The Great Charter.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18421, 30 June 1925, Page 8

The Great Charter.

It is to be hoped that there was no special significance in the fact that the 710 th anniversary of Magna Charta was celebrated by an assembly consisting largely of " clergy, boy scouts, and " members of friendly societies." It would be a pity if one of our greatest political anniversaries wero ceasing to be regarded with respect by the political man in general and could no longer arouse emotion in those not of the moral elect. Although it is true that " Chief-Justice Coke indented Magna Charta" —that we celebrate not so much what took place at Runnymcde as what we have come to suppose took place—the thing Ave have created is so great and good in itself that we may go on rejoicing in it without any feeling of uneasiness. Tor the thing Ave have created is Liberty, and it is far less impc-rtant that we should be clear about the demands made on John by the Barons than clear about the demands that liberty makes on ourselves. It is clear enough to those avlio have read and thought that the Barons not only did not ask for liberty as we understand it to-day, but avouKl have been very much alarmed if they had thought that the King was granting it. What they asked for was in"Professor Pollard's phrase not "liberty," but "liberties," and the liberties Avere special privileges the value of Avhich Avas that they put the Barons into an exclusive class. It is a simple fact that many of the liberties asked for Avere against the public interest—that what the Barons meant, for example, by their demand that every man should be judged by his peers Avas that they themselves should not be subject to trial and punishment at the hands of the regular judges. The Barons did, of course, demand many things the granting of Avhich Avas a permanent boon to the nation, but they did not demand them for the nation. We have to remember that the earliest knoAvn vernacular version of the Charter did not appear before the sixteenth century, so that it is impossible to describe' as a popular achieA-enient Avhat the people could not read for three hundred, years. But although Avhat John conceded Avas not liberty for the people but priAaleges for the Barons, the effect of it all in the long run was that the people Avere rescued from the oppression of tyrants. And it is that deliverance which we celebrate still, hoAveA-er absurdly we antedate it. Runnymede may not be the starting place, nor 1215 the starting time, but Ave have arrived, and it will be a misfortune if the higher critics of politics irfb us of the arrived travellers' joy.