APPEAL COURT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 18973, 26 March 1924, Page 5

APPEAL COURT

THE GOWER WILL CASE. INTERESTING POINTS RAISED. (Per Press Association). WELLINGTON, March 25. The Court of Appeal to-day Is engaged considering an appeal front a decision of his Honor the Chief Justice, delivered on October 24, 1923. The appeal arose in this way —Samuel Gower, late of Whenuakura, farmer, deceased, by his will, dated December 22, 1'914, gave certain land to his son, the appellant, William Samuel Gower, "for his life, and so long as he shall not become a Roman Catholic,” and the residue of his estate in trust for his son "on his attaining the age of twenty-one years, and not being a Roman Catholic.” The testator appointed the Public Trustee guardian of hi s infant sou (born in February, 1911) and directed the guardian to bring the son up in Protestant religion, and have him educated at Protestant schools, "it bung mv c ii.ress wish that he should be a liotis’ant.” There being a considerable body of evD deuc c to the effect that the son of the deceased had been brought up in the Roman Catnolic religion in the testator’s lifetime with the latter’s consent, and that the testator himself had become a Roman Catholic before his death, the üblic Trustee was in doubt as to th e validity of the conditions referred to, and also as to his duty in respect to the education of the boy. The Public Trustee, therefore, took out an originating summons to determine the questions, which was heard by the Chief Justice, who held that the conditions imposed on the boy’s taking or retaining the gift were good; also that the Public Truste e was not bound to bring the boy up a g a Protestant. From the first part of the decision the boy has appealed on the ground that lie is entitled to the gift free of conditions, which is contended were waived by the testator’s conduct in his lifetime.

For the appellant it was contended that the dominant feature of th e will was the direction that the infant son of the testator should be educated as a Protestant, and that the testator had waived or dispensed with the condition by his conduct in his lifetime, first by allowing his son to be brought up a Roman Catholic and secondly by himself becoming a Roman Catholic in the last year of his life. That being so, the direction as to Protestant education must be ignored. The Court should order the child to be brought up as a Roman Catholic, the religion in which he had hitherto been reared. If that was done, then the conditions of not being or becoming a Roman Catholic attached to the gifts to the son were bad.

For the respondents it was contended that those conditions were good. Becoming a Catholic implied an act of volition, and it was not till he became 21 that tho chil could make effective election between Protestantism and Catholicism. The case was not finished when the Court adjourned.