Welsh Vicar Against the Church in Wales The Court of Appeal Tecently delivered reserved judgment in an appeal from a decision of Mr. Justice Luxmoore in what was described as a test action by a Welsh vicar against the Representative Body of the Church in Wales, which raised a question concerning an incumbent's stipend, states the "Manchester Guardi; A The Rev. Thomas Pritchard Price. Vicar of Penmark, Glamorgan, in that action obtained a declaration that he was entitled to an annuity of £528 so long as he held that or any other office in the- Church in Wales, and that while he was Vicar of Penmark the Representative Body could not deduct from that annuity a sum of £240 a year receivable under the bequest of a Dr. Neale, of Barry, for the augmentation of the stipend of the incumbent of Pen-mark.
Sir William Jowitt, Mr. W. N. Stable,. and Mr. F. H. L. Errington appeared for the appellants; Mr. Harold Christie, K.C., Mr. Gwyn Rees, and Mr. Granville Slack represented Mr. Price.
The case for the Representative Body, as stated by Sir William Jowitt. KO. was that when the Welsh Church Act, 1914, was passed Mr. Price was Rector of Coity, where the Stipend was £528. On July 2, 1933, he resigned to become Vicar of Penmark, a smaller parish with a smaller stipend. Mr. Price said that under the provisions of the Act he was entitled to be paid the £528 plus the £240.
The Representative Body's reply was that, according to the proper interpretation of the Act and their established practice, Mr. Price was entitled to receive only such a sum as, with the £240, made up stipend to £528.
Mr. Justice Luxmoore, it was urged; ought to have inferred, from an interview between Mr. Price and Mr.
Morgan, then secretary of the Representative Body (who had since died), that Mr. Price agreed to accept the incumbency on the terms that his stipend would be £528.
The Master of the Roll: reading the judgment of the Court said the appeal of the Representative Body must be allowed. He referred to the relevant sections and subsections of the Welsh Church Act, and said the Court's view was that the appel-Jants construction of them was right. They were also entitled to succeed on their contention that the rights of Mf. Price were governed by the arrangement arrived at when he left Coity for Penmark.
There was no direct evidence of ihe making of the arrangements, since Mr. Morgan was dead and Mr, Price was not called, but, from the nets of the parties and the correspondence, the Court was entitled to infer that the arrangement as to the stipend was that contended for by the Representative Body.
Leave to appeal to the House of Lords was granted.
As to the costs, Sir William Jowitt said that, although the Representative Body was entitled to them on the Court's decision, they would con sider whether costs would be enforced:
The principal naval powers, including Japan, bound themselves by the Washington Treaty of 1922 not to build battleships of more than 35,000 tons. Britain, France and the United States renewed this undertaking in 1936, but Japan refused to participate.
Now London and Washington—if not Paris—are considering whether they can be any longer bound by the Treaty limits.
It Japan were to build ships of over 40,000 tons while we retained the 35000 tons limit, ship for ship her new battleships would be superior to ours. Given competent construction, the power of a ship varies with her size. The bigger the ship the larger or more numerous the guns you can put into her, or the thicker the armour or the higher the speed.
That being so it is no use building a ship of 35,000 tons in reply to one of 40,000 tons, Something as large or larger would be necessary.
Nevertheless, ships of over 40,000 tons, or even of 35,000 tons, are very large and very costly things, so costly that a nation can only afford a few of them.
For this reason there is a school of thought that holds that battleship size has reached its effective limit and that the right reply to a foreign ship of 40,000 tons is two of about 25,000 ions. Numbers they hold, can more than compensate for size, in view of the fact that a battleship can only fire at one opponent at a time.
Must Counter Increase by Japan Whichever is the more accurate view it is clear that an increase in the size of Japanese battleships will have to be countered by one method or the other if a Far Eastern naval conflict is considered a possibility.
Some people may regard it as beyond the range of possibility. Japan, they may say, does in fact command the Western Pacific to-day. All things considered we are unlikely to be able to wrest it from her if we would.
What therefore is the good of building battleships against a contingency that, for geographical and strategical reasons, is unlikely to arise?
That argument is not based on the facts—or on all the facts.
It is true that, in the present state of the world, it is unlikely that Britain could send to the Far East a fleet detachment large enough to chal. lenge the Japanese main fleet in its own chosen ground of operations.
The point is "how far her own ground- extends. The smaller the British fleet, the further from her own strictly home area Japan can hope to operate without fear of interference.
That is why we cannot look upon an increase of Japanese battleship strength with indifference, even if we cannot now expect to carry out successful operations in, say, the Yellow.
Sea, To-day the requirements of home defence prevent us sending any more than eight capital ships to the East. The Japanese, however, have nine capital ships. At the: best, therefore, our own force would be inferior.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.