Injunctions against pickets and demonstrators are not common. There appear to be no reported cases in England between 1899 (when Llandudno Urban District Council tried to stop a clergyman from preaching on the beach) and the disputes in the London Docks in 1972. In Hubbard v. Pitt, the use of injunctions again came to the fore, when a firm of estate agents obtained interlocutory injunctions restraining members of a tenants' campaign from picketing their premises as a political protest.

In the recent case, Great Western Ry. Co. v. Owners of S.S. Mostyn, Viscount Dunedin said: ‘Now, when any tribunal is bound by the judgment of another Court, either superior or co-ordinate, it is, of course, bound by the judgment itself. And if from the opinions delivered it is clear—as is the case in most instances—what the ratio decidendi was which led to the judgment, then that ratio decidendi is also binding. But if it is not clear, then I do not think it is part of the tribunal's duty to spell out with great difficulty a ratio decidendi in order to be bound by it.’ In other words, not only the judgment itself, but also the grounds on which the judgment was reached, are binding. This proposition must, of course, be understood to include the further rule that only those reasons are binding which were material to the decision of the point at issue. If they were material they constitute a precedent; if they were not material they are merely obiter dicta.

The proposition that a master, who has become liable for an injury caused by a servant acting in the course of his employment, can recover an indemnity from the servant is one which has been stated on a number of occasions, but until the recent case of Romford Ice & Cold Storage Co. v. Lister no clear authority could be cited in support. It is true that the master's rights against his servant have been canvassed in at least three modern cases, but in all of them the common law position has been obscured by the application of the Law Reform (Married Women and Tortfeasors) Act, 1935. In Romford Ice & Cold Storage Co. v. Lister, however, by what those interested in legal principle can only regard as a happy chance, it was necessary for the Court of Appeal to deal with the matter independently of the Act.

Throughout the Rhodesian crisis it has been repeatedly asserted that the Unilateral Declaration of Independence constituted treason. In the House of Commons on 12 November 1965, the Attorney-General himself said:

It is right that I should point out in general terms that there is abundant authority for the conclusion that the conduct of the kind that has taken place is treasonable.

“yet from those flames No light, but rather darkness visible” (Milton)

The foreseeable consequences of spilling a large quantity of furnace oil from the ss. Wagon Mound into Sydney Harbour have been in dispute now in two separate appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The cases will go down to posterity as The Wagon Mound (No. 1) and The Wagon Mound (No. 2). What was certainly not foreseeable was the complex forensic tangle to which the decisions have led.

It was with the greatest pleasure that I accepted the invitation of the American Judicature Society to pay a tribute to the Supreme Court of the United States tonight. This tribute comes from both sides of the Atlantic because I know that what I am going to say represents the feelings of the whole English legal profession—the Bench, the Bar, and the Solicitors. I dare not speak for the Scottish legal profession as I have no authority to do so.

The meetings of the American Bar Association held in London in 1957 furnished an incidental but valuable opportunity to inquire into the methods of English legislative draftsmanship and to make some useful comparisons with its counterpart in Washington.

The first striking fact that emerges in such a comparison is that almost all the public laws enacted by Parliament are drafted by one small group of men, the expert draftsmen of the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel. This is in sharp contrast to the situation in Washington, where legislation is prepared by the Offices of the Legislative Counsel of the House and Senate, by members of the professional staffs of the many standing and special committees of Congress, by the legal staffs of the executive departments and agencies, and even by members of the public. Since this aggregate is very large, the question immediately arises: Why so few and so concentrated in London and why so many and so dispersed in Washington?

One obvious explanation would seem to be that the greater size and complexity of the United States must inevitably result in a larger number of, and more difficult, legislative problems, too large for any single drafting group to handle. But even a cursory examination of the recent statute books shows a physical volume of English public laws quite comparable to that appearing during the same period in the Federal Statutes at Large.