1935-12-05 — Page 11

JI

HONG KONG DAILY PRESS, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1935.

A LECTURE ON BLACKSTONE REPORT DENIED

THE SECOND SERIAL

The following is the second' instalment of the lecture by Mr. H. C. Macnamara, at the local branch of the English Association on Tuesday evening:-

THE LAW ON ROYAL FISH notice how he seizes on them to Whales,, it appears, are Royal illustrate his point. Some of his Fish, so are sturgeons. What then readers might be unfamiliar with to happen should one of these the King. Bishops, or even Deans, marine monsters be taken on-our but most of them would be fami coasts. The law is clear-Black-lar with the parson, or Rector, stone says:"Another ancient per and his church. Parsonage, Glebe quisite belonging to the queen and Tidies. You will note too his consort mentioned by all our old reference to the antiquity of the writers and therefore only worth institution he is describing. seven notice, is this: that on the taking renturies of continuous existence, of a whale, on the coasts, which is no less. Many churches in Eng. a royal fish. It is to be divided land are as old as that. between the king and queen; the Here is one more quotation," and bead only, being the king's pro-then I will pass to other matters. the tail of it the The jury is its subject. This is perty. and queen's. The reason of this whim- neither the time nor the place for sical division, assigned by our an-an expression of views on the cient "records, was to furnish tho { jury system, one can only bow queen's wardrobe with whale humbly before SO, majestic an bone". To this interesting plece utterance is that which I now of "information is added the note | proceed to read:...... of a learned editor as follows:-

reason is more whimsical than the

ON

<

"Upon these accounts the trial Mr. Christian observes that the by jury ever has been, and I trust ever will be, looked upon as the division, for the whalebone liesen-glory of English law. And if it tirely in the head"."

has so great an advantage over So much for whales. It would others in regulating civil‹ property.

the Commentaries deel entirely, or even, mainly, with such matters. There are, however, plenty of digressions of this kind which serve to diversify the serious con- sideration of the law. "My next example will be an illustration of Blackstone at his best in which he gives his powers of exposition full rein. It will be rather a long quotation as it is only by a longish one that I can give you a chance of judging for yourselves his style and method. The learned author is explaining the meaning of the term "Corporation sole" and if any of you happen not to know the meaning of that phrase I concludes. that because hope and anticipate, that in a minute or two you will know its meaning and that very clearly. He says: "The first division of corporations is into aggregate and

Rome

him a crowded map; the new one a dull, bateful blank He dotes on all well-authenticated supersti- tions; he shadders at the shadow of innovation,"

IN GERMANY

Alleged Secret Agreement

[Special to the "Hong Kong Dally Pres". «Copyright)}

Berlin, Dec 3.

A semi-oncisi statement mada

SANDAKAN POWER COMPANY

Loss Of $46.000 Reported

Despite better income from in- vestments and the balance Et credit of working account, a loss of $46,203.40, was reported at thirteenth ordinary annual meet-

the

PASSENGERS

Arrivals By S.S. Nankin

trom

The following passengers dis-" embarked here yesterday as. Nankin, from Melbourne:-

Mr. J. Way, Mrs J, Bentley, Mrs. D. E. Booth, Miss Ad Bunting Miss M. D. Squires. Mr. Lew Se Thin, Mrs. Rowe and two children, Mr. See Ho Sing.

Passengers in transit were

Fielden, Mr. and Mrs. R. A. H Mr. C. A. Donnelly, - Bilis E M.

I cannot, In the short time at my disposal quote the whole of this magnificent piece of invective in any case it is well known to you all. Every word of it can. and should, be applied to Black-here on Tuesday call attentioning of the Sandakan Light and to a particularly vicious falsifica Power Co., (1922), Ltd, hald at the tion published by the Swiss news root of Messrs. Shewan Tomes paper "Baseler Nachrichten." The

yesterday.

Godby, Miss F. E. Cave, Mr. W. paper claims to have.received from Presiding at the meeting was H. Christophers. Mr. and Mrs. R. an informant who has just return-Mr. A, L. Shields (ex oftelo), and

Murdoch, Mr. J. Shoppèa, Mrs, E. ed from Yugo Slavia, news to the was supported by the following Dyer, Miss M. Lloyd, Mr. and

The Нод Mr. JP. Mrs. A. effect that representatives of the directors:

Main Mrs. - W. A. German Government concluded an Brags, Messra C. A da Rosa and Rawnsley. Mr.

and Mrs. A. T. agreement with the Tugo Siavian 8 M. Chur, and the secretary, Williams, Mr. N. Williams, Mrs.

