Temple Church It Is Difficult to Describe the Present Condition of the Temple Church and All That It Stands for in the Life of The'two Inns

THROUGH AN ENGLISH OFFICE WINDOW

' Temple Church It is difficult to describe the present condition of the Temple Church and all that it stands for in the life of the'two Inns. The material fabric is a ruin. But there is `more to it' than that. The official announcement of a service on October, 18th., was worded "Temple Church at St. Dunstans in the West," that is a church in Fleet Street quite close to the Law Courts. In ecclesiastical law the Temple Church is a Royal `peculiar' by which is meant that it is not subject to the ordinary episcopal jurisdiction . But the Temple Church, as the announcement suggests, represents one side of the corporate life of the members of the two Inns. Whatever may be their particular denomination they have an attachment to the Church and pride in its services. So it is that spirit which they are endeavouring to maintain by coming together from time to time in the adjacent parish church. This particular occasion was to hear a sermon by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. William Temple, who has just been elected an honorary bencher of the Middle Temple. This is the first time that Inn has elected an ecclesiastic to this Bench. His predecessor, Archbishop Lord Lang is an honorary bencher of the Inner Temple, but there is a difference, as he was a member of that Inn and had passed all his examinations preparatory to being called to the Bar before he unexpectedly abandoned law to take Holy Orders, Gray's Inn has the Dean of St. Paul's, Dr. W. R. Matthews, who was formerly their preacher, as an Honorary Bencher. Dr. Temple had a crowded congregation before him, consisting very largely of the Benchers of the two Inns and their friends. - The service was that to which they were accustomed and the Temple Church choir was represented to make their customary beautiful contribution. - November, 1942 marks the centenary of its formation in supercession of women singers. One incident during the service illustrated the devast- ation in the City parishes. The banns of marriage were read of a woman resident in the neighbouring parish of St. Clement's Danes, famous wherever the "bells of St. Clements" are known in the nursery thyme. Only a fragment remains .

Welsh Language Parliament has found time to remove a grievance felt by the people of Wales. A statute of HenryVIII (27 Hen. VIII. c. 26.) "concerning the laws to be used in Wales" includes a section

48 The Canadian Bar Review [Vol. XXI

that all the proceedings in the Courts were "to be given and done in the English tongue." The object as set forth in the preamble was to establish the uniform use of English "because the people in this Dominion used a speech nothing like a speech consonant to the mother tongue used in this realme" . While the Welsh language has not in practice been barred in the Welsh Courts the statute still remains in force. It has been a common practice to allow a witness to give evidence in Welsh if the Court is satisfied that Welsh is the tongue in which he naturally thinks and speaks. A supplementary provision contained in the new Act gives the right to parties unfamiliar with the Welsh language to have any part in the proceedings in Welsh translated into English. It has been noted in connection with the sympathy shown by the Lord Chancellor,-Lord Simon, with the measure that he is the first Lord Chancellor since the reign of Charles II to have had a Welsh-speaking father. Although this Act may seem to be dealing with a small matter, it. has an important bearing upon one of the problems in the development of the British Empire. Are we to encourage races to develop their own legal systems and judicial procedure in their own language or are we to allow them to die out or even be actively superseded by English law and practice? Discussions to which I have bean listening lately among men with practical experience in different parts of the Empire have shown much difference of opinion. Consistency however would seem to demand that adequate provision should be made for the use of the native language. It may be that for the healthy development of the Colonial Empire there is required a large measure of confidence in the sense of justice possessed by the people themselves and in their capacity to be educated to appreciate even more its importance for their advancement.

Family Inheritance Since my previous note (Vol. XX. p. 58) on the subject of the Act allowing an appeal to the Court by a relative, who con- siders himself unjustly treated under a will, there has been an interesting development of the judicial view of the object of this legislation. Morton J. in agreement with observations made by other judges said : (In re Styler, [1942] 1 Ch. at p. 399) "I do not think that a judge should interfere with a testator's dis- positions merely because he thinks that he would have been in- clined, if he had been in the position of a testator, to make provision for some particular person. I think that the Court has

:1943] From An English Office Window 49

to find that it was unreasonable on the part of the testator to make no provision for the person in question or that it was unreasonable to make a larger provision." Quite frankly in his judgment the learned Judge remarked that this was not in agreement with his decision in an earlier case (In re .Pairter, [1941] Ch. 60) as "having now had more expeicience of administering the Act since I decided that case I do not think that I should now make any provision, as I did there. for a husband with a pension of £130 a year, an annual income of £124 from invest- ments and £25 a year net from property unless the circumstances were exceptional". In the latter case Styler was a man of '65 earning £4 a week. His wife left £1200 of which the greater part was derived from the estate of her first husband to her daughter by that marriage. _ Styler's income was approximately that of the combined income of the daughter and her husband which led the Court to the decision that in the circumstances it would not be right to order provision to be made for him from the estate. A Famous Libel Action The retirement of Sir Artemus Jones from the County Court Bench recalls a notable case which is well known in the law of libel as Hutton v. Jones, [1910] A.C. 20. As a barrister Mr. Artemus Jones had done some journalistic work and had written signed. articles for the Sunday Chronicle before the year 1901. His christian name was Thomas, but from his boyhood he had taken or been given the name of Artemus. In 1909 the Paris correspondent of the same paper wrote an article purporting to describe a motor festival at Dieppe. In it he referred to- an Artemus Jones who was a church warden from Peckham and was described -as "the life and soul of a gay little band that haunts the Casino and turns night into day, besides betraying an unholy -delight in the society of female butterflies" . The editor and the contributor stated that they knew nothing of the member of the bar and that the article was not intended by them to refer to him. Mr. Artemus Jones accepted their statements: Yet the fact remained that he was able to provide witnesses who had read the article and thought that it referred to him. Mr. Artemus Jones took proceedings and obtained £1,750 damages, at a time when damages had not reached the amount thought necessary in recent years. The proprietors of the newspaper took the case up to the House of Lords where it was established that it is no defence to- show that the defendants did not intend to defame the plaintiff, if reasonable people would think the language to

50 The Canadian Bar Review [Vol. XXI

be defamatory libel. Upon this case has been founded the practice of publishers to publish a note that all the characters in a novel are fictitious. The action assisted the career of Mr. Jones at the Bar and he became King's Counsel in 1919. In 1927 he married Miss M. M. David who was one of the earliest women to be called to the Bar by his own Inn, the Middle Temple. He was appointed in 1930 Judge of the County Court in the North Wales Circuit to which he had been attached as an advocate. At the age of 71, Sir Thomas is retiring with the good wishes of his friends for health and enjoyment of life and the recognition, that he is one of the few members of the Bar who in the course of centuries have personally contributed a leading case of re- cognised importance. Hatless "In view of a certain change in social habits" the Lord Chancellor has decided that it is not necessary for women either as witnesses or members of the public to wear hats in Court. Although coupons are not required for hats the number of women wearing them has certainly decreased since the beginning of the war. The ecclesiastical authorities took cognizance of the matter in the first instance and recognized that there is nothing irreverent in a woman going into a place of worship without one, in spite of the observation of St. Paul in reference to entirely different circumstances. However, some of the judges did not share the views of the Archbishop and insisted that a woman must have a covering on her head before she could take the oath. Hence a search for a clean handkerchief to put on it. The matter has now been settled by the above pronouncement by the Attorney- General in the House of Commons. Incidentally the people who give much time to a matter of this kind-and there has been quite a lot of press comment and correspondence-in the midst of the present conflict seem to lack some sense of proportion.

MIDDLE TEMPLAR.