some sort of obscure influence in these matters. I do not know, and I want some of my hon. and learned Friends who have knowledge of these matters to explain, what a public notary is before we insert this Amendment. Sometimes people describe themselves as "public notaries" and at other times as "notaries public." Why should they not be inserted in the Bill as "public notaries"? That is a point I have never been able fully to grasp. Will someone explain why they are described as "notaries public" in the Amendment and are called "public notaries" at other times? I do not intend to vote against the Amendment, unless someone causes me to do so, but I would like an explanation on these two or three points, and I feel sure that if it could be given, it would relieve the anxiety that 1184 is felt not only by myself—I have had the courage to get up and explain that I do not know—but also by some of my hon. Friends who are in the same state as I am and would like the explanation, but have not had the courage to get up to ask for it. I am sacrificing myself to them.

§ Mr. R. W. SMITH
Can the hon. Gentleman tell me where, in the Bill, the words "public notaries" come in?

§ Mr. WILLIAMS
I have never said they did. All I want to know is why the hon. Member calls them "notaries public" when I have heard the expression "public notaries." I want to know the difference, and why he should have put his Amendment in that way?

§ Mr. SMITH
I never used the words "public notary."

§ Mr. WILLIAMS
No, I do not say the hon. Member did, but I have heard it put in that way, and I am sure many other people have. That is my point, and I am happy that it has been grasped.

§ The LORD ADVOCATE
Notaries public were in the Bill from the very start, but as the Bill proceeded it was discovered that there were two notaries public who are not solicitors—all the others are solicitors—and accordingly it was necessary to make the title of the Bill a little more comprehensive. There is nothing sinister in the proposal to add the words "notaries public" to the Bill. In Scotland we call them "notaries public." If the hon. Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams) prefers to call them "public notaries," I can assure him that he does not commit any offence either against the civil law or the criminal law. It is really a matter of individual taste.

§ Mr. WILLIAMS
May I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman whether it would be wrong if I were to put it in my own way rather than in the way in which it is put by the right hon. and learned Gentleman, or whether it really does not matter which way it is put?

§ The LORD ADVOCATE
I do not think that anyone can possibly object to the hon. Member saying "public notaries" instead of "notaries public". As I say, it is a matter of individual 1185 taste. We prefer the correct way, and not the way that is preferred by the hon. Member for Torquay.

§ Mr. WILLIAMS
I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will not accuse me of not wanting to do this thing in the right way, but I want to be sure What is the right way. There have been so many slips in the Scottish Office that I thought I had better be certain.

§ Mr. MAXTON
I wish to offer one or two observations on the Third Reading. I notice hon. Members looking at the Clock; I am fully aware of the great governing consideration of Scottish Members.

§ Mr. C. WILLIAMS
What?

MAXTON
I do not see that it affects Torquay, which has a Riviera express of its own. I am well aware that this Bill is going to receive a Third Reading, and my opposition remains as strong and fundamental to it as the opposition that I expressed in the early proceedings, during the Committee stage. I think that this is an attempt to place into the hands of the solicitors' profession in Scotland more power, not merely over its own affairs but over entrance into the profession and over the general legal procedure of Scotland, than any profession performing public duties is entitled to have. Every profession, seeing the power that is held in the hands of one or two professional groups, in particular the General Medical Council, has in recent years and quite wrongly, come to this House—architects, chartered accountants, dentists, and every group of people who, by any stretch of their imagination, can call themselves a profession—demanding a Statute to give them a standing to act in a way that ought only to be in the hands of publicly-controlled bodies. My opposition to this Bill is based on that principle. I do not believe in this syndicalist way of controlling public affairs of leaving the workers in the trade or profession complete power over the operations of their trade or profession.
To-day we have a Scottish day, or a bit of a Scottish day. We are passing two 1186 Bills, the False Oaths (Scotland) Bill and the Solicitors (Scotland) Bill. I ask hon. Members from Scotland to consider this: We were returned here in 1931 by a Scotland that was in very serious difficulties and is in serious difficulties now. We are faced with our principal industries deteriorating very seriously and with a diminishing population. The Census figures that are coming in from week to week just now show that Highland counties are being depopulated and people are being driven off the land; yet all we Scottish Members of Parliament, and so far as private Members, have to show as the year's work for dealing with the troubles of Scotland is the Bill that we have just passed and the Solicitors (Scotland) Bill. What a contribution from this House towards solving the problems of Scotland—a False Oaths Act and a Bill to make the legal profession in Scotland a more lucrative industry for those who are engaged in it than it has been up to now!
I offer my most direct opposition to this learned profession in Scotland coming here, at a time when Scottish difficulties are what they are, and using the time of Parliament, not to improve the condition of Scotland, but to improve their own professional powers and their own money-earning power. It is a disgrace to the solicitors of Scotland that they should be asking for this, and to Scottish Members of Parliament that they should be acceding to it. It is disgraceful that the British House of Commons should be spending its time on things of this description when the urgent needs of the people are so great.