W. Lloyd, Government, providing that the Mr. W. N. Fleming.

Rev. Father O'Brien, Catter should, in the event of an

Mr. E. V. Dix, Mr. and Mrs. F." Italo-Angie war, re-conquer "her

Anderson, Master F. J. Anderson, territories especially in Estria,"

ME.

A McIntosh, Mr. and Mrs. According to this mendacious re-

W. Prior. port, the first encounter between the Yugo-Slavian troops is to take place on Austrian

and Italian Shields sald:

As the report and accounts have territory, thus affording Germany been in your hands for the re- gary: would remain neutral, this approval to take them as read an opportunity to intervene. Hun-quired period, I propose with your

having been agreed to by the Run- garian Premier, Gomboes, during

stone.

The next portion of my task is to thy

to estimate the effect of these Commentaries in England and other countries, in England the first and best effect was to stimulate a general interest in the law. For a time it was the duty of every Biglish gentleman to have, or at least to affect, a know- ledge of the works of the ingenious Mr. Blackstone: The future Duke oi Wellington, when setting out on his journey to India was care- ful to include the Commentaries in his personal luggage. So it was with countless persons of less dis- tinction. The study of Blackstone became a craze and the outbreak of the French Revolution nine years only after Blackstone's death severed to accentuate the value of a profoundly conservative law book, at least in England.

PERIOD OF CRITICISM The restoration of peace after the Revolutionary wars was fol- lowed by a period of acute criti- First Bentham and then cism Austin and others began a heavy bombardment of the Beckstonian position. They pointed out weaknesses of this arrangement

the

a recent visit to Berlin.

20

W.

Shareholders present were: Mesra, F. J. Tavares, John Braga Noel Braga, J. Toppin, L Shewan and A. A. Botelho.

Addressing the meeting Mr.

The balance at credit of working

account after charging deprecia-

tionally high winds uprooted trees across the high tension lines.

The number of unita sola during the year shews' ad increase and the nett return per unit has also

improved.

don and General Managers' Com- The Resident Engineer was au mission, is $1,551.47 better than for thorized to co-operate. m the the preceding year.

Income from | Sandakan Silver Jubilee Celebra- investments is also up by $1,944.49, | tions and to illuminate free of but the provision for depreciation charge the Recreation

Ground. an investments as at June 30, 1935. The Government has expressed results in a nett loss on Front and appreciation of Loss Account, of $46.203.49.

our assistance towards the success of the cole- brations;

be unfair to suggest to you that how much must that advantage be heightened, when it is applied to criminal cases! But this

we must refer to the ensuing book of

Germany is stated to have

given these commentaries; only observ-

an assurance that it would sc- ing for the present, that it is the

quiesce in Yugo-Slavia obtaining most transcendent privilege which

the Southern part of the Austria any subject can enjoy, or wish for,

Province of Carinthia, while the Austrian Province of Bargencand that he cannot be affected either in a property, his liberty, or his

would fall to the share of Hungary.

EXCHANGE A BAD FACTOR person, but by the unanimous con-

Authoritative quarters in the Ger-

..I would add that the higher sent of twelve of his neighbours

man Government emphatically rates of exchange ruling during and equals. A constitution, that I

declare these reports, and conjec- the year adversely affected the re- may venture, to affirm has under and his adequate analysis of the tures to be entirely devoid of four-mittances of surplus revenue from Providence, secured the just Uber-law. They questioned the sound-dation, and

constitute a foul Sandakan. I can only express the ties of this nation for a longness of his ultra-conservative con attempt to polson, the political hope that the recent drop in local succession of ages. And therefore clusions. A period dedicated to atmosphere-an attempt that exchange and the appreciation in a celebrated French writer, who Reform began. By 1833 the pastu-must be peremptorily rejected and local stocks representing our in-

lates that Blackstone had accept condemned.-

vestments may enable us to put a Sparta and Carthage have lost ed without reserve had been

Trunsocean Kuo Min.

better account before you for the their liberties, therefore those in abandoned for ever. The price of

current year. England must in time perish, Blackstone stock slumped sharply. should have recollected that Rome Later on even "Punch" had the Sparta and Carthage at the time Blackatone" After a time Black- his

audacity to publish a "Comic copied, largely on the strength of when their liberties were

recommendation. lost.

