7 As argued earlier, to suggest this would be to project ideologically
11 groups were forced politically to accept it •
Although it v/as partly because of the lack of political importance attached to legal aid in Parliament, that the Lord Chancellor*s
Office v/as able politically to control the structure of legal aid; any permanent body entrusted with the responsibility for administering something like the legal system was certain to become the political centre of the production of legal aid. The political centre, hov/ever, had to take account of the interests of other parties if it v/as to ensure the continuation of the structure which guaranteed it its political position. In a letter to the Mayor of Aldershot in 1940, rejecting his suggestions of possible improvements in the legal aid 11Por instance, the Treasury, who had already strongly opposed any scheme which would commit the expenditure of state money on a permanent basis, were told of the need to reconstruct the scheme along these lines after the v/ar.
scheme, Schuster pointed out that the Lord Chancellor was continuing to consult those who were most likely to give him helpful advice* Obviously the Lord Chancellor's Office had to refer to other groups and sometimes follow their demands; hut this letter underlines the fact that the Office could always choose from whom it was to receive advice and whether or not it would follow it#
Largely because of its politically powerful position, the Lord Chancellor's Office also became an important centre for ideological debates about the status and future of legal aid. The political decisions made in the Office naturally prescribed limitations upon ideological statements about what the nature of legal aid ought to be; for instance, as early as 1920 Schuster had made it clear,
unofficially, that the Office would not allow divorce jurisdiction in 12
the County Courts , and after this it v/as generally agreed by those involved in debates over the extension of legal aid that representation for poor defendants was not necessary in the County Courts and v/ould even disrupt the simple, efficient procedure in those courts.
Through this kind of predetermined agreement the Lord Chancellor's Office v/as in a position, more or less, to set out the dominant
ideological approach tov/ards legal aid, although always in the knowledge that this would be an approach which v/ould be largely accepted by the legal profession. Examples of this can be seen in the memorandum on civil legal aid prepared by Schuster before the commencement of the Finlay Committee, stating, for instance, that the poor should be dissuaded from litigating by limiting availability of legal aid in order to prevent them from using litigation as an
12The 'Poor Persons’ Procedure' v/as used almost entirely to obtain
instrument or oppression; and. that, although free legal advice
was desirable, it too ought to be limited and very carefully controlled to prevent the poor adopting aggravated false grievances. In fact, the status of the memorandum itself gives an indication of the ability of the Office to dictate ideological prescriptions. It was drawn up by Schuster to set the position on civil legal aid
right and to ensure that ’’scrappy and ill-informed” evidence could be properly assessed; and, although it v/as officially only intended for circulation to members of the Finlay Committee, it contained many statements which appeared elsewhere throughout the period, and
did, of course, form the basis of the committee's final report. The importance of ideological statements about legal aid from the Lord Chancellor's Office went beyond merely the limitations laid down by the Office itself; by its acceptance and approval of the demands and arguments of other parties the Office could also give the appearance of official truth to these ideological positions. Thus the Office could both confirm the validity of ideological state ments about legal aid and determine the nature of future statements by requiring that they fit into this; examples of this can be seen in the official and unofficial practices of the Office, In the report of the Second Lav/rence Committee the independent, controlling position of the Lav/ Society v/as affirmed; it was agreed that there was a moral obligation on the legal profession to ensure the success
ful operation of the 'Poor Persons' Procedure' in return for their monopoly over the administration of legal services; and it was pointed out that there was evidence that the profession would be able adequately to discharge this duty. At the same time, however, the Lord Chancellor’s Office staff were unofficially preparing a way
for the involvement of Government money or control if the private scheme were to fail: at first the possibility of control by a government department was used as a threat to the Law Society to coerce further voluntary efforts out of it, a threat which was readily accepted and used by the Law Society to coerce its members into volunteering; but as voluntary effort failed to keep the scheme going this threat became to be regarded as more of a real possibility, and by 1938 the idea of paying state money to solicitors conducting poor persons* cases had been more or less agreed upon within the Office and was being put to other parties in the form of proposals
13