§ Mr. R. W. SMITH
I hope that the House will not be persuaded by the speech that we have just heard from the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) into refusing to give this Bill a Third Reading. I do not believe that the hon. Member really wishes that this Bill should not be proceeded with, and I think that he Would be quite content with expressing his views on this occasion and complaining that nothing more has been done for Scotland by the Government.

§ Mr. MAXTON
I am surprised at the hon. Member for taking up the Bill at all.

§ Mr. SMITH
In the Committee stage, the hon. Member for Bridgeton made a statement that he thought that my interests were so narrow—

§ Mr. MAXTON
Quite the contrary. The hon. Member must not misrepresent me. What I said is quite the contrary of what he is saying. I said that the hon. Member's interests were so wide that he should not have undertaken a stupid thing like this.

§ Mr. SMITH
He said that this was much too brilliant a Bill for a person like me. Let me quote what he said: this Bill was not evolved out of his own inner consciousness. I have known him for a number of years in this House; I know what his interests are, and I do him the justice to believe that, left to the freedom of his own will, the Bill which he would have introduced would have been put forward on behalf of some other social interest than that contained in this Bill. I took exception to that statement and I said that I was interested in all sections of the community and, therefore, in all the sections of this Bill. The hon. Member's reply was: There is nothing human that does not interest the hon. Member, I know, but can he include solicitors? "—[OFFICIAL REPORT (Standing Committee on. Scottish Bills), 6th April, 1933, cols. 24–5.] I am always interested in things which are extra-human as well. I hope that the House will not refuse to give this Third Reading. It is extraordinary, when a profession asks for power to conduct its affairs in a better manner that a person like the hon. Member for Bridgeton should object. This is a Bill to enable the solicitors' profession to regulate their affairs in the best manner, in the interests of the general public. I do not think it is quite fair to suggest that this Bill has been put forward in order to give more money and more power to the solicitors. It is their desire to improve professional tone, and to have the power of dealing with cases of professional misconduct.
Therefore, I sincerely hope that the House will give the Bill a Third Reading. It received a Second Reading without a division and went up to Committee. I 1188 am sorry that certain hon. Members who were interested in the Bill were not members of the Scottish Standing Committee. They represent English constituencies, and they have asked me certain questions. I would call attention to the two main alterations made in the Bill. The hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) raised the question of solicitors who were not members of legal societies in Scotland. The General Council mentioned in the Bill is composed of members elected by various legal societies in Scotland. It was pointed out that there were certain solicitors who were not members of any of the legal societies mentioned in Schedule 2 of the Bill, and that therefore they would be compelled to join the existing legal societies. The Standing Committee added another unit to the Second Schedule, to include solicitors who were not members of legal societies in Scotland, and they will be able to appoint and elect their own members to the General Council. Therefore, all solicitors in Scotland will have some say in the formation of the General Council.
The other main alteration was in Clause 39. There were minor alterations for drafting purposes. With these exceptions the Bill is exactly the same as that which was given a Second Reading. I would thank all Members of the House who have taken an interest in the Bill for the help that they have given me, and the criticisms that they have made. Everyone will admit that it is a better Bill than that which went to the Standing Committee. The Bill is something for which the solicitors of Scotland have been asking for years, and there is no one more deeply grateful than they for the provisions of the Bill. I feel that the passing of the Bill is really worth the time that has been devoted to it.

§ Mr. C. WILLIAMS
I very much regret having heard my hon. Friend who has just sat down have words of controversy on such a Bill as this. On Friday afternoons if we can carry on these things without heat and feeling it helps enormously. Personally I regret that anyone so mild in appearance and so charming an individual as my hon. Friend, should have gone out of his way to attack the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton). I hope that on future occasions we shall not have our Fridays 1189 blemished in this way. The hon. Member said something about qualified solicitors of Scotland committing certain offences. If I had said a thing like that I should have been told I was insulting the Scottish people. The real object of the Bill is not the purification of the Scottish law. I can assure hon. Members that the standard of Scottish lawyers is as high as it is possible to attain in this human world. The real object of the Bill is not that. I have been in this House some while, as some people may have realised, and during that time I have found two or three very good rules. One is that when all Scotsmen stick together there are some curious things going on. As has been pointed out this Bill creates an extreme form of trade union. After all the lawyers are a trade union which is a model for all the bad trade unions in the world. They try simply to squeeze out all forms of competition. Scottish lawyers are a very close corporation, and I gather that under this Bill they will make that corporation closer and closer.
I see that one hon. Member on the Government front bench shakes his head, and the other smiles. The one who shakes his head looks rather like the criminal in the box who has been caught out, and the other like the judge who is preparing his sentence. This Bill has been through the Scottish Standing Committee. I always imagined that the Scottish were a practical people. I think so still. But some things occasionally are apt to disillusion one in this rather sad world. Clause 17, a new and very long clause, if I understand it aright, has been inserted for two individuals.

