Hugh Macmillan, Baron Macmillan Quotes

Nothing is more fatal to success at the Parliamentary Bar than to attempt to suppress or misrepresent any point, for if the Committees lose confidence in a counsel's fairness the Parliamentary agents will soon desert him.

This was no doubt due in part to economic reasons, for Scotland before the era of modern industrial developments was a poor country and brains and brawn were among its few merchantable assets. Hence, on the one hand, the rewarding eminence attained by so many Scots beyond their own borders in the worlds of scholarship, commerce, and administration... and hence, on the other hand, the fame of the achievements of the Scots on the Continent as soldiers of fortune in the wars of Europe, a valorous reputation subsequently so well maintained by the Highland Regiments in the service of the British Crown.

During the long interval which elapsed before the revival and reconstitution of the Secretary-ship in 1885, `the Lord Advocate of the day was really Minister for Scotland. The technical right to control Scottish affairs in their various departments no doubt belonged to the various Ministers of the Crown; but so little was known in London about Scotland and the country was in so distrubed and backward a condition that responsibility was easily devolved upon the only man who knew or cared much about the subject.'

In those days there were no Scottish Q.C.s or K.C.s, though it was customary to confer the rank of Queen's Counsel on the Lord Advocate of the day by admitting him to the English roll of silks... the Scottish roll of Queen's Counsel was instituted... in 1897.

We had for our guide the wish of the founder [of the Pilgrim Trust] that we should devote ourselves specially to the conservation of the heritage of Britain, and we knew that this meant not only its material heritage of institutions and buildings and places of beauty and historical association, but also the nation's spiritual and intellectual heritage in the character and well-being of the people, then passing through the ordeal of widespread unemployment and distress, with all the accompanying risks of deterioration. So we regarded ourselves, as it were, as a salvage corps, and decided to divide our assistance between these two types of objects.

I must plead guilty to having borne a part professionally in the invasion of the Highlands by electric power schemes... An inscribed ingot of aluminium on my desk commemorates the event, but when from the window of the train as it approaches Fort William I see the attentuated stream which is all that is now left in the once glorious gorge of the Spean I confess to a twinge of conscience.

[Voluntary social work] has indeed become a new profession and quite a large number of people now make their livelihood by such work. At the same time the State has expanded its social services beyond all recognition within the space of a single generation and a large part of the produce of taxation is now devoted to every form of social amelioration... I should like to see us less concerned with palliation and more concerned with providing the means whereby our people by self-help, that demoded Victorian virtue, should be able to work out their own salvation, even if in fear and trembling.

It seemed a wonderful thing to me to be a member of a great Faculty whose history and traditions went back to the earliest times and to be entitled to exercise a profession which I then thought and still think to require the highest gifts of mind and character for its worthy pursuit.

I quoted F.S. Oliver's words: `politics is the noblest career that any man can choose. Stout must be the hearts of those who take so great a risk and who dedicate themselves--souls as well as bodies--to the service of their country.'

As a trustee of the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland I have read many applications for help in the payment of University class fees on behalf of would-be students from crofts in the remotest regions of the Highlands and Islands. It was impossible to read them without emotion and admiration, for they displayed in their simple words a spirit of courage and of aspiration undaunted by hardship which went to one's heart.

This country, having remained inviolate from invasion and plunder for so many centuries, is a rich storehouse of historical, literary, and legal records.

A member of the Bar is not entitled to refuse his services to anyone who seeks to employ him. He has been said to be like a cabman on the rank: it is his duty to place himself at the disposal of the first person who hails him and he has no right to exercise any discrimination... This principle also has its origin in the conception of the special position of the advocate in the public administration of justice. It is essential that no citizen should be unable to procure the adequate presentation of his case in Court, however unpopular or even unworthy he may be.

I found ample scope in the work of the tribunals that were open to me, and in the House of Lords, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and the Parliamentary Committee Rooms. I enjoyed a large and varied practice, almost entirely in English cases and cases from the Dominions.

The promoters of every private bill have to satisfy the [Parliamentary] Committee that their proposals are sufficiently beneficial to the public to justify the Committee in entrusting them with the special powers necessary to carry them out; it is only on this condition that private rights and interests can be required to give way to public necessity. The task of the Committee is to examine the proposals from this point of view and for this purpose to hear the arguments and evidence both of the promoters and of thhe opponents, being specially vigilant to see that justice is done by way of compensation and protection to those who may be called upon to make sacrifices for the public benefit. The range of the subjects which may come before Parliament by way of private bill is immensely varied, including such matters as the construction of railways, the building of harbours and bridges, the extension of city boundaries, the development of water power and electricity, the provision of water supplies, and the alteration of the constitution and objects of charitable and educational institutions.

The wide experience to be gained at the Scots Bar has its advantages. It does not enable one to become such an expert in any single department as the English specialist... but it tends to a sound knowledge of the legal principles common to all branches of the law. The Scottish Judges have always been more interested in principle than in precedent and the Bar have conformed to this lead. In the House of Lords this feature of Scottish advocacy has been often remarked and admired.