The Campbell Case and the First Labour Government
![handle is hein.journals/nilq20 and id is 27 raw text is: THE CAMPBELL CASE
THE CAMPBELL CASE AND THE FIRST
LABOUR GOVERNMENT
It may be thought anomalous that a lawyer should go grazing in
fields in which the Departments of Modern History and Political
Science have-to put it no higher-a perfectly good possessory title.
My defence is that the Campbell case was the first considerable Par-
liamentary event to engage my youthful attention and I have never
lost interest in it. At the time-1924--it was quite impossible to dis-
cover where the truth lay, and in subsequent years as the politicians
concerned in the affair retired and wrote their memoirs, their recol-
lections served only to make the picture more confused. A few years
ago it occurred to me that, as judges and practising lawyers spend the
greater part of their time trying to extract the truth from a mass of
discordant assertions and insinuations of fact, there was no reason
why an academic lawyer should not try his hand at solving the
mystery of the Campbell case. Most of my detective work was done
in the knowledge that there was probably some important clue buried
deep in the cabinet papers. Only very recently have cabinet papers
for that period been available for inspection, and I made haste to
visit the Record Office in London. My visit was not wasted. But I
have decided not to weave the disclosures of the cabinet papers into
the main story, but to keep them for the epilogue. The Campbell
case of 1924 was made up of what was said in Parliament and on
political platforms and in the public press, and it was on this material
that judgments were made and action taken.
The case raised important constitutional issues as to the position
of an Attorney-General in relation to the Government when proceed-
ings are taken in cases with a political bearing. This matter has been
thoroughly and excellently examined by a former member of this
Faculty-Professor John Edwards-in his book on the Law Officers.'
I am not concerned with this aspect at all. I am not concerned with
what the actors should have done: I want to know what in fact they
did.
, The members of the first Labour government which took office
in January 1924 must have been very surprised. Starting from small
beginnings in 1892-in fact the small beginnings was the lone Keir
Hardie in his famous cloth cap-Labour had increased its represen-
tation at each succeeding general election, but in 1923 it still numbered
I Edwards, The Law Officers of the Crown (1964).
March, 1969]](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/nilq20&div=10&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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The Campbell Case and the First Labour Government
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