View report page

59
" (4) The requirement of the bye-law that the landlord shall cause every part
of the premises to be cleansed at such other times than the first week in April as
the condition thereof may render necessary renders the cleansing in the first week
of April superfluous, and on that ground the bye-law is unreasonable.
" (5) The bye-law, in limiting the annual cleansing to a single week in the year,
is unreasonable. The definition of lodging-house is too wide, as it comprises not only
overcrowded houses in squalid streets, but also comparatively highly rented houses
which are occupied by members of more than one family, e.g., a clergy-house, or a
house where a paying guest is received, so that in the Borough of Stepney the houses
unaffected would be extremely few. The difficulty of securing sufficient labour to
cleanse thoroughly nearly every house in the Borough at the same time would be
almost insurmountable, and the cost would be enormous, especially when under the
same bye-law the whole of the premises must be limewashed within the same week
as that in which the cleansing must be done. The week selected too may be one
of the most inconvenient in the whole year, as it may comprise not only Good
Friday, but also Easter Monday and the subsequent holidays."
JUDGMENT.
The Lord Chief Justice : Nobody can have listened to this argument without
being struck with the extreme importance of the point that has been raised, and
I am very glad (although we have had two cases) that we have had the advantage
of having it thoroughly argued by the Counsel upon each side. In consequence of
some observations that have been made, holding, as I hold, that the bye-laws in
both of these cases must be held to be unreasonable, I want expressly to point out
that we are not interfering with the discretion of the local authorities to the
extent to which it has been suggested by those who supported the bye-laws. In the
first place, I recognise that on practical questions, where a power is given to a public
authority to make bye-laws within the ambit of the power that is given to them, as,
for instance, in this case, for cleansing and limewashing at stated times of the
premises, that their discretion ought not to be lightly interfered with, especially
where bye-laws have been sanctioned by a public department, and particular duties
and times and periods have been enforced. It is only where we clearly see that
some legal principle is interfered with that we ought to hold that bye-laws are unreasonable,
and, therefore, I am now quite sure that we are all agreed as to all the
grounds upon which we think these bye-laws are unreasonable. I also agree, as the
Lord Chief Justice (Lord Russell) pointed out in Kruse v. Johnson, that these byelaws
are not to be set aside or upheld except upon strong grounds; it is not to be
assumed against them that they would be construed unreasonably. Now, taking
the case that was first argued, the Stepney case, the objection that I take to this
bye-law and the ground upon which I think bye-law 14 is unreasonable is that it
includes or may include a class of people who are not legally responsible and not