Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am ar 27 Gorffennaf 1923.
That is quite a different question. This Clause does not deal only with cases of negligence, but compendiously with all cases, and if any Master or Judge said an ordinary running-down case was more fit to be tried by a Judge than by a jury I imagine the Court of Appeal would correct such an impression, if it was in the mind of the Judge, at the earliest possible moment. That is the view I present to the House, and I think most hon. Members would agree that no Judge would say an action for negligence is more fit to be tried by a Judge than by a jury. Now as to the case of nuisance. The right hon. Gentleman suggested that in such a case before the War there would have been an indefeasible right to a jury. I think he is wrong. It would come under Rule 4 of Order 36, which provided that in questions or issues which before the passing of the Supreme Court of Judicature Act of 1873 would have been tried without a jury, there should be no right to a jury. Therefore, if an action for nuisance was brought in the King's Bench Division there would be no right to a jury, though the Judge might order it on application to be tried with a jury. The position to-day would be precisely the same in regard to that important class of action as it was before the War and I think what I am saying will be found, on examination of the rules, to be an accurate statement of the position. It comes back to this, that in many of the classes of actions with which we are most familiar, libel, slander, seduction, malicious prosecution and false imprisonment, there is an indefeasible right to a jury. In another class of case, such as that of nuisance, there will be the same right to trial by jury as before the War.