ABSTRACT
It is clear, in such a background, that the duty of the judge is one of peculiar delicacy and complexity. He has to be sure that he is not mistaking his private desire for the public welfare. "Something of Pascal's spirit of self-search and self-reproach" writes Judge Cardozo, "must come at moments to the man who finds himself summoned to the duty of shaping the progress of the law". This "spirit of self-search and self-reproach" is especially urgent where the policy of an elected legislative body is in question. No case in modern times, in England at least, illustrates this thesis better than the recent decision of the House of Lords in what is called the Poplar case. Poplar is one of the twenty-eight boroughs into which the administrative county of London is divided for the purpose of local self-government.
