Fiacre

‘I have no desire to be a marked man’: Lord Simon Liberal politician. Two Typed Letters Signed to T. Lloyd Humberstone on an ‘adverse vote’ at the National Liberal Club and on prerogative Parliamentary representation and ‘old Universities’.

24070 — 17 January and 8 November 1948. Both on government letterheads. See his entry in the Oxford DNB. The recipient the educationist Thomas Lloyd Humberstone 1876-1957 was a prominent member of the Convocation of the University of London. Both items in fair condition on lightly aged paper the second with slight loss along one edge due to removal from mount. Both signed ‘Simon’. ONE: 17 January 1948. 1p 12mo. Folded once. ‘I do not for a moment believe that the adverse vote carried at a depleted meeting of the General Committee represents the broad view of the Club clearly the National Liberal Club as a whole but I have to take things as I find them. So unless the Club as a whole cancels the verdict I have no desire to be a marked man in that company. I am urging all other Liberal-Nationals who have not been selected for attack to remain.’ TWO: 8 November 1948. 1p 4to. Folded twice. He is sorry that Humberstone is ‘laid up’ and will read his ‘brochure’ with interest. He does not consider that there is ‘anything of a legal or constitutional force’ with the words ‘of’ to ‘force’ in autograph in Humberstone’s point ‘that the old Universities at one time were granted Parliamentary representation by prerogative action’. He discusses the present operation of the prerogative with reference to ‘my argument in Attorney-General v. De Keyser Hotel where we proved that the Crown could not exercise its power to requisition land even for war purposes without paying for it as statute law provides’. He concludes the paragraph: ‘Whether right or wrong the question now turns solely on what the Statute Book contains.’ 17 January and 8 November 1948. Both on government letterheads. unknown