1847. CLOUGH v. RATCLIFFE. association for mutual assistance, or however it should be designated, which is the foundation of the suit, is not shewn by the bill to be a contract so circumstanced that the principles and rules of the common law cannot be considered as sanctioning it, and that a court of equity (if not bound by statute to recognise) ought not to recognise it. I do not suggest that abstractedly such a contract, such an association, is otherwise than morally laudable: but if, from the number of persons concerned in it, or for that reason and otherwise, a contract or engagement is of such a nature as not to enable any of the established judicatures of the realm to deal with it beneficially or usefully, or to act upon it efficaciously, without doing injustice, is it the duty of a Court to acknowledge an agreement of that kind? It may be conceded, that for every civil wrong the law of the country provides or ought to provide a judicial remedy. But is it inconsistent with this concession that the Courts should decline to recognise contracts creating or affecting to create interests and claims of which the powers and means confided by the law to those Courts do not enable them to provide for the regulation, enjoyment, or protection; or that, with reference particularly to cases of the specific sort now before me, the law, among whose oldest institutions is the power of incorporation, with ample means for the government of bodies corporate, and among whose provisions, of later times, that changes in the habits of society have seemed to render expedient, are the statutes relating to friendly societies that the law, I say, which gives these facilities, should not permit the adoption of every course or every mode of effecting a laudable object, of a nature rather public than merely private, for effecting which it has provided means of particular kinds under wholesome regulations? I doubt, as I have intimated, whether, upon considerations such as these, the association that this bill brings before the Court, is not without the province of the Court, and does not fall within the observations of Lord Eldon in Van Sandau v. Moore (a), unless there is any statute (and certainly I am not satisfied that there is any statute) which ought to be considered as making a material difference in the plaintiffs' favour. I am not sure that the members of an association such as that described, so far as there is a description of it, in this bill, must not, upon civil questions arising out of it, be left (in the words of Lord Eldon) to regulate themselves by a "mutual understanding" and by a "moral rule," without judicial interference where Parliament has not assisted them. An impression, indeed, at once of the moral and civil advantages capable of arising from the societies called "Friendly Societies," and of the inefficacy or insufficiency of the institutions of the country without the aid of Parliament to afford them (unless incorporated) stability and protection, produced, I suppose, the Friendly Societies' Acts, of which the members of the association now before me have not thought fit to avail themselves, though it is probable that it might have been placed under the protection of those acts, and that, if it had, the complaints of the plaintiffs, and those for whom they profess to sue, could, by the means which those acts provide, have been easily, simply, and cheaply redressed. Without that protection it ought perhaps to be said (in the language of Lord Eldon at the end of the case of Beaumont v. Meredith (b),) that the objects of such societies as these are of a nature that no court of justice can ex ecute. It may be suggested that the statutes 33 Geo. 3, c. 54, and 35 Geo. 3, c. 3, recognise the legality of an association such as this, though not having enabled itself to claim the privileges conferred conditionally by the legislature on (a) 1 Russ. 462, 470, 471, & 472. (b) 3 Ves. & B. 180. VOL. I. N D. G. S. 1847. CLOUGH v. RATCLIFFE. 1847. CLOUGH v. RATCLIFFE. May 5th. cannot be entertained without the Court assuming to interpret the constitution of all the rules of this society. As to the sum of money, the Court cannot deal with it separately. Pearce v. Piper (a) was a case of a single society; while this case involves many thousand lodges-each a distinct society essentially connected with other lodges-which are not each represented in this suit. They cited Collins v. Plumb (b). Mr. Russell and Mr. Hargrave, for the plaintiffs.—This is an association for a charitable purpose, and the Court will give effect to its objects: Anonymous (c), Lloyd v. Loaring (d), Osborne v. Williams (e), Beaumont v. Meredith (f). It is not an illegal society; for it is not composed of parts, within the meaning of the statutes cited. The 57 Geo. 3, s. 26, expressly exempts every meeting or society formed or assembled for purposes of a religious or charitable nature only. They also referred to Ewing v. Osbaldeston (g) and Ex parte Norris (h); and said that, as Lord Eldon, in Pierce v. Piper (i), altered the rules of a society, so in this case the Court would, if necessary, alter the rules of this society so as to exclude illegality. The Vice-Chancellor referred to Nash v. Ash (k). Mr. Rolt, in reply.-The Friendly Societies Act confers no privilege, unless in favour of societies enrolled. This society is not a charity. The bill claims private rights arising out of private contracts, and the stock is treated in the bill as being common property. The argument as to (a) 17 Ves. 1. (f) 3 Ves. & B. 180. the impossibility of the Court's dealing with this case remains unanswered. There are such a variety of interests, that they cannot be adequately represented, except by a representative for each lodge, which would require at least a thousand parties, and therefore the Court will not interfere. In Mozley v. Alston (a), the present Lord Chancellor said—" Where the grievance complained of is common to a body of persons too numerous to be all made parties, the Court has permitted one or more of them to sue on behalf of all; subject, however, to this restriction, that the relief which is prayed must be one in which the parties whom the plaintiff professes to represent have all of them an interest identical with his own; for if what is asked may, by possibility, be injurious to any of them, those parties must be made defendants, because each and every of them may have a case to make, adverse to the interests of the parties suing." He also referred to Taylor v. Salmon (b) and Walworth v. Holt (c). 1847. CLOUGH v. RATCLIFFE. Cur. adv. vult. May 25th. The VICE-CHANCELLOR : This is a demurrer to an amended bill, filed after a demurrer to the original bill had been allowed with leave. to amend generally. The present demurrer was argued in the last term: the only cause for demurring specifically assigned on the record is want of equity. I wish in the first place to state that I feel some difficulty upon the question, whether the bill is free from the objection upon which Lord Eldon proceeded, when he allowed the demurrer in the case of Lloyd v. Loaring (d). And it is not, I think, superfluous to add, that I doubt whether the contract of partnership (if that is a proper term) or of 1847. CLOUGH v. RATCLIFFE. Friendly Societies. The enactments, however, of the statute 33 Geo. 3, c. 54, which does not profess to be a declaratory act, commence with providing "that it shall and may be lawful to and for any number of persons in Great Britain to form themselves into and to establish one or more society or societies of good fellowship, for the purpose of raising from time to time by subscriptions of the several members," and so on; and though I do not forget the preamble of the act, or the provision in the second section, beginning, "nor shall any such society which hath already been established "I am not, I repeat, convinced that it was the intention of either statute, in the case of any society that should not entitle itself by the means particularly specified to the benefit of the former, to render its affairs cognizable by a court of civil judicature, if, independently of the two acts, they would not have been so cognizable. But assuming in the present instance the contract, the association, stated by the bill, not to be illegal, assuming it to be one of which the existence is not unfit to be recognised by a court of equity, assuming that the principle of Lord Eldon's decision in Lloyd v. Loaring creates no difficulty, the question, we must see, still remains, whether a case is stated by the bill, which, were the cause to go to a hearing upon the bill as it stands, the facts alleged and charged being (without addition, diminution, or variation) proved or admitted, would entitle the plaintiffs to some relief within the range of the relief specifically or generally prayed. If it would not, the demurrer ought to be al lowed. Now, first as to the declarations of right asked. It would not, I apprehend, be consistent with the rules of this jurisdiction to make a decree containing wholly or in part those declarations, and nothing more. Nakedly to declare a right, without doing or directing anything else relating to the right, does not, I conceive, belong to the functions of |