FREEDOM IS ELUSIVE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 270, 25 August 1944, Page 18

FREEDOM IS ELUSIVE

No Cow, No Common, No Free Bus Rides -But Plenty of Bog

R FRASER has returned to New Zealand but with the added distinction of having had the Freedom of the City of London conferred upon him: When someone asked me what it meant I found I knew very little about it, so I set out with the intention of consulting an authority or two on the subject. I started withthe encyclopedias. They told me that the Honorary Freedom of a City or Borough could be co:.ferred on eminent visitors or persons of distinction. The Freedom implied certain rights and privileges that were nowhere clearly I determined to try the Library. On the way I met an acquaintance and asked her if she could solve my problem. "Oh," she replied, "doesn’t it mean that you can keep a cow on the common?" I couldn’t quite see why the Prime Minister should be offered or should accept, the right to gtaze a cow on an English common. So I went to

‘the Public Library. Here the staff were most considerate, but after consulting the encyclopedias with no better results than I had achieved elsewhere, examining volumes on constitutional law and history, and wading through chapters on

freemen and guiids, I knew no more than that each borough admitted freemen according to its own peculiar customs and bylaws, and that the rights and privileges generally included the right to vote at

Parliamentary elections for the borough, and exemption from tolls and dues, It did appear, however that by an Act in 1835 every person who was a freeman retained the right to a share in the corporate property, commons, and public stock. Here, I thought, was the ‘common, but there was no mention of the cow anywhere. Another volume told me that the Freedom of a Borough or City could at one time be claimed by birth, servitude (i.e., apprenticeship) to a freeman, purchase, gift, or marriage, but that in 1933 another Act was passed abolishing the gift and purchase provisions, although it was still the practice to confer Honorary Freedom as a mark of dis- _ tinction upon a person whom the council wished to honour. "But the admission of a person to an honorary freedom does not confer the right of sharing in the benefit of any hereditaments, common lands, or public stock of such borough or its council." That finished the cow finally. * * ae T finished the day too, but next morning I called at a newspaper office with my question. "Well," one of the reporters said, "it means ... well . . » I don’t know-Mac, what does the Freedom of the City mean?" "Mac" thought that it meant you could get drunk, break windows, or do anything that was not felony and get away with it. I didn’t trust the twinkle in his eye, but felt on safer ground when he added, "T’ll get the girl in the other room to look it up for you." While I waited I broached the subject to another member of the staff. "Yes," he said, "it entitles you to free rides on the trams and buses of the city." "But you’d need to carry some kind of identification with you," I remarked. "Oh yes. It’s a large box . . . so big, with a long scroll in it." At that point the girl came in and said that she couldn’t find anything about it, but why didn’t I look it up in an encyclopedia? By this time I was completely in bondage to freedom. As I passed a shop the manager, whom I knew well, was just going in. "Coming in to see us?" he asked. "Too busy," I replied. "I’m looking for the freedom of a city!" "Oh, I read an article about that in an English paper some time ago. It told all about the origin of it and what it means to-day." 3 (continued on next page) \

(continued from previous page) At last I was on the track. ... Or was I? Could he remember which paper it was? Or where he'd seen it? "No, but it was about four or five weeks ago. It was one of those papers that have a weekly supplement. It’s a pity I didn’t take more notice at the time." My sentiments entirely, I thought, as I set off for the Library again. The assistant looked at me when I asked for the weekly supplements of all the English newspapers for the past six weeks. At the end of a lengthy session I went out. I thanked her-no, I hadn’t found what I was looking for. * * T the boarding house at lunch-time I was glancing over the shelves of old books. Nestling in between Bulldog Drummond’s Return and How to Keep Hens for Profit was one on the popular customs of England, and in it I discovered a detailed description of how one received the Freedom of Alnwick. It appeared that in 1209 King John fell

440212 1245 AUIS@ itilv a bog at Alnwick, and he stuck so fast that it was only with difficulty that he was rescued by his | attendants. He therefore inserted in the city charter a clause that all new-created ‘ freemen should, each

year, on St, Mark’s day (April 25) pass on foot through the bog. Fortunately for the Prime Minister, who just might have visited Alnwick in the course of his travels, the ceremony was discontinued about the middle of the nineteenth century. A visit to the British High Commissioner’s Office and to a Professor or two at the University brought me no nearer

to the solution (beyond a lengthy bibliography from one of the Professors in which I might find something). Later that day, after finding that Government departments could do no more than refer me to encyclopeedias, I searched the Assembly Library. Here I discovered that for five centuries before 1835 the Freedom of the City of London could be obtained only through the Livery Companies, that the privileges of an ordinary freeman include a parliamentary vote, immunity from country jurisdiction, exemption from tolls, and a share in the revenue accruing from the corporate property, and that since 1899 women have been eligible for an Honorary Freedom. Another section told me that Honorary Freemen could exercise no voting rights. Although the Freedom of the City was the greatest honour that could be conferred upon anyone, it (continued on next page)

FREEDOM IS ELUSIVE

(Continued from previous page) appeared that there was nothing the recipient could do afterwards that he could not have done before. * % * Y now my interest in freedom had developed into a mania, so I decided to try the Prime Minister’s department. The staff were interested and sympathetic, but left me still in the air. They thought the scroll itself might give some indication, but unfortunately it was still on the way out from England. However I came away with some figures. In 1916, when Mr. Massey went to England for an imperial conference, he had the freedom of several cities conferred upon him, and by the time of his death he had collected eight freedoms-Lon-don, Edinburgh, Londonderry, Glasgow, York, Manchester, Cardiff, and Bristol. Mr. Fraser had seven to his creditTain, Swansea, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Inverness, Edinburgh, and Dingwall, but the addition of London this year brought his score up to eight, not out. Finally, when I had almost given up hope, the Crown Law Office came to my rescue. They had located the information I wanted, and if I liked to go round to their library I could copy it out. Wild horses could not have kept 7

me from that library. There was no fuss or frantic looking-up references. The volume was lying open at the place and I read ‘this: "Under the Honorary Freedom of the Boroughs Act, 1885, the council of every borough may from time to time, by authority of not less than two-thirds of their number present and voting at a meeting of the council specially called for the purpose and with notice of the object, admit to be honorary freemen of the borough persons of distinction and any persons who have rendered eminent services to the borough, provided that the admission of such persons to be freemen shall not confer on them the right of voting for the borough in a Parliamentary or other elections, or cf sharing in the benefit of any hereditaments, common lands, or public stock belonging to the pwrp on or its council or of any property held in whole or in part for any charitable use or trust." No common, no cow, no journey through a bog-in fact no privileges at all, and no obligations! Or was I wrong? Was there something in that passage (Encyclopedia of the Laws of England, Vol. 6, Page 283) that I had missed or could not understand? No. It simply told me with authority what other sources of information had made me suspect-that freedom is elusive. In short, the joke was on me, Mr. Fraser had escaped the bog, but I had to wade through one for three days to discover that I need never have started,

J.L.

H.