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[Grey of Fallodon]
Private
29 Wimpole Street W.1 Nov. 7. 1930
My dear Buchan,
Treatment in a Nursing Home is not an ideal condition for writing letters; and as any appointment to the High Stewardship has to go before Convocation, it would be discourteous for me to make any decision public before it is submitted to Convocation. But I feel I ought to let you know privately that about a week ago I decided that the appointment of Sankey was the right one; and I notified
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the Vice-Chancellor of my intention and asked him to prepare the formalities which are necessary to submit the appointment to Convocation. You do not exaggerate, indeed it would hardly be possible to do so, the personal pre-eminence of Simon; but I think you rather underrate the qualifications of Sankey. He held very high judicial position, not as the result of political accident, before he became Lord Chancellor - He has, I am told, shown for a long time continuous interest in the University,
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particularly in connection with the Law studies, and, has by frequent visits shown his attachment to Oxford.
Recent precedents point to the appointment of the Lord Chancellor. Time honoured precedents show that the office has been held by a Peer - indeed a Peerage seems sometimes to have been regarded as a greater qualification than high legal attainments. In this way, the High Stewardship has always secured for the University a representation in the House of Lords, which is secured by direct election
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in the House of Commons. To pass over Lord Sankey and to appoint a Commoner would therefore be an unprecedented departure from precedent. I agree that precedent is not everything and if Sankey had been an indifferent, or even a lukewarm Oxonian; or if he was known to hold views on religion or morals which would be offensive to Oxford men, precedent would have to be put aside.
The dominating consideration in my mind is the interest
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of the University, and I am sure that under present conditions it would be a mistake to make a departure from precedent which would be widely attributed to the fact that Sankey is a member of a Labour Government. Though I know that this is not the motive of those who want to see Simon appointed. I am much distressed, because I know that my action may be felt by Simon's friends and worse still, by Simon himself, to be unfriendly. I would gladly have made
