The statute book bears eloquent testimony that the law has been regarded as an appropriate vehicle for protecting the consuming public. The Molony Report, 1962, has borne much legislative fruit and, 20 years later, enthusiasm for legislation in the consumer interest does not appear to be waning.

It is thirteen years since the passing of the Trade Descriptions Act 1968 and case law has now largely determined the effect of the major provisions of the Act. There is little doubt statistically that the Act has had its primary impact upon the motor trade, and that the most prosecuted offence is that of the ‘clocked’ car. There is a lot of additional money to be made if a car is sold with a low mileage rather than with a high one. A high proportion of new cars are supplied to companies who keep these fleet vehicles for about two years and then sell them, often through the large motor auctions, whereby they come into the hands of the motor trade. These fleet cars will invariably have travelled in excess of sixty thousand miles. Too many of these cars are handled by several dealers and then are displayed for sale to the public with a mileage shown in the region of twenty to thirty thousand. All that can be said in such a case is that someone, somewhere along the chain of distributors, has fraudulently turned back the vehicle odometer but it is usually very difficult to prove who did it.

If the reader cares to look at the foot of the back inside cover of this journal he will observe the statement ‘Printed by Kent Paper Company Ltd., London and Ashford, Kent’. He should also find if he looks at any other book or periodical that this too will contain the name of the printer, sometimes as with Legal Studies on the back page and sometimes as, for example, with the Law Quarterly Review and Smith's The Law of Theft on one of the front pages. Why is it that the name of the printer appears thus on publications? The answer is not, as perhaps one may expect, self-advertisement by the printer but because the law so requires.

The article by Jenny McEwan and St. John Robilliard ((1981) 1 LS 267) is entitled ‘Recklessness’, but the argument makes it plain that the authors not only are staunch supporters of the extended meaning now given by the House of Lords (under the leadership of Lord Diplock) to the notion of recklessness, but give their approval also to the extended meaning that Lord Diplock would like to give to the notion of intention. While most of those who are concerned with the criminal law would now like to see its severity alleviated, if only to reduce the pressure on the prisons, Lord Diplock and his two academic allies want to notch criminal liability up a degree (or to keep it notched up) in two respects. They want foresight of probability without purpose to be placed or kept within the notion of intention (instead of within the notion of recklessness), and they want part of inadvertent negligence to be placed or kept within the notion of recklessness (instead of within the notion of negligence).

The reply of Professor Williams to our article ‘Recklessness: the House of Lords and the criminal law’ is interesting and vigorous. We continue, however, to adhere to our original view, and attempt below to summarise our objections to what appear to be his main arguments on the law. On the moral issue, we do not consider that Professor Williams has answered the arguments for ‘Caldwell - recklessness’ put forward by Duff. We find the Professor's philosophical position somewhat confusing. Why is it acceptable to convict those who fail to appreciate an obvious risk because of ‘blind rage’ or self-iduced intoxication, but not those whose failure to appreciate it arises from total indifference to the well-being of others?

We should like to make the following points in reply to those charges against us which seem the gravest.

As an academic discipline in the United Kingdom, European Community law is a relative newcomer. I belong to the last generation that learnt its Community law on the hoof, through teaching it to others or practising it. I was, though, very fortunate in serving two apprenticeships, one, in the theory of the subject, under the late Professor J. D. B. Mitchell as a Lecturer in the Centre of European Governmental Studies at the University of Edinburgh and the other, in its practical application, as Legal Secretary to Sir Jean-Pierre Warner (as he became after his appointment to the Chancery bench of the High Court) when he was Advocate General at the Court of Justice of the European Communites. John Mitchell was an enthusiastic admirer of the Court of Justice and deeply learned in its ways; and one topic among many that interested him was the role of the Advocate General, a role it fell to J. P. Warner to show that a lawyer from this side of the Channel could fill with distinction. It was with my debt to those two masters very much in mind that the subject of this lecture was chosen.