Law in a Developing Community
| Author | Justice Denning |
| Date | 01 March 1955 |
| Published date | 01 March 1955 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1955.tb01627.x |
Law
in
a
Developing Community
By
THE
RT. HON.
LORD
JUSTICE DENNING
This
was the final address
in
the Instilute's autumn series
of
lectures on
Public Administration and the Law, and was delivered
in
London
on
13th December,
1954.
Mr.
R.
W.
Bell, Vice-Chairman
of
the Executive
Council,
was
in the chair.
T
is a great pleasure to me to come to your Institute, a comparatively young
I
Institute, but one whose importance is recognised by the recent honour
of becoming a Royal Institute, and to speak to you
on
law in a developing
community. Those concerned with public administration are witnessing,
and are parties to, great developments, particularly in the last ten years,
but even more in the last one hundred years.
Go
back a hundred years to
1854
and the philosophy of that day, as you know, was
:
"
Each one for
himself, and the devil take the hindmost." Just think
of
the factories
in
those days; of the people who were forced to work long hours with
no
protection against accidents, and, if there
was
an accident,
no
recourse against
the employer. Just take housing conditions, where landlords were able to
put up back-to-back houses and let them at an extortionate rent without
responsibility for doing any repairs or keeping them in a proper condition.
Just remember education
;
such education as there was depended solely
on
the churches and a few other bodies who interested themselves in it one
hundred years ago.
But there was a great man at that time, Lord Shaftesbury, who by
speech and action altered, or did a great deal to alter, the philosophy of the
time.
So
much so, indeed, that at the present day the philosophy is not
:
"
Each one for himself." The philosophy is more like the Christian
philosophy
:
"
Do as you would be done by." Yet it is not
onZy
the Christian
philosophy
;
there is a rider added to
it-"
Do
as you would be done by
;
but, if you don't do
it,
the state will see that you do." How different now is
the position from a century ago! Our factories are well regulated with the
most stringent conditions to see that the health and safety of the workers
are ensured. We have the hospitals under the National Health Service.
We have for education a complete state system: and how education has
changed, even in the last twenty to thirty years! Thirty years ago or over,
when
I
was at Oxford,
I
think you might say that
80
per cent. of the young
men at that university were paid for by their parents and perhaps
20
per cent.
went up
on
scholarships. Today
80
per cent. are paid for by state grants
and only
20
per cent. by their parents. Likewise in the Health Service,
twenty to thirty years ago in the hospitals you would find perhaps
20
per cent.
paying patients and
80
per cent.
on
charity, and perhaps some few beginning
to make their insurance contributions. Today, you find
80
per cent. at least
paid for by the state under the National Health Service
;
and
some
20
per
cent. or less are the paying patients, paying to get privileges or advance
treatment.
Such
is
the developing community of which
I
would speak; and the
law has had to meet that situation.
1
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