- first stone ceased to were strangers to the trial by

be a subject of France and then all over the con- Jury".

controversy and became a classic: tinent, except, I believe, in Hol- which meint that he WHS no land. Even in a country, with so "longer read.

reactionary a government as Rus- Now I will take you back to the sia the system was adopted, as 18th century to consider the in- readers of Tolstoi will remember. Cuence of this writer in America. Professor Allen of Oxford in his As I have remarked already the most interesting book "Law in the "Commentaries" sold Well in Making" makes the following very America; so well in fact that the apposite remarks. "Some are in- inhabitants acquired a very exalt clined to think that the ed idea of their rights as British ordinary popularity of the Jury necording to since the 18th century-a popu- Edround Burke, helped to bring on larity maintained despite glaring the War of Independence. The defects and anomalies-is only inalienable rights by Magna Carta superstition"," VIII Sir idea that they were endowed with another example of epidemic

made British subjects into Ameri- can citizens The rights they

Bole. Corporations aggregate con- alst of many persons united to- gether into one society, and are kept ap oy a perpetual succession of members, so us to continue for ever; of which kind are the mayor and commonalty of a city, the head and fellows of-a college the

dean and chapter of a cathedral. church. Corporations sole consist of one person only and his succes- sors, in some particular station. who are incorporated by law, in

AMATEUR JUDGES

In spite of this whole hearted praise I will venture to point out that in effect the Jury system

amounts

amateur

to this, that we prefer "judges to professional ones. It is a strange choice. We do not, for example, prefer ama- teur dentists to professional ones,

order to give them some legat Again taking the historical view subjects and this.

capacities and advantages, parti- cularly that of perpetuity, which In their natural persons they could not have had. In this sense the King is a sole corporation; 50 15 a bishop: so are some deans. and prebendaries, distinct their several chapters: and so is every parson and vicar,

from

it 18

extra-

presented by Blackstone strange to reflect that, for ex-

Henry Thomas More, the most able, the ample, under most honest and, I would add, the most loyal man of his time was sent to his death by a jury found in Blackstone became in would be unfair to judge Black- part the foundation of their "Declaration of Rights".

that reign juries had an unrivalled opportunity to preserve the liber- ties of their country, they gielded, in every case, to the wishes of the tyrant on the throne. Again while. we are on the subject of our liberties these were not preserved by Juries in the time of the Com-

LEGAL AND OTHERWISE

As I have remarked "before it

stone by the light of present day legal knowledge nor is it fair to THE CASE OF THE CHURCH

THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONcomplain that he did not antici- And the necessity, or at least

Having secured their indepen-pate the views of Bentham and use, of this institution. will be very

dence of England they next had other legal reformers. It is how- apparent, if we consider the case

to found a constitution of their ever perfectly fair and, I suggest; of the parson of a church. At the

own. We know a great deal about instructive to compare him with original endowment of parish monwealth, when i successful the origin of the American con- his contemporaries, legal and churches, the freehold of the general usurped the government.stitutiori owing to the writings of otherwise. He was both an author church, the church-yard, the par- In the reign, too, of Charles II the Alexander Hamilton and others of and a judge. If we compare him sonage-house, the globe and the rival factions Whigs and Tories its founders in the "Federalist" with the great common law judges titles of the parish, were vested in

were able by means of the jury and other papers. It was intend-of his time we find that he ocen- the then parson by the bounty of system to work their vengeance on ed to be a Republican version of pled a very second rate position. the donor, as a temporal recom- one another as Macaulay has so the British constitution. In their The eighteenth century produced pense for him for his spiritual eloquently described. The juries task

the founders were led, or great English judges, for example care of the inhabitants, and with to try cases of High Treason were rather misled, by their knowledge Lord Mansfeld who as Chief Jus-': intent that the same emoluments selected by the Sheriffs of London of Blackstone. He had laid it tice of the King's Bench did so. should ever after continue as aand we know that each year the down that the Executive in Eng-much to improve our commercial recompense for the same care. rival factions strove to effect the land was the Crown; and the law Chief Justice Pratt, of the But how was this to be effected? election of Sheriffs favourable to legislature the King, Lords and Common Pleas, was an able and The freehold was vested in the their alde. The expectations of Commons acting together. As a firm supporter of English consti- parson; and if we suppose it vest-life of the leaders of the defeated matter of fact he grossly underat tutional liberty. He afterwards ed in his natural capacity, on his party fell immediately. The his- cd the importance of the Cabinet became Lord Chancellor under the death it might descend to history of that period is one that in the Constitution which had for title of Lord Camden." Yet to-day heir,' and would be liable to his shows juries swayed by the worst a long time been the really deci- Blackstone is generally remember- debts and incumbrances; or, at or passions, party hatreds. In my sive factor and the Cabinet was ed while the names of Mansfield best, the heir might be compeli-opinion we owe far less to the then, as it is now, composed of "nd Camden mean little to anyone able, at some trouble and expense, jury system "and far more to our members of the two hotises of except professional lawyers, to convey these rights to the Judges than is stated by Black-Parliament. inaking their time goes on this contrast will be succeeding incumbent. The law store.

