The Gazette 1971

out of 101 were uncontested, in 1918 only 25 out of 103 remained uncontested. An expert analysis is made of each of the Documents presented to the First Dail in May 1919—The Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the message to the Free Nations of the World, and the controversial Democratic Programme. It is stressed that the Dail Eireann Courts effectively replaced the British Civil Courts. The First Dail was undoubtedly the necessary instrument by which a formal Constitu- tion for the new State was created. Mr. Farrell has given us a very able and learned analysis of the leading events in those works. The publishers are to be congratulated on the excellence of the printing. C.G.D. Restrictive Covenants Affecting Freehold Land. Fifth edition, 1971; Preston & Newsom; Sweet & Maxwell; £8.50. It is unfortunate that the very circumstances which render necessary the publication this year of the 5th edition of this work, the only standard text book on the subject, at the same time tend to render it less useful to the Irish Lawyer than its predecessors. The greater part of the work now relates specifically to English Law and practice and the present edition is brought about largely by the passing of the Law of Property Act 1969, which came into force on 1st January 1971. As an aside, it is interesting to observe from the prefaces to the present and earlier editions of this work that Mr. Newsom has himself been responsible for many of the recent English modifications of the Law relating to restrictive covenants—an instructive illustration of the value to the community of a man who takes the trouble first, to acquire the necessary expertise; second, to codify his knowledge in text-book form; and, third, to predicate the solution to the various anomalies in the subject as he finds it. Nowadays, the principal value of restrictive coven- ants lies probably in the area of the planning, develop- ment and preservation of residential building estates. In this context, it is reassuring to find one's own ex- pectations confirmed; following the passing in England of the Town and County Planning Act 1947, it was widely predicted that restrictive covenants had had their day and that in future the interests of the com- munity at large would be safeguarded by the local planning authorities. This prediction has, predictably, proved completely wrong, as is witnessed by the very large number of restrictive covenants which have been reported over the past twenty years in the English Courts and Lands Tribunal. Indeed, it is clear that, whereas, in the past, restrictive covenants tended to be regarded as a dead letter, the attitude of the Courts has, in Mr. Newsom's words, "undergone a drastic change". In the three cases on the subject before the English Courts during 1970 the restrictions were held enforce- able, in contrast to the usual fate of restrictive coven- ants during the previous four decades. Mr. Newsom also observes, by way of pointing the foregoing, that the standards privately imposed by means of restrictive covenants have consistently proved

higher than those publicly imposed under the planning law. Mr. Newsom quotes Mr. Stuart Daniel Q.C., sitting as the Lands Tribunal, as stating in Re Hornsby's Application [(1968) 20 P. & C.R. 495]: "Vigilant insistence on the covenants has preserved the character and amenity of (the) estate to a standard which planning control would lamentably have failed to achieve," and he held in the case in question that the restrictions ought not to be deemed absolute. It is unnecessary to labour the glaring inadequacies, not to say misconceptions, contained in the Local Government (Planning and Development) Act 1963 and the Landlord and Tenant (Ground Rents) Act 1967 and, in the interests of the preservation or enhance- ment of communal amenity, it is surely up to Lawyers (as the group of persons best placed to appreciate those inadequacies and misconceptions) to lead whatever action is necessary to secure a more enlightened official approach to the whole problem. This reviewer has long held the view that the general state of preservation of Dublin and its environs would by now be very much worse were it not for the (albeit haphazard) ministrations over the past hundred years of that much maligned watchdog, the Pembroke Estate! To the Irish practitioner, the most useful section of the present edition will probably be Chapter 4, which deals with the drafting of restrictive covenants. The author takes us through a standard form of covenant, phrase by phrase and, although a great deal of the drafting is based on current English Legislation, the standard covenant discussed could be adapted to Irish use without much modification. Care must, of course, be exercised in adapting any English precedent which relies upon the statutory imputation of certain meanings to certain words or phrases. Section 4 of Chapter 4 treats specifically of the drafting of the necessary restrictive covenants for a building estate and appears to be un- altered from the previous edition. Chapter 3 of the present edition, which, Mr. Newsom tells us, is practically unchanged since the first edition, discusses the Burden of restrictive covenants and exam- ines at some length the doctrine of Tulk v Moxhay. Chapter 2, on the other hand, on the Benefit of re- strictive covenants, has been substantially re-written and goes a great deal further than the previous editions in its examination of the Rule in Miles v Easter and contains references to several important recent decisions. It is questionable whether this is a work without which no Lawyer's library can be said to be complete, but it is certainly true that the Irish practitioner should remember that it is (or will be) available in the Library of the Incorporated Law Society. Charles Meredith. Revenue Law by Barry Pinson, L.LB. of Gray's Inn, Barrister at Law; 5th edition; Sweet & Maxwell Ltd.; London; paperback; £3.90. This book is an introduction to the Revenue law of England for students and for the practising lawyer or accountant, not otherwise an expert in this field, who wishes to have at least a sufficient working knowledge of the principles of taxation to sense when a problem •> ? ?

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