The Gazette 1967/71

formation about the Battle of Jutland in 1916, was found guilty and sentenced to 6 months in the second division. Dr. Halliday Sutherland had attacked Dr. Marie Stopes in one of his books on the issue of birth control. She brought an action for libel in 1923, and was fiercely cross- examined by Serjeant Sullivan. The jury eventually found that the defendant was justified in his remarks, and judgment was given for him; the Court of Appeal attempted to reverse this, but the House of Lords restored the original judgment. Peter Wright's action in respect of the written defamatory remarks about the Victorian prime minister, W. E. Gladstone, and whom Lord Gladstone called a coward and a liar, took place in 1927; Birkett appeared for Lord Gladstone, and the defendant won. Wright made an un qualified apology but had to pay £5,000 costs. Prince Youssoupoff and his wife contended that they had been libelled in the film "Rasputin the Mad Monk" which was exhibited by Metro Golwin Meyer, received no less than £25,000 damages in 1934; this was one of Sir Patrick Hasting's great triumphs. When "Cassandra" of the Daily Mirror accused Liberace of being the summit of sex, and stated that this appalling man was the biggest sentimental vomit of all time, Liberace felt defamed and brought an action, in which his leading counsel was Gilbert Beyfus, in 1959. The jury found that the words complained of meant that the plaintiff was a homosexual, and assessed damages at £8,000. It will be seen that this volume contains a great number of interesting defamation cases; the author has regaled us with the best extracts of cross-examination, and related the outstanding incidents of every trial, and events connected with them, with a great narrative zest. The publishers have amply illustrated the cases with photographs of all the leading counsel and personages involved, and are to be congratu lated upon their most readable print. C. G. D. Hudson's Building and Engineering Contracts, 10th Ed., by I. N. Duncan Wallace. 8vo. Pp. 921. London, Sweet & Maxwell, 1971. £11. This edition of Hudson reflects the growing

tendency of textbook writers on law to believe that it is part of their function to explain and comment on the practical effects of the law. Any thing beneficial which reminds practising lawyers that if they do not help to solve the real problems of those they wish to employ them, the area of their employment will then continue to shrink. At the same time it is preferable for commentators on practical problems to know what they are talking about. Given our present system of legal educa tion and organisation, the comments of lawyers on the practices of industry are no more valuable than the opinions of any other members of the public who have no training in economics, statistics, logic, sociology or psychology and, in the case of members of the bar, view industry at one remove from reality. It is therefore useful that much of the advice to the building and engineering industry scattered liberally throughout the text of this edition is also collected in a "General Introduction and Pref ace." Thus it should be possible for readers to differentiate between propositions of law which with some exceptions remain as authoritative as Hudson has always been, and comments which attempt to teach the industry its own business. The following is in the latter category: ". . . notwithstanding that engineering work is of its nature and to the knowledge of the parties inherently far more uncertain and unpredictable than building work, massive claims for additional payment are constantly being advanced by contractors wherever the quantities differ in either direction from those billed, even where specific attention to the likelihood of this occurring is made in the specification or by billing the items of work concerned as provisional quantities in the bills." The background to this comment is the diffi culty of discovering ground conditions, which in some motorway contracts has resulted in a many hundred per cent increase in the number of units of some work to be done beyond that shown in the contract bill of quantities. If the number of units of work to be carried out vastly exceeds that anticipated, the planned resources of the 217