Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 07.pdf/373

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
340
The Green Bag.

present to his mind it may not occur to him the Irish Bench; Lord Gordon, who held the to be of any use to mention it." After ex post of Lord Advocate in the early years of pressing his opinion that the untruth told the Beaconsfield government, and whose by the directors fell under this category, shy, retiring disposition concealed legal Bramwell concluded as follows : " I think it is gifts of no mean order; and Lord Morris, most undesirable that action should be main the quondam Chief Justice of Ireland, whose tainable in respect of statements made un rich native accent once provoked from a reasonably, perhaps, but honestly. I think young lady, at whose wedding he was tak it would be disastrous if there was ' a right ing part, the touching appeal, " Throw your to have true statements .only made.' It brogue after me." Lord MacNaghten was might, perhaps, be well to enact that in raised direct from the Chancery Bar to the prospectuses of public companies there House of Lords, where he is the solitary should be a warranty of the truth of all representative of equity, of course in the tech statements, except where it was expressly nical sense of the term. Although an eminent said there was no warranty." In pursuance lawyer, he has not proved so distinguished of this suggestion, although not in terms a judge as his friends anticipated. Lord adopting it, the Director's Liability Act, MacNaghten has recently, however, done 1 890, makes every director or promoter of a excellent work as arbitrator in the numer company liable for untrue statements in a ous cases to which the collapse of the Portprospectus, unless it is proved ( 1 ) that he sea Building Society gave rise. And he has had reasonable ground to believe, and did delivered one humorous judgment (in Mont believe, such statements true; (2) that so gomery v. Thompson, 1891, App. Cas. 222). far as engineers', valuers', or other experts' Mr. Montgomery, a licensed victualler, reports are concerned, the statements fairly erected a brewery at Stone, in Staffordshire, represented such reports; this defense, and sold his ales as Stone Ales, in infringe however, may be negatived by proof that ment of the trade name of the respondents. the persons making such reports were not, The Court of Appeal enjoined him from and that there was no reasonable ground doing so, and the question was whether the to believe that they were, competent; and form of the injunction was right. Lord (3) that so far as such untrue statements MacNaghten astonished students of his judg are extracts from official documents, such ments by a decision from which the follow extracts were correct and fair representations ing passages may be extracted : " Stone, it of the contents of the documents; or (4) seems, is a town in Staffordshire, containing that the defendant withdrew his consent to some six thousand inhabitants. It has a become a director before issue of the pros supply of water admirably suited for brew pectus, and gave proper notice of such with ing, so the appellant says, and his opinion is drawal." Bramwell's style was nervous to fortified by scientific analysis. Anyhow, the point of jerkiness; but he was always Stone is famous for its ales, which are known clear, robust, and manly in his thinking, in that part of England as ' Stone Ales.' even when it would be difficult to say that Those ales all come from the plaintiff's he was altogether sound. His brother, Sir brewery. In 1887 the appellant determined Frederick Bramwell, is a well known scien to set up as a brewer himself. He had to tific expert and arbitrator. find a site for his business. Where was he to go? After much consideration, influ Among the other notables, though magno enced, as he says, by the peculiar virtue of intervallo, in the House of Lords, have been the water, he resolved to go to Stone. One Lord O'Hagan, whose judgments will repay thing leads to another. Having gone to perusal; Lord Fitzgerald, an importation from