THE TRIAL OF WILLIAM JOYCE ("LORD HAW-HAW") by J. W. HallAmerican Bar Association Journal, Vol. 32, No. 8 (August 1946), p. 471Published by: American Bar AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25715675 .

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"Books for Lawyers"

destructive types our civilization also

produces. As in the 1930's the blind

ness of the first paves the way for the sadistic exploits of the second.'

Man's own culture has not grown in maturity to keep pace with the en

ergies and materials he must now, at

his own peril, control. Infantilism in

many forms, in the form of supersti tion, wishful thinking, [elsewhere he calls it "thoughtless wishing"] irre

sponsible frivolity, mass-sports and

empty diversion, has reached gigantic

proportions, at a moment when our

democratic society needs the constant

support and guidance of mature, re

sponsible, active citizens in every part of the body politic. Both Becker and Mumford saw

clearly that democratic society de mands not only that its citizens be

willing at times to die for it but that

they be willing at all times to live for it.

Robert N. Wilkin Cleveland, Ohio

The trial of william joyce ("lord haw-haw"): Edited by J. W. Hall. London and

Edinburgh: William Hodge 6- Co., Ltd. June, 1946. 15/. Pages xxi, 312.

Volume 68 in the series of No table British Trials, which many

American lawyers have read with

enjoyment and -profit, tells the dra matic story of the trial and convic tion of the traitorous American cit izen whose irritating voice on the radio from Germany made his name an odious by-word, like that of Vid kun Quisling, during the critical

years when Britain stood alone

against the Axis might. Trials for treason were not so

rare that the case of William Joyce would belong in this series, but for the importance of the legal issues involved. Lawyers may recall that leave to appeal to the House of Lords was granted by the Attorney General, in behalf of the Crown, after the Court of Criminal Appeal had discussed the appeal from the conviction at the Old Bailey. It was

undisputed at the trial that Joyce was an American citizen at the time of his treasonable acts against Great

Britain. The House of Lords ruled, for the first time in British legal history, that a court of that country may under some circumstances have

jurisdiction to try a non-resident alien for crimes committed outside the Empire. This holding was

grounded on the doctrine?also de clared definitely for the first time that as the obtaining of a British

passport by an alien entitles him to

protection from the British Crown, it also imposes on him the duty of

allegiance to the Crown or of absen tion from treasonable acts against the Crown,.

For lawyers, the volume contains the full trial at the Central Criminal

Court, from the shorthand transcript; the Appeal in the Court of Criminal

Appeal; the precedent-making pro ceedings in the House of Lords; and various appendices setting forth

specimen broadcasts by the accused from Berlin, some of the exhibits, etc. The Editor's Introduction nar

rates Joyce's earlier life and activi

ties, and gives a complete analysis of the legal issues.

In entirety, the work gives a re

assuring picture of British fairness and scrupulous justice as to a de tested alien who had ridiculed Brit ain and exposed its people to fright ening perils. The book will find its

way to the reading tables, and then to the library shelves, of more than a few American lovers of legal lore in the great tradition of Anglo-Saxon justice and fair play.

Background to Indian LAW. By Sir George Claus Rankin.

London; Cambridge University Press,

July 23, 1946. $2.75. Pages 221.

For an American lawyer who finds relaxation or intellectual sharp ening in turning away from the legal history of his own country to gain perspective from the longer, but less known struggles for law and

justice in an older and different

civilization, the sometime Chief

Justice of*Bengal has written a most

readable account of the growth of law in India under British rule.

Judicial powers were first con

ferred on the East India Company by a Charter of Charles II in 1661.

For at least two centuries after that, India remained, in Sir Henry

Maine's phrase, "a country singularly empty of law." As courts came into

being but not legislatures, judicial legislation became inevitable, be cause law-making by some agency is

essential to civilized life. The im

pression of some persons that British rule in India imposed British law on

all races and religious creeds was un

founded. The efforts were diligent to give vitality and legal effectiveness to the laws of the Hindus, the Mo

hammedans, the Buddhists, and vari ous Indian tribes; but great difficul

ties were experienced in finding and

stating what those laws akin to cus

toms were, so largely were they based on personal and arbitrary "justice". Concepts such as the lex loci and "the

law of the defendant" were intro

duced to suspend or vary the opera tion of various statutes and even the

British common law.

Codification ran into snags, most

ly from the contentious views of

Britishers who, sent to India to serve

on councils, commissions and courts,

wanted to pioneer and break away from traditional landmarks of Anglo Saxon law. Codification was not

often opposed by the Indian races,

because it gave to law and justice a

sense of certainty they had never

known and also gave formal sanc

tion to the mofussil courts and their

administration of the laws of the

various races and religions, as to

"personal" rights such as wills, suc

cessions, marriage, divorce, punish

ment, etc.

An American lawyer finds in the

backgrounds of Indian law a great deal of new side-lights on personali ties known to him. Lord Cornwallis

was a champion of law reform in In

dia, exemplified in the Cornwallis

code, after his misadventures in

America which ended at Yorktown.

Lord Macaulay was an outstanding

figure, although he found the intri

cacies of Hindu and Moslem law less

easy to learn and state than he did

August, 1946 Vol. 32 471

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