§ Mr. R. W. SMITH
The whole of the Clause is not new, but only the first few lines and the last, and they are taken out of another Act.

§ Mr. WILLIAMS
Of course I accept that explanation. A large portion of this Clause has been inserted to allow two notaries public to be included in the Bill. I should have thought that a matter of that kind could have been dealt with long before the Bill came to the House of Commons—that, with all the knowledge of the legal profession and with all the learned names at, the back of the Bill, the original Bill could have been so drafted that there would have been no need for any Amendment of that kind. 1190 It shows to many of us, who have been in the habit of thinking that if only lawyers drafted a Bill everything would be all right, that we are not, as a House of Commons, so dependent on our legal colleagues—a horrible word, but used in high circles—and that they are not always quite as good as they might be.
Then there is a Clause which absolutely beats my understanding altogether. That is Clause 46, which reads as follows: A solicitor shall not be entitled to borrow a process depending before any supreme court sitting in Edinburgh unless he has a place of business in Edinburgh. How in the world do you borrow a process? That is obviously a. Scottish term which I could not be expected to understand, but, I should like it to be explained to me in due course before we go on. The Clause says that you may not borrow a process if you have a place of business in, say, Inverness, but not in Edinburgh. Why is Edinburgh chosen I After all, it is only a. secondary city as compared with Glasgow. It is certainly much more beautiful in some ways, but it is not, cannot, and never is likely to be, in the eyes of anyone sitting in this House, as important and as intellectual as Glasgow. I would ask why the lawyers. wish to narrow people down so that, if they have a place of business in Edinburgh they can borrow a process, while, if they have not a place of business in Edinburgh, apparently they cannot do so. This is quite an unnecessary handicap on the labour market of Glasgow, cutting them out of the chance of getting into this business of borrowing a process. It is not right that we in the House of Commons should limit people in such a. way as practically to compel them to live in Edinburgh. Although Edinburgh may have many advantages, I do not think it is right to say that a lawyer who may have lived for many years in his own city and become eminent there should have to denationalise himself. as it were, and become an inhabitant of Edinburgh.
I am perfectly prepared to give this Bill its chance in order to see that everything shall be done as it should be done to maintain the very high standard of legal knowledge in Scotland, but I do not like to see put into a Bill this particular provision, which seems to me to be beyond my understanding, compelling a person to give up his residence in Glasgow, and the 1191 benefits and amenities of that place, in order to live in Edinburgh. To take an illustration, that would render it impossible for us to benefit nearly as often as we do from the extraordinarily wide outlook of the hon. Member for Bridgeton. I will not say anything more on that point, except that I am sorry that the Bill has been defaced by this Clause.

§ Mr. J. REID
I am induced to rise by some remarks which fell from my hon. Friend the Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams). His interventions on this Bill appear to be due not so much to interest as to inquisitiveness on his part. I am not going to satisfy that inquisitiveness, because it is obvious that my hon. Friend has merely taken the Bill wherever it happened to fall open, and, reading on, has not had to read very far before he has come across some phrase which he did not understand and upon which he has then made a speech. I think it would be disrespectful to the House if I took up its time in answering criticisms which have arisen in that way.

§ Mr. C. WILLIAMS
I assure my hon. Friend that nothing is further from the truth than that. I have read a great deal of the Bill, and have spent a large amount of time in listening to Scottish lawyers, but they should have imparted to me the capacity to understand these Bills. My hon. Friend's remarks are not really quite fair. I have done what I think no Englishman has done—on a Friday morning I have got a Scottish Bill amended.

