Note The underlining below is Geoffrey Cass's own. Advanced scholars will also note that in some of his chosen quotations, when compared with the full Law Report, Cass has been dubiously selective. In Buckley L.J.'s first quote, for example, the judge's sentence in fact continues: "... whereas... " - A. M.

1971 June 28, 29, 30, July 1, October 14

RUSSELL L. J.

"It cannot be doubted that dissemination by publication of accurate copies of statutory enactments is beneficial to the community as a whole."

" It is in my view just as beneficial to the community that reliable reports of judicial decisions of importance in the applicability of the law to varying but probably recurrent circumstances, or demonstrating development in the law, should be published; and all the more so if the publication be supervised by those who by training are best qualified to present the essence of a decision correctly and to distinguish the ephemeral from the significant.

"Now the first contention of the Crown [and the Commissioners of Inland Revenue] is shortly stated. When the stated objects of the Association are considered they amount to no more (it is said) than to carry on the trade of publishers and sellers of law reports; there is (it is said) no difference between the objects of the Association and the objects of the publishers of the All England Law Reports with the one exception that the Association is to make no profit from its trade that is not to be applied in the production and publication of law reports - i. e. the Association is in that sense non-profit making. This short contention does not in my judgment supply the answer to the case. The fact, that the Association carries on a trade or business is admittedly not inconsistent with a charitable character in its objects. The difference between the two cases is in my view a vital distinction. The element of unselfishness is well recognised as an aspect of charity, and an important one. Suppose on the one hand a company which publishes the Bible for the profit of its directors and shareholders: plainly the company would not be established for charitable purposes. But suppose an association or company which is non-profit making, whose members or directors are forbidden to benefit from its activities, and whose object is to publish the Bible: equally plainly it would seem to me that the main object of the association or company would be charitable - the advancement or promotion of religion."

"... purposes merely ancillary to a main charitable purpose, which if taken by themselves would not be charitable, will not vitiate the claim of an institution to be established for purposes that are exclusively charitable."

SACHS L. J.

"Secondly, it is clear that the mere fact that charges on a commercial scale are made for services rendered by an institution does not of itself bar that institution from being held to be charitable - so long, at any rate, as all the profits must be retained for its purposes and none can enure to the benefit of its individual members."

"The courts look at the substance of what is being effected."

"Whilst appreciating what has been said as to the courts not being permitted, where plain language is used in a charter or memorandum, to admit extrinsic evidence as to its construction, it is yet plain from the course adopted by the courts in many cases that they are entitled to and do look at the circumstances in which the institution came into existence and at the sphere in which it operates to enable a conclusion to be reached on whether its purposes are charitable."

"The necessity for this course is all the more obvious when the purposes of an ancient institution become the subject of examination."

"It may at this point be of relevance to note that Lord Macnaghten's phrase 'advancement of education' has consistently been taken to be an enlargement of the phrase 'advancement of learning' used by Sir Samuel Romilly for his second division of charities in MORICE v BISHOP OF DURHAM (1805) 10 Ves. 522. 531: in other words, there can be no question but that the latter is included in the former, as is illustrated by the authorities."

"It would be odd indeed and contrary to the trend of judicial decisions if the institution and maintenance of a library for the study of a learned subject or of something rightly called a science did not at least prima facie fall within the phrase 'advancement of education', whatever be the age of those frequenting it. The same reasoning must apply to the provision of books forming the raw material for that study, whether they relate to chemical data or to case histories in hospitals; and I can find no good reason for excluding case law as developed in the courts. If that is the correct approach, then when the institution is one whose individual members make no financial gain from the provision of that material and is one which itself can make no use of its profits except to provide further and better material, why is the purpose not charitable?"

"Where the purpose of producing a book is to enable a specified subject, and a learned subject at that, to be studied, it is, in my judgment, published for the advancement of education, as this, of course, includes as regards the Statute of Elizabeth I the advancement of learning."

"The way in which the council operates qualifies it for inclusion amongst charities as defined by the 1960 Act once it is shown that its purposes can properly be said to be charitable if operated in a charitable manner."

"Accordingly if, contrary to my view, the purposes of the council do not fall within the second division, they are nonetheless charitable because they would then fall within the fourth."

