Sir William smiled and shook his head at me in dignified reproof. He was not going to argue this, and with his very good will and assistance the clergyman conducted the case, and in the end secured a victory. In the Army Courts-Martial a prisoner is always allowed a friend to advise him and to take a limited part in the proceedings, and I cannot help thinking that long before the poor man has his panel lawyer voluntary charity will be allowed to supply him with a "friend," who shall be trained in the law, but ready to give his services to the poor without fee or reward. Many will think that the suggestions that I have sketched out of assistance to poor people are chimerical and that in any case they are likely to be costly and that the grievance, such as it is, is not worth the money to be spent on the remedy. At one time I seem to be calling out for no lawyers and here I am demanding more lawyers. The inconsistency is only apparent. In all legal reforms I place in the forefront conciliation. I want to see the French "preliminary of conciliation" applied without delay to all small cases and I want the judge of the County Court to be clothed with the duty of the French _juge de paix_, whose business it is, in the first instance, to bring the parties together and get them to shake hands. Only when that fails, or in those cases where litigation is essential and necessary to the proper determination of a real dispute, should I ask the State to assign counsel and solicitor to the poor. If a poor man has an honest suit with a rich man it should be a point of honour with the Courts to see that he is not at a disadvantage in their procedure. But merely providing a poor man with lawyers will not alone work the miracle. Money must be found to pay his witnesses and prepare his case, and this is even more necessary in civil cases than in the defence of prisoners where, as we shall see when we come to consider criminal matters, the State, whilst providing legal aid, has stopped short of providing what may be still more necessary, financial assistance for necessary evidence, some of which may be of an expert and expensive character wholly out of reach of a poor man. Piers Plowman naturally threw the whole blame on the lawyers who went about, as he said: Pleading the Law, for pennies and for pounds, Unlocking their lips never for love of our Lord. But I cannot for myself see why a lawyer or a doctor should work for nothing any more than a business man or an author, and, if we knew the truth, I expect we should find that old Piers himself invented his vision as much in the blessed hope of royalties as "for the love of our Lord."