§ Mr. REID
I agree that my hon. Friend deserves to be congratulated for his temerity and success in that matter. I rather regretted some remarks which he made at the beginning of his speech about the profession generally. I am certain that we who know my hon. Friend in this House recognise that he was not serious in making those remarks; we are accustomed to remarks of that kind from him; but those outside who may see those remarks reported in the papers may not realise that they were not intended to be serious.
With regard to the speech of the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton), I do not think he was very fair, if I may say so, in one respect. He blamed Scot- 1192 tish private Members for bringing forward Measures of this character at a time of national emergency. He, who has been so long in the House, must be perfectly aware of what is obvious even to a newcomer like myself, namely, that a private Member who draws a place in the Ballot is at once confronted with this difficulty, that, if he adopts a Measure of primary importance, or one which arouses acute controversy, he has no chance whatever of getting that Measure passed into law. Obviously, therefore, the only thing he can do, if he wants to do some good with his luck in the Ballot, is to adopt a Measure of secondary importance, which is not going to arouse acute controversy.
This, undoubtedly, is a Measure of somewhat secondary importance, but it is of great importance, not only to the profession, but to the country at large. After all, the legal profession serves an extremely important function, as I think the hon. Member for Bridgeton would be the first to acknowledge, and it is of the greatest importance that its affairs should be conducted in such a way that the public will have confidence in it and in its work. It is with that object that this Bill has been introduced. it deals with a number of topics which have been very carefully considered, first by the framers of the Bill, secondly, by all the legal societies in Scotland, and, thirdly, by the Scottish Grand Committee, instructed by information supplied to them from all sorts of sources, professional and otherwise; and, at the end of that long and detailed examination, the Bill comes up here substantially unchallenged on any detail.
I know that the hon. Member for Bridgeton dislikes the Bill in principle, and I was rather interested to hear why, because, if I understood him aright, he dislikes it because there is no outside control of what he calls the professional trade union. If that is really his attitude, it throws a very interesting light on some other points. DÒes he really say that a trade union ought to be controlled by some public body outside and independent of the trade union? If that is what he means, it will have very interesting repercussions in other departments of politics and industry. If it is not what he means, I fail to understand the force of his criticism. The details of 1193 administration under the Bill are not controlled by the solicitors themselves in the last resort. There is an appeal from the committee in every matter that is material to the court in the last resort, entrants have their interests protected by a right of appeal to the court, procedure is liable to be adjusted in the last resort, and who is there better than the solicitors for the preparation and passing of these measures in the first instance? If the hon. Member was going to make these criticisms, he might have suggested, either now or at an earlier stage, what alternative method of control appealed to him as being useful. I am sure that, if he had put forward those suggestions in a concrete shape, they would have received very careful consideration. We have considered every suggestion that has been put forward, and we have adopted a great many. Nothing is perfect, but the Bill as it now stands is as good a Bill as could be produced, it will do a great deal of good both directly and indirectly, and I ask the House to disregard the criticisms that have been offered against it, and to give it a Third Reading without further opposition.

§ Dr. O'DONOVAN
There is a measure of responsibility attaching to English Members if they allow the Third Reading to go through, and there is one point in the Bill which leaves us still completely mystified. On page 20 there is a side heading, "Borrowing process." That, to me, is meaningless, and I hope it will be explained. It is a little difficult to give assent to a technical Bill without much ampler explanation. It also calls for explanation why a solicitor who is entitled to borrow process must of necessity have a place of business in Edinburgh. Surely the profession can trust its Members who have places of business in other cities, and this is not a Measure for confining business solely to those who have offices in that ancient and venerable city.

§ The LORD ADVOCATE
I should like to say a word in answer to the hon. Member's question. By a "process" we just mean the pleadings in an action and any documentary evidence that may be put in. Together they form a process. The reason why a process can only be borrowed by someone having a place of 1194 business in Edinburgh, is that it is undesirable that official documents of that kind should go out of the custody of the Court.

§ Mr. C. WILLIAMS
Can the right hon. Gentleman give me an assurance that this does not mean that one Scot cannot borrow money from another unless he happens to be an inhabitant of Edinburgh?

§ Mr. ORMISTON
I think that I am the only Scottish practising solicitor who is a, Member of the House, and I should like to express our gratitude to the hon. Member for Central Aberdeen (Mr. R. W. Smith) for having introduced the Bill and to the House for the patient way in which it has given consideration to it. It has been brought forward by the solicitors' profession with the object of improving their relations with the public, and not with any ulterior motive of benefiting the profession or making it more lucrative, as my hon. Friend and old school chum the Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) said. We have found difficulty in dealing with solicitors who have been inclined to deviate from the straight and narrow path. The Bill will give the solicitors themselves the power to control the profession, and I feel sure that it will be for the benefit of the profession and also of the public.