Throughout the Rhodesian crisis it has been repeatedly asserted that the Unilateral Declaration of Independence constituted treason. In the House of Commons on 12 November 1965, the Attorney-General himself said:

It is right that I should point out in general terms that there is abundant authority for the conclusion that the conduct of the kind that has taken place is treasonable.

Coke said of the Statute of Treasons 1351: “this Act is to be understood of a king in possession of the crown and kingdom,” and “the other [king] that hath right and is out of possession is not within this Act.” In other words, treason can be committed solely against the monarch in possession, and, conversely, breach of allegiance to the monarch in possession is treason. This doctrine is repeated, with varying degrees of enthusiasm and elaboration, by the later writers, for example, Hale, Hawkins, Foster, Bacon and East, and it appears in the modern books. Only Blackstone expresses a doubt: he thinks the law does not go further than to excuse obedience to a king de facto without commanding opposition to a king de jure who is out of possession.

The reading was an integral part of the education of the medieval law student, and a necessary exercise for the utter barrister who cast covetous eyes to the Bench of his Inn, the Order of the Coif and a judgeship in the Common Pleas or King's Bench. At one time each reader discoursed on one of the “old” statutes before Edward III (especially Magna Carta, Merton, Marlborough, Westminster I, Gloucester and Westminster II) but during the sixteenth century readers acquired a wider range of choice; so Coke and Bacon were to read on the Statute of Uses 1535 and Moore on the Statute of Charitable Uses 1601. The “antient readings” are said to have served the apprentices well, particularly as an introduction to the dark intricacies of medieval land law. Coke esteemed them as having five excellent qualities:

First, they declared what the common law was before the making of the statute, as here it appeareth. Secondly, they opened the true sense and meaning of the statute. Thirdly, their cases were briefe, having at the most one poynt of the common law and another upon the statute. Fourthly, plaine and perspicuous, for then the honour of the reader was to excell others in authorities, arguments, and reasons for proofe of his opinion, and for confutation of the objections against it. Fifthly, they read, to suppresse subtill inventions to creepe out of the statute.

How more favourable than their modern counterparts, mused Coke, which

having lost the said former qualities, have lost also their former authorities: for now the cases are long, obscure, and intricate, full of new conceits, liker rather to riddles than lectures, which when they are opened they vanish away like smoke, and the readers are like to lapwings, who seeme to bee neerest their nests, when they are farthest from them, and all their studie is to find nice evasions out of the statute.

The law concerning misrepresentations inducing contracts has been the subject of criticism for some years, and in 1959, the then Lord Chancellor, Viscount Kilmuir, referred the matter to the Law Reform Committee. Their Report, published in 1962, had a mixed reception. A learned commentator, writing in this journal, gave it a rather chilly welcome, on the ground that it went too far; on the other hand, Mr. Diamond, writing in the pages ofLaw Reform Now, complained that the Report did not go far enough, and suggested that the subtle distinction between a mere representation and a term of the contract should be abolished. In 1967 the Misrepresentation Act was passed, to give effect, with certain modifications, to such of the recommendations of the Law Reform Committee as had not yet been implemented.