You will at once observe that the title of my talk does not ask you to consider whether trial by jury is an ideal mode of trial, nor whether the English law of defamation is ideal or even the best that there is. I rather suspect that Professor Markesinis has already told you that it is not. And certainly it is he and not I who is competent to undertake that wide comparative study. My purpose is simply to take our substantive law as it is and to ask whether, at the end of the 20th century, it is better that civil actions for defamation should be tried by judge and jury or by judge alone.