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perfectly well that it is all very well to talk about four days—there are one or two
more days when the British workman will not work if he can help it—and the
result, as it seems to me, is, that the persons may be called upon to do in two or
three days—and if they do not do it they would be liable to a penalty—that which
would be sufficiently extensive to require several men something between a
week and a fortnight. I do not think that a bye-law which can have that operation
has received the consideration of its applicability to practical purposes that
it ought to receive. There seems to be no sort of difficulty in meeting all the objections
that have been raised to these bye-laws, and in making them, if they are
re-cast, really reasonable. For the reasons I have mentioned it seems to me that
in the Stepney case it is clear that the bye-law cannot be sustained.
Mr. Justice Kennedy : I have come to the same conclusion, and I have come
to that conclusion with a great deal of reluctance from one point of view, and that
is this : That it is the health of the helpless that is very largely protected by these
bye-laws, and I cannot help thinking that a good many of the points that have been
taken have been points which do not occur in practice—which would raise no difficulty
in practice—and in which no difficulty would arise if there was loyalty to the
intentions of the Legislature on the part of those who raise these difficulties. I
confess myself, that I am unable to see, at the same time, that the bye-law in either
case could be supported, for the reasons given by my Lord, and I think it is
important that that should have happened, because one knows perfectly well (it is
not disputed here, and cannot be disputed anywhere) that persons who do not want
to face liabilities which they incur by keeping property in an insanitary state, can
raise a great many difficulties if they will only employ intermediate agents who
they say are the only persons in touch with the tenants. So it is very difficult, 1
believe, and I can quite understand, to frame bye-laws which shall, on the one hand,
really make the man who has got the profits, as the law intended (for I am only
stating what I understood to be the law under the Statutes), who is really receiving
the high rent for these properties, responsible, and at the same time, of course,
prevent a possible injustice, which is equally to be deprecated, of a person who is
loyally doing his best, but has not the opportunity of protecting himself from being
attacked by summons and found liable to penalties which really he could not help.
It is very difficult, no doubt, to reconcile the two, but I only say for myself entirely
that it does make one inclined, as far as one can consistently do so with justice, to
take a liberal and generous view of the efforts of public bodies to carry out this
great sanitary legislation, and not allow either private greed or private carelessness
to maintain an insanitary property. I cannot help feeling, speaking for myself, if
I may, beyond doubt, that with regard to the word " landlord in the bye-law in
the Stepney case, the word to be one which does make it possible for a person who
is merely a rent receiver, who has let to a perfectly respectable tenant, who again
sub-lets in lodgings, to make that ultimate landlord responsible without notice for
an unhealthy condition of the property. You see an instance of the importance
of doing something, because, in this case, according to paragraph 3, when the