If I have not made myself clear, imagine yourself bringing an action against a trade union, and finding when you came into court that a well-known ex-Labour M.P. was on the bench, that the jury were chosen entirely from the working classes, and that you were only allowed to be represented by a next friend chosen from the ranks of a particular trade union. Would you, under circumstances of this kind, even if you were convinced of the honesty and sincerity of every portion of the tribunal, feel that sense of security in its right decision which is so essential in a community where law should be respected? And that this is a real trouble and that the Courts are aware of its existence was shown in a recent judgment of Lord Sumner in the Court of Appeal. A learned judge in the Court below in correctly directing the jury as to the effect of the Trades Disputes Act had "added some remarks pointedly expressed which were indirectly a criticism of the Act and substantially a statement to the jury that a person who availed himself of the defence afforded by the Act was setting up a dishonest defence." These remarks Lord Sumner described as "inopportune, detrimental to the defendant's case and, perhaps worst of all, irrelevant." He concluded with quaint sarcasm: "A judge in charging a jury could never safely indulge in irrelevant observations because he could not be sure that the jury would be sufficiently logical to take no notice of them." I intend asking the Office of Works to have that painted up on the walls of my Court. It is worthy of letters of gold. Irrelevancy is certainly the worst of sins and it is a natural vice in most of us only to be kept down by prayer and fasting from the practice of it. We all dislike some Act of Parliament; the Insurance Act, the Ground Game Act, the Finance Act--none is so perfect that it has not some judicial enemies. And it is certainly very tempting when you meet the fellow in Court to give him a bit of your mind. But it must not be. The Legislature is our schoolmaster. Outside in the playground and on vacation we can express our opinions about him freely, but in school--No! Lord Sumner is perfectly right and when he next speaks on this subject I wish he would point out with authority that this human habit of irrelevancy is the constitutional reason for maintaining the grand jury. For centuries the King's Bench judges have worked off their natural irrelevancy in charging the grand juries at assize towns to the great benefit of themselves and the local papers. This national safeguard, this barrier between judicial irrelevancy and the public at large, should not be removed in a careless spirit. Our forefathers knew a thing or two. The grand jury is really a sound instrument of constitutional mechanics. It is the safety valve for the blowing off of judicial steam.