Memories of John Westlake ..

friends in this country and on the Continent of Europe, wishing to preserve a short record of the manner of his life and influence, have brought together either personal memories of his character and career from the points of view from which they knew him, or studies of the different aspects of his work which they are peculiarly qualified to estimate. He said himself, on the occasion of the presentation by his friends of his portrait to

lifelong interest) reached even remote Lostwithiel before boyhood was over, and Mrs. Westlake acquiesced in the view, then new, that * inspiration ' was an influence guarding the sacred writers only against spiritual error.

Until illness incapacitated him, John Westlake's father shared in his education and gave him his earliest impressions of Greek by teaching the boy to read the Iliad aloud to him in Greek every morning while he was shaving.

John Westlake never went to a boarding or afterwards Master of St. John's, in classics. Bate- son was followed by Shilleto, the famous scholar, and Colenso by Harvey Goodwin, afterwards Bishop of Carlisle. the advice but found that something more than he had expressed was required, and the result was my " Treatise on Private International Law or the Conflict of Laws, with principal reference to its practice in the English and other cognate systems of Jurisprudence, 1858." This I almost entirely rewrote for my " Treatise on Private International Law, with principal reference to its practice in England, being in lieu of a second edition of the work published in 1858," 1880. The two books were so different that I should have made no allusion to the former in the title to the second, but for the urgent instance of my publisher.' A third edition appeared in 1890 ; a fourth, with important developments, in 1905, and the fifth and last edition in 1912. The most important of Westlake's writings after his work on private international law is his treatise on international law proper, in two volumes, with the sub- titles respectively of ' Peace ' and ' War,' published in 1904 and 1907. Westlake was not only a jurist of world-wide reputation, he also attained considerable success as a practising lawyer. As a draftsman the accuracy of his mind, his great industry, and his trained carefulness and succinctness of expression put him in the very first rank ; his wide learning and his knowledge of foreign systems of law specially French made his ' opinion ' of very great value.

Hence, the main field of his professional activities was in cases involving a knowledge of international or foreign law, and in what may be called ' commercial conveyancing ' : he was the originator of an early set of forms often used in the reconstruction of companies and devised by him in connection with the unhappy Agra and Masterman's Bank ; and in the late sixties and in the seventies he had a considerable practice in the Privy Council. But he had not the pliancy or adaptability of the successful advocate, and, perhaps, English legal machinery has no place exactly suited for one who in Rome would have naturally been numbered with the problems in the development of individual character.

He had a profound distrust of the extension of the activities of the State and the municipality, not from any lack of sympathy with the ends to be achieved, but rather from an optimistic belief not so much in the advantages likely to result from the free play of individual self-interest, as in the general right feeling of the individual man. But he detested any attempt at individual self-aggrandise- ment, more especially at the expense of the public, and his love of natural scenery joined with his concern for social welfare to make him an active member of the Commons Preservation and Footpaths Protection Society.

It will have been seen that in early life Westlake was in close association with Colenso : he himself writes of this association, and of his own ecclesiastical opinions, thus : c I never approved of the first part of Colenso on the Pentateuch, though having no higher opinion than the Bishop of the historical character of the narrative, and I did my best to persuade him at least to postpone its publication till it could be accompanied by the second part. Under his, among other, influences, I at that time desired to see a wider comprehension in the Church of England than I now believe to be possible in any religious communion, established or voluntary.

And I contributed an essay on " The Church in the Colonies " to a volume of " Essays on Church traveller, having that rigorous simplicity of habit which is the main condition of

Policy," edited by the Rev. W. L. Clay, 1868, in which a policy of comprehension was advocated.

Having become convinced that this is impossible, I declared for disestablishment (which I refuse to distinguish from disendowment).'