President the sole executive, and accentuated. therefore has wisely ordained, that

the cabinet merely his assistants, Now as an author Blackstone is the parson, quatenus parson, shall I will, conclude my remarks on the Americans created an entirely cutclassed by, to go no further, never die, any more than the king: the Commentaries by saying that type of government while Gibbon. His style, though pleas by making him and his successors they

they tondly believed they were ing, cannot be compared with merely copying an old and tried that of the historian of Rome. I model. In England the idea that cannot realst the temptation to the King alone was the executive digress at this point and to wonder now and later have, something to was quite obsolete when Black-what kind of book would have bent, and his predecessor who say about the excessive optimist stone wrote but he, writing on a resulted had Gibbon turned his lved seven centuries ago, are in which pervades the whole work purely legal and literary basis, great mind to the contemplation law one and the same person; and A to bis love of antiquity I can- could not discern what had been of English law. His profound in- what was given to the one was not do better than quote, and the reality of English Government tellect would soon have placed apply to the present, author, what at all events from the accession him in possession of as much THE JURI

a great critis once said, about an- of the House of Hanover, if not This is to my mind a clear ex- other, author. I refer to the well from an earlier date. He describ- position of an idea which is not known essay on Sir Walter Scotted what had been, not what was. too easy to apprehend. In re by Hazlitt, He says "He is just- In another direction Blackstone comizing” a corporation sole our half what the human intellect is exerted # p_great; If Indirect, in- English law has improved bp the capable of being if you take the fluence. During the French Reve law of Rome: it is one of the few universe, and divide it : Into two lution there was a general over instances in which it has improv-parts, be knows all that has haul of the Criminal Law of ed on it. The word "parson" by heen's all that is to be is nothing. France, and subsequently of other Lihe way, is used by the author to to him, - His is a mind-brooding countries. Blackstone had praised I say. It with regret, one” of the

mean one of that division of the ovary antiquity-scoring the pray the Jury system, as he praised masterpièces of English Iterature. glergy which is more familiar to sent ingrant time. He is landa most English institutions with which was never written. Lees, learned, persons under the tor temporis actif prophesier of more enthusiasm than discretion

HIS TWO QUALITIES

'exhibit "two

outstanding

a corporation. By which means qualities of the author his love of all the original rights of the par- antiquity and his optimism. Of sonage are preserved entire to the the first. I shall say a few words successor, för the present incum

given to the other niso"?

riamels of

"Rectors". You win things past: The old worlds far to The jury, system was accordingly

Our Manager and Resident En- the plant and buildings have been gineer in Bandakan reports that

kept in good repair and the plant the year the supply of electricity good running order. During

in

DIRECTORS RE-ELECTED

HER BEAUTY DECIDES THE FATE OF WORLDS!

EUGIL B. DeMILLES

CRUSADES

ZORETTA YOUNG KENZY WILCOXON

COMING TO The STAR

MEMBERS ELECTED TO THE C.S.C.

Nanking. Dec. 3.

Hsiao Fu-chin, Wu Chih-hued and Messrs. Lin Sen, Chang Cht.

Teal Yuan -pei were elected, a members of the Standing Cam- mittee of the Fifth Central Buper- visory Committee at its frst and accounte

I now propose that the report plenary meeting, which was held adopted and when that has been the chairmanship of Mr. Lin Ser presented beat 4 o'clock this afternoon under

seconded I shall endeavour to an- and with 1 C.E.C. members in swer any questions from share-attendance. holders.

83

Mr. Wang Tze-chuang was elect The report and accounts were ́ ed as Becretary-General of the unanimously adopted after being Fifth 0.5,0. seconded by the Hon, Mr. J. F. The revised regulations govern- Braga.

to the constitution of the C.B.C. was adopted at the meeting.— Central News Agency.

4

The Hon Mr. J. P. Braga and

directors of the Company on the Mr. C. A, da Roza were elected

proposal of Mr. F. J. Tavares and Messrs. Lowe, Bingham and Mat- seconded by Mr. J. Toppin, while

a remuneration of $350 each on elected auditors of the Company ät

was free from interruption except thews and Messrs. Percy Smith, the motion of Mr. John Braga and on three occasions, when excep Seth and Fleming were also re- seconded by Mr. Noel Braga

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