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upon the landlord in such a. case as that an absolutely intolerable burden, and one
against which all good common-sense and all instincts of fair play, rebel. I only
give the instance because it is quite within the extreme instances which may be
given. If they are fairly within the scope of the Act, as undoubtedly that one would
be, it is only by pointing out the circumstances of the bye-laws as applied in such
cases that one sees whether or not, taken as a whole and as applicable all round,
they are reasonable. If they were confined to the class of houses like the same sort
of houses and occupied in the same sort of way as common lodging-houses, of course,
there would be very much more to be said in their favour, but even there I agree
with my Lord that unless the person who is struck at is a person who, from his
position and from his relation to the property, ought to know exactly what his
tenants are doing and in what state they are keeping the house and so on—unless
he is some person of that sort it would be quite unfair to render him liable, without
his having had notice of what is taking place.
Now, Mr. Courthorpe-Munro defends—and it is a part of his argument that I
do not like at all, and that I feel bound to protest against on the great public
principles—a good deal of this by saying, " Oh, these bye-laws might be harsh and
improper and unjust if they were applied all round (and they might in some cases
be so), but the Borough Council, or whatever the Local Authority is, must be trusted
only to put the law in motion in such cases in which it would be reasonable to do so."
Now, to begin with, the Borough Council are not the only persons who are entitled
to put the law in motion; every subject of the Crown is. And to go on with it, I
do not like the legislation which is felt to be so unfair, applying it all round, that :t
requires to be justified by saying that in particular cases it will not be enforced. I
think that is as bad a ground upon which to defend legislation as you could very
well have.
Now I pass from that part of the case just to say one word about the first
week in April. Of course, I feel fully the force of a great deal my Lord has said.
One constantly knows the principles to be applied, but it is the application of principles
which raises the difficulty. What I feel in this particular case is that it
is hardly right to say that this can be a proper period because it is fixed by the
Local Authority, to whom great discretion is necessarily committed, if it does lead
in particular instances which are not chimerical at all to an almost preposterous
state of the law. In one of the cases—I think it is the Islington case, but I only
mention it because it shews that sometimes illustrations are not away from the point
—we have had mentioned that the work which was required to be done would take
a couple of men from ten days to a fortnight, working all day, to get through it.
It is a fact which the Borough Council ought to have known, that Easter does very
commonly fall early in April, so as to embrace part of the first week in April within
its operation. I am told that in this very present year there are really four days
out of the seven which are allowed which are practically excluded, and one knows