A lawyer with an interest in social questions as strong as was Westlake's is necessarily drawn into politics necessarily, because a true servant of the law will neither undervalue its power nor leave to others the task of its amendment. In 1885, he entered the House of Commons as Liberal Member for the Romford Division of Essex, but he voted and spoke against the first Home Rule travelling ; but with the excep tion of two visits to America, an expedition to the Asiatic side of the Dardanelles, and a journey in

Bill and lost his seat to his former Tory opponent in a three-cornered contest on the dissolution in July 1886. In 1892, he stood as a Liberal Unionist for the Mid or St. Austell Division of Cornwall upon the understanding that he was not to vote for disestablishment if proposed and was defeated.

In truth, he was not politically in a sufficiently strong position to impose himself on party managers, nor sufficiently adaptable to become an ordinary subordinate member of a party. It may be doubted whether his life lost either interest or usefulness even in the sphere of politics by his electoral defeats. He combined with his interest in social questions a close study and knowledge of foreign affairs, for which he would have had little scope in the House of Commons, but which he could exercise in his position as an international lawyer with more freedom and at least equal effect. Other contributors to this volume will give some account of Westlake as a jurist, as a politician, as a friend of oppressed nationalities, as a social worker, and in other capacities, but it may be not out of place here to illustrate his character by briefly mentioning his devotion to the cause of the enfranchisement of women. Throughout his life he held the view that the exclusion of woman from fields of activity where she is no less generally competent to do good work than is man, is a legacy from past conditions of society for which there is no justification. And he worked steadily for the propagation and realisation of his view, confirmed and strengthened by the example of Mrs. Westlake's fruitful activities as a member of the School Board for London.

He held no official position in any of the societies for women's suffrage, but he was always ready to speak for the women's cause, and to help it with his legal knowledge or financial aid, and he gave to the women's movement the invaluable moral support of a sane judgment and balanced mind. The methods of other supporters of the cause never affected in the least his unwavering support. If the public weigh the soundness of a cause by the acts and character of its supporters, Westlake's name should be laid in the balance as one not inconsiderable element in arriving at a just conclusion.

Throughout his life, he was an eager and, in the technical sense, a ' good ' traveller, having that rigorous simplicity of habit which is the main condition of ' good ' travelling ; but with the excep- tion of two visits to America, an expedition to the Asiatic side of the Dardanelles, and a journey in Algeria and Tunis, he confined himself to Europe.

His European journeys included a visit to Dalmatia and a long stay at Athens and in the Peloponnese, where his sympathies with the Greek and Balkan peoples generally were confirmed. He rarely missed the annual meetings of the Institute of International Law. His profound knowledge of history, and his lively interest both in architecture and geology, stimulated and were in turn increased by his travels.

A list of Westlake's writings will be found in an appendix: the list includes much that, written by another man, would have been dashed off as journalism, but whatever the occasion, he never either wrote or spoke with haste or superficiality ; whatever he wrote bears the stamp of an intellect accurate and profound. In all that he wrote he put forward his full powers. He was almost over-conscientious in any mental work, however trivial. Carelessness in thought or looseness in expression were abhorrent to his mind. He never spared himself.

To this skeleton of dates and facts a few personal impressions may be added. John Westlake must have struck all his friends with his passionate and at the same time reasonable enthusiasm of reason.

His mind was up to the very last keen, balanced, in the best sense judicial. A casual acquaintance might have thought him far away from any form of enthusiasm. But, in fact, his intellect was at the service of a personality devoted romantically to high ends, and sympathetic to every deeper call of humanity. Cultivating himself a great clarity of speech, he was yet fully responsive to the music of eloquent and stately language. The mysterious names of the headlands of his Cornish coast names some of them pre-Celtic in origin were, as he said himself, 4 music to his ears ' ; and to hear him quote the famous ; and to hear him quote the famous

Where the great vision of the guarded mount Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold was to understand how the spirit of a great poet will speak directly across the centuries at the call of a congenial mind.

Perhaps one of the happiest moments of his later years was the evening when the news reached London of the finding of the Court of Inquiry as to the affair of the North Sea fishing-boats and the Russian Baltic Fleet. When he heard the news, his face and all his figure was alive with keen personal enjoyment.

