26
The Green Bag
of Canada, and Mr. justice Riddell's
It is an obvious and well-known fact (1)
remarks on the reversal of findings
that our judges in this country are selected almost entirely from the supporters of the Government then in power, and selected,
of fact, delivered in Beal v. Michigan
Central R. R. Co., 19 O. L. R. 504, are quoted with approval. This learned Canadian judge emphasized the distinc tion between the reversal of a finding of fact which turned on the credibility of witnesses and the reversal of one
depending on the inferences to be drawn from the evidence.
In the former
case, the trial judge is best able to tell what witness is to be believed, but in the latter (to quote) :— If it appear from the reasons given by the trial judge that he has misapprehended the effect of the evidence or failed to consider a material part of the evidence, and the evidence which has been believed by him, when fairly read and considered as a whole, leads the appellate court to a clear conclusion that the findings of the trial judge are erroneous, it becomes the plain duty of the court to reverse these findings. Mr. Deacon seems, therefore, to get
rather the worst of the argument. However, to make its position stronger,
the Canada Law journal oflers some general observations on the Canadian bench:—
moreover, for political reasons;
(2) that the
best men at our bar are not generally chosen partly for the reasons above referred to and partly because the honor of the position is outweighed by the inadequacy of their emolument. On the other hand the English bench is selected from the very best men at the English bar-men of the highest legal training that the world affords—the pick of a population of sixty millions, as compared with our six millions. We have had occasion to criticize from time to time the spirit of the “little Englander." Is there not something equally "insular” in the tone of those who, for so-called patriotic reasons, indulge in the parrot
cry,
"Canada
for the Canadians"?
What we need in Canada are the best thoughts the best methods and the best men we can copy or get from any other land, and use them for the development of a great country, the success of which would be retarded by such short-sighted, prejudiced policy. . . . Whether it would be possible to frame a rule that would exclude such questions as the veracity of a witness or other simple issues of fact, from the purview of a Court of Appeal, for in this respect the Privy Council is in exactly the same position as our Supreme Court, we very much doubt. Judges at Ottawa are just as likely to mistaken
in a case such as this as judges at West minster.
The Law on the Stage “
T is difficult to consider the trial
scene in the Merchant of' Venice
“The dramatic effect of all this is wonderful, but from the legal point of view the absurdity has only just begun. Having decided this peculiar equity suit, Portia proceeds to formulate a criminal accusation against Shylock, and, without the formality of arrest or
seriously from a legal point of view,” writes Alexander Otis of the Rochester, N. Y., bar, in Case and Comment. “Im agine it! Such a contract actually brought into court with a demand for specific performance! And yet the fair
indictment, places him on trial on the
jurist calmly decides that Shylock is
charge of conspiracy against the life of
legally entitled to his pound of flesh if he can manage to take it without spilling
Antonio, finds him guilty, on the evi
one drop of Christian blood!
dence adduced in the civil action, and then and there sentences him to the
