LAW AND MORALITY

Evening Star, Issue 20511, 16 June 1930, Page 7

LAW AND MORALITY

“ Law and morality alike prohibit much that is wrong, but there is a vast area of moral duty to wnxch law has'nothing to say, and there is a good deal of law which has its root in considerations of mere convenience, said Lord He wart, tho Lord Chief Justice ol England, in an address recently. “ The' moralist may say ‘ iflessed aro the pure in heart,’ but it is inconceivable that a statute should provide taat ‘after the passing of this Act any person who is not pure in heart shall be guilty of a misdemeanour.’ Nor.would the matter be maue any easier ,if the statute: went on to provide that lack of purity of heart and its symptoms should be denned by a Government uepartment in ru.es and orders raving tna same effect as if they were contained m the Act. . it would De a poor and starved morality winch uepeiu.ed upon the provisions ol law, ,ami it would probanly be au intolerable law wmea sougnt. to give legal ehect to, all tno dictates of morality. “There stiu survives tuat curiously attractive sense of duly winch enables a man to perceive, or to think he perceives. with extraordinary clearness tho duty of somebody e.se, a sense of duty closely akin to that imperfect sympathy which impels a person not indeed to give something of his own to the sufferer, but to dip his hand into another person’s pocket for the purpose. _lt appeal's hard to draw a clear distinction between deciding a question of right and wrong for one’s self and deciding it for others against their will. Yet it is necessary in the interests of morality and law alike to avoid confusion between the province of the ono and the province of the other. Th© old Eastern proverb still endures: * If every man would sweep his own doorstep tho city.would soon bo clean.’ “ Law r cannot, be in advance of tha moral standard of the community.” Lord Hewart added: “ lb can enforca successfully only that 1 which the community has agreed in thinking right. In a healthy community law is held in respect and hardly ever comes in conflict with the mass of the citizens.”