Mr. MeNeill then addressed the court as follows: "Your Honour, have seen Sir Peter Grain in the interval, and I am sorry T cannot call, him as a witness, but he has thorized me to make the following statement, which your Honour can incorporate in this case. He says that the library of the court is open to inspection by the public at all reasonable times upon permission being received from: him, and he would never unreasonably withhold it, He also authorized me to say that the court is in change 40 to speak, of the Foreign Office and that the Foreign Office purchases] and sends out copies of all statutes to this court library. That is the position, ""T am not really in a position to argue the question of inspection of statutes by the public, but I do Submit that as there Ts no such, place as @ public office in this consulate mere" inspection or perusal of]
tutes can be done—a passage is tan office—we must give some! meaning to this statute, in fact, any member of the public could at fall reasonable times inspect this court's library because all he has to is to obtain the permission of the' Judge, which will never reasonably be withheld. With regard to my present claim, which I consider of treme importance in Shanghai, that the Copyright Act does apply to China under the stipulations contained in that Act and under the stipulation that we are governed according to the laws of England, your Honour to submit your reasons either in writing or in the form of an announcement in court, made in such a manner that its knowledge will be widely known."
Mr, Harris: I" understand your! Honour has already given your decision, that is, your Honour "has said you would dismiss the summons unless Mr. MeNeill proved that the statute in question was exhibited and open to public inspection, Mr, Anderson: I cannot see that the library or documents are open to public inspection. When you have to go to th mission to get any book you they are not open to inspection by any means. However, Iwill give my reason for my decision in writ-'The summons must be dismissed.
Harris: I would ask for coats, your Honour. 7 Anderson declined to allow saying that he did not think the elreumstances merited such a step. Mr, Harris then proceeded to criticize the manner in which the prosecution had been brought. The publicity given to the case by the ross and the nature of the proceed. ings themselves hinted strongly of a hankering after publicity. The complainant had certainly obtained he could in this respect.
"T say that in the circumstances these proceedings are vexatious," Mr, Harris continued," and I say. they are also malicious." Counsel then detailed the way in which the! writ had been served on his client! effort of re been obvious to to his legal adviser, said, that the statute never existed so far as Shanghai was concerned, and that being the case complainant must have had another ulterior object in view. His legal adviser, too, should have known, and maybe did know that there was no ground for the prosecttion.
"Malicious, vexatious, and frivolous is the only way to describe this prosecution," counsel concluded, "and there is, therefore, good ground for your honour granting costs. 1 never heard of a clearer resented the remarks of Me. Harris, They were an imputation affecting hhis good faith, and they presented fan entirely inaccurate. picture of the circumstances. In any ease, they had nothing to do with when ther the Act did or did not apply to China, Mr. Anderson: I have not decided, Mr. MeNeill, whether the Act does or does not apply to China. T have said that you must prove that this Act was exhibited in the public] offices of this Consulate, On the subject of costs, Mr. against' me on purely technical] grounds, It is very easy to say, a3} my learned friend does, that these proceedings are malicious and vexatious, That is nonsense. Why does a bank prosecute when a clerk embezzles 500d. or £500? They do so because they do not want that sort of offence to happen again. A bank will start a prosecution or will withhold a prosecution, In this case we decided to start our prosecution because we felt our rights had been grossly infringel."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.