REVIEWS
| Published date | 01 April 1952 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1952.tb00236.x |
| Date | 01 April 1952 |
REVIEWS
THE
QUEST
OF
JUSTICE.
By
HAROLD
POTTER
LL.D.
[London:
Sweet
&
Maxwell.
1951.
88
pp.
12s.
6d.l
\~lrETlrEa
or
not one agrees with the vicws expressed in this small but
important book, one must rejoice that they have appeared in print. In
an all too literal scnse they are Professor Potter’s last word on English law,
for they are based on thrce public lectures which hc gave in King’s College,
London, in the Lent Term,
1961,
and to which he subsequently made addi-
tions, and in the Autumn Term of the same year they were published post-
hl~mously.
As
lectures they represented the realisation of an ambition of
many years, and in thcm may be found a consunimation of wisdom drawing its
strcngth from practical experience, from the history of English law and above
all from the Christian faith.
Professor Potter took for his theme the vcry great question of the nature
of justicc, its relation to law and the means by which it could best be secured.
These questions he considers both historically and philosophically. Historically
he investigates the quest of juslicc in four periods of English law which he
aptly names the Dawn of Justice (twelfth and thirteenth ccnturies), thc Age
of Faith (fifteenth and sixteenth centuries), the Age of ~tcason (eighteenth
century), and the Age of
Hope
(nirietcenth to twentieth centuries). The
emphasis in the earliest period on the need for procedural
rules
for the secur-
ing of justice teachcs a lcsson which is repeated
up
to the present time. If
the Star Chamber in the Age of Faith sought truth through expediency by
abandoning accusatorial procedure for its own inquisitorial metho?s and thus
cncornpassed its own dissolution, the Court of Chancery saved itself in
the
Commonwealth period by creating a framework of procedure within which its
justice was administcrcd. From tlicse various experiments in human justice
the author draws what he calls perhaps the greatest lesson, namely, that
“
try
as
men may they cannot escape from human fallibility in framing procedure
and that, consequently, no matter how perfect the rules
of
substantivc law,
injustice will follow in
a
greater
or
less degree”
(p.
26).
Of procedure it can
at least be said that it safeguards no less than it hinders the administration
I
of justice.
Justice for Harold Potter mennt moral .iusticc and was an absolute con-
ception and one aspect of truth. With th; best will in the world, accord-
ingly, one can no more easily attain to the one than the other, but the aim
of law and its procedure should be to draw as near as is possible in the
nature of things to moral justice, “Passing legal judgment in the course of
human activity,” the author observed
(p.
74,
note
(r))
“often essential to the
community, must be distinguished from passing inoral judgment.”
The author’s conirnents on administrative law, in which he had playcd an
active part for
a
numbcr of years as Chairman of
a
Wages Board, arc of
great interest
(pp.
81-86).
In them he makes suggestions for delimiting
matters of expert opinion and policy from matters
of
law.
His
individual
rccomrnendations deserve the attention of everyone interested in administrative
law.
Harold Potter would be the last person to admit that he was
a
Natural
Law lawyer, but in the brilliant sketch that he has given
us
in his book he is,
in fact, relating law and legal justice to an absolute and extra-legal ethical
standard. Nowhere can one find
so
happy a synthesis of historical juris-
prudence and
a
philosophy
of
law applied to some
of
the problems
of
(L
modern society. There are, of course, matters which are not likely to receive
252
APnIL
1952
REVIEWS
258
general assent, but for reasons which appear in the prefatory note to this
book, the reviewer must leave it to others to discover them. lIcre is
a
book
that every lawyer would do well to read, for never has the author written
so
well
or
with deeper significance.
The
Quest
of
Justice
is an cpitnph of which
he may be
proud.
-
TRADE UNION LAW.
Solicitor
of
the
1050.
xliv and
R.
H.
G.
By
NORMAN ARTHUR
CITRINE
LL.B.
(Lond.),
Supreme
Court. [London: Stevens
Pt
Sons.
700
pp.
45s.
net.]
TIIE
book
on
Trade Utrion
Lnzu
which
Sir
IIcnry Slesser and the late
Mr.
Charles Baker first published in
1921
was to some extent a pioneer and became
tlie standard work
on
tlie subject.. While nttcmpting,
on
the basis of the
learned authors’ great experience, to give the legal practitioner and the trade
union oflicinl practical guidance, it had to contend with such difficult lcgd
problems
as
the ambiguous intermediate position whicli trade unions held
between the individual and the corporation, the pervading common law
doctrines of conspiracy and restraint of trade, and the confusing mass of
judicial decisions and piecemeal interventions of the legislature. The third
edition of
Slessor
and Baker,
which took account of the Trade Disputes and
Trade Unions Act,
1927,
and the decisions in
Sorrel1
v.
Smith
(1928)
and
It’aro
ad
de
Frcville
v.
Tho
Motor
Trade Association
(1921),
came out
as
fur
back as
1927
and
has
long been out of print.
It
was very helpful as
fnr
as
it
went, but it was far from mhaustive, somewhat cryptic and not easy to
read, and
it
had become dangerously out of date. At the end of the war
Mr.
N.
A.
Citrinc, legal ndviser to the Trades Union Congress, embarked
on
a
new edition of
Slesser
and
Baker,
but his extensive researches and the lapse
of time since the issue
of
the last edition gradually resulted-with the approval
of Sir Henry Slesser and the commendation of the then Lord Chanecllor,
Lord Jowitt-in tlie writing of an entirely new work. While paying due
respect to the meniory of the pioneer, we welcome
Mr.
Citrine’s new book both
on
general principle and beeausc we think it is
a
great improvement
on
the
old. Its publication,
too,
marks
a
further stage in the history of this branch
of law, following tlic enactment of tlie Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act,
1946,
important judicial decisions
on
the common law of conspiracy and inter-
ference with trade led by thnt of the House of Lords in
Crofter Hand
lVOVf3n
Uarris
Tweed
Co.
v.
Veitch
(1942),
and further statutory interpretations by
thc courts and the Chief Registrar of Friendly Societies.
In writing this book
Mr.
Citrinc has borne in mind the needs of tlic
pro-
fessional adviser, the trade union officer and the student. The bulk of the
book, which is much fuller and more readable than its predecessor, retains
the
form
of
a
commentary
on
the Trade Union Acts, Part
I1
dealing with
status and contract and Part
I11
with linbility in crime and tort. The
experienced reader may turn directly to these passages in tlie confident
expectation that he will be referred to all the relcvant authorities and guided
towards
a
sound
solution of his problem, cven if the learned author does tend
to lean
in
favour of trade unions
on
points whcre the law is admittedly
doubtful. The discussion of such thorny topics as the legality of general
strikes and tlie dicta in
Linaker
v.
Pilcher
(1901)
are thorough, and the book
will benr the scrutiny of tests
on
points of such practical importance as tlie
circumstances in which
a
declaration
or
injunction may be sought against a
trade union that commits or threatens to commit
a
breach of its unenforceable
rules, and the power of a union to expel
or
fine
its members. The Appendices
contain full extracts from all the relcvant statutes as amended, regulations,
forms, rules of court, and matters usually provided for in trade union rules.
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