He rejoiced for his country ; and he rejoiced, too, for the study to which he had given his life.

An international tribunal had settled a grave question, of which the issues were war or peace ; International Law had made another step forward in what may yet prove to be a rapid conquest of a civilised world.

Westlake was a believer in human progress. He held unswervingly that the general conditions of human life were improving. He was absolutely free, in his old age, from the common and pardonable tendency to believe that the world had been better in the prime of his own life. He asked for light and welcomed it. He had a reverent faith in reason.

His powerful intellect never led him to an impatient or contemptuous estimate of mankind. He erred rather by crediting all the world with an anxious desire to act reasonably. To differ from him on any serious subject was an exercise both in humility and self-knowledge ; his good faith shamed any baser motive ; his powerful reason revealed unsus- pected weakness on the opposing side and new strength on his ow r n. One might differ from him in his premises, in his estimate of a character or a situation, but, the basis of his argument once accepted, assent was compelled to his conclusions. A man of so high a courtesy dignified all the relations of life.

In his mouth, and in his presence, a lawyer was a servant of justice, a partisan of practical reason.

As all liberal-minded men, he hated oppression : as all international lawyers, he was a friend of peace. But he did not hold that the cessation of war was near at hand, and he did not support the proposal for exempting private property from capture by sea, partly from the belief that the proposal would unduly weaken his country's power of offence. Perhaps the most signal service that he ever rendered to the human race was his happy suggestion of a combina- tion of mediative and judicial arbitration in the Venezuelan difficulty with the United States of America : a suggestion that averted a fratricidal strife in which communities less happily advised might have plunged.

For that service two nations will always be his debtors.

J. FISCHER WILLIAMS.

II HIS BOOK AND HIS CHARACTER WESTLAKE'S death takes from the English Bar a lawyer of high distinction. It deprives England of a most public-spirited and patriotic citizen. It means to many of us the loss of one of the kindest and most trustworthy of friends. I make no effort to give even a sketch of his career ; my aim is first to give an estimate of Westlake's * Private Inter- national Law,' the book on which his fame as a juridical writer must ultimately depend, and next to direct attention towards one or two aspects of a noble character which, from the circumstances of my life, were specially brought to my notice.

Consider first the character and excellence of his book.

The first edition of Westlake's ' Private Inter- national Law ' appeared in 1858. 1 The fifth and 1 It was, when first published, entitled A Treatise an Private Inter- national Law, or the Conflict of Laws, with principal reference to its practice in the English and other cognate systems of Jurisprudence. This title itself, which is somewhat changed in later editions, is instructive. The change which during half a century has been worked in the law of England by judicial legislation, aided by a few statutory enactments, may be summed up in two sentences : ' Private International Law,' as recognised by English Courts, was in 1858 incomplete and chaotic. It now, in 1914, approaches to something like completeness, and may be summarised under leading principles. Anyone who re-reads Westlake's first edition feels astounded at the confusion and the fragmentary character of the rules then enforced by English Courts with regard to the conflict of laws. Our judges at that date practically recognised no authori- tative treatise except Story's 'Conflict of Laws,' published in 1834. The great merits of Story must be acknowledged by everyone who can recognise the strength and solidity of good legal thinking.

Whether his treatise gains much from miscellaneous quotations from foreign writers who possessed in their day considerable reputation, may be open to question. It is not at all clear that, nowadays, Story's citations from Huber, from Paul Voet, and other like authorities, give any additional weight to his own statements of the rules as to the conflict of laws maintained in England and in the United States.

Still, when he wrote, it was necessary to cite authorities whose dicta, not always thoroughly understood, were respectfully received by British and American Courts. Story's language often lacked precision. he and the judges whom he influenced gave, whether consciously or not, an ambiguous meaning to the expression lex loci contractus, and probably gave too wide a sense to the rule that all matters of procedure should be governed by the lex fori.