BUCKLEY L. J.

"It would be immediately evident that a body established to promote the Christian religion was established for a charitable purpose."

"For the council it is argued that its objects are charitable on the ground that they fall within the scope either of purposes for the advancement of education, using that term in a broad sense, or of the fourth head of Lord Macnaghten's celebrated enumeration of charitable purposes in PEMSEL's case (1891) A.C. 531, 583 as bring purposes beneficial to the community, which fall within the spirit and intendment of the Statute of Elizabeth. It is emphasised that the members of the council, who are not more than 20 or so in number at any one time, are precluded by the council's constitution from obtaining any profit or benefit as members from its activities. The council's publications can be bought by the general public and are, as the evidence shows, bought by a wide variety of users, including academic bodies, commercial and industrial bodies (including public utility undertakings), public authorities, government and public departments and offices, trade unions, and a wide variety of libraries, professional institutes and miscellaneous bodies, as well as a great many bodies and persons concerned with the administration and practice of the law, and all of these not merely in this country but also in many other countries within the Commonwealth and elsewhere. These circumstances, it is said, demonstrate that the council's publications constitute a general public purpose or, to use Sir Samuel Romilly's language in argument in MORICE v. BISHOP OF DURHAM (1805) 10 Ves. 522. 531, an object of general public utility, and that this falls within the spirit of the preamble."

"In a number of cases learned societies have been held to be charitable. Sometimes the case has been classified under Lord Macnaghten's fourth head, sometimes under the second. It does nor really matter under which head such a case is placed, but for my own part I prefer to treat the present case as falling within the class of purposes for the advancement of education rather than within the final class of other purposes for the benefit of the community. For the present purpose the second head should, in my judgment, be regarded as extending to the improvement of a useful branch of human knowledge and its public dissemination."

"In BEAUMONT v. OLIVEIRA 1860 4 Ch. App. 309, bequests to the Royal Society and the Royal Geographical Society were held to be charitable. The object of the Royal Society is 'improvlng natural knowledge'. That of the Royal Geographical Society is 'the improvement and diffusion of geographical knowledge'. Of these two bequests Selwyn L. J. said:

'In the case now before us, both the bequests are bequests to corporations, the objects and purposes of which are the diffusion and improvement of particular branches of knowledge. They subsist for these purposes and no others, therefore for public purposes - therefore, for the advancement of objects of general public utility - therefore for purposes analogous and similar to those mentioned in the statute of Elizabeth - therefore for charitable purposes . . .'"

"IN RE BRITISH SCHOOL OF EGYPTOLOGY (1954) 1 W.L.R. 546, an association whose objects included conducting excavations, discovering and exhibiting antiques, publishing accounts of its activities and training students, was held by Harman J. to be an educational charity. Harman J. said:

'I cannot doubt that this was a society for the diffusion of a certain brand of knowledge, namely, knowledge of the ancient past of Egypt; and that it also had a direct educational purpose, namely, to train students in that complicated branch of knowledge known as Egyptology. In my view this is clearly a charity from the educational aspect."

"The council was established for the purpose of recording in a reliably accurate manner the development and application of judge-made law and of disseminating the knowledge of that law, its development, and judicial application, in a way which is essential to the study of that law. The primary object of the council is, I think, confined to this purpose exclusively and is charitable. The subsidiary objects, such as printing and publishing statutes, the provision of a noting-up service and so forth, are, in my judgment, ancillary to this primary object and do not detract from its exclusively charitable character. Indeed, the publication of the statutes of the realm is, in my judgment, itself a charitable purpose for reasons analogous to those applicable to reporting judicial decisions."

"Although the objects of the council are commercial in the sense that the council exists to publish and sell its publications, they are unselfregarding. The members are prohibited from deriving any profit from the council's activities, and the council itself, although not debarred from making a profit out of its business, can only apply any such profit in the further pursuit of its objects. The council is consequently not, in my judgment, prevented from being a charity by reason of any commercial element in its activities."

"I agree that on this basis also the council is to be regarded as a body established for charitable purposes and, indeed, for exclusively charitable purposes as falling under Lord Macnaghten's fourth head. Such an activity is, in my judgment, clearly properly described as of general public utility and as beneficial to the community."