INLAND REVENUE COMMISSIONERS Vs. NATIONAL ANTI-VIVISECTION SOCIETY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The National Anti-Vivisection Society claim exemption from income-tax on their investment income on the ground that they are a body of persons established for charitable purposes only. The claim was admitted by the Special Commissioners in spite of their view that the objects of the society, so far from being for the public benefit, were gravely injuries thereto. On this ground they would have held that the society could not be regarded as a charity had they not considered themselves bound to hold otherwise by the authority of Foveaux, In re, decided by Chitty, J., in 1895 and approved in 1915 by this court in Wedgwood, In re. Macnaghten, J., held on appeal that he ought not to follow Foveaux, In re, in view of certain observations upon the decision which I shall presently discuss, and that as the attainment of the societys object would be gravely injurious to the community it was impossible to regard that object as charitable. From that decision the society appeals.

(2.) It will be convenient at the outset to summaries certain findings of fact of the Commissioners. The society is the same body as one of the three bodies concerned in the case of Foveaus, In re, under its then name of The Victoria Street Society for the Protection of Animals from Vivisection united with the International Association for the total Suppression of Vivisection (Case, paragraph 4). Its main object is still the total abolition of vivisection, including in that term all experiments on living animals, whether calculated to inflict pain or not, and, for that purpose, the repeal of the Cruelty to Animals Act, 1876, and the substitution of a new enactment prohibiting vivisection altogether (Case, paragraph 20). The work of the society is to a large extent directed towards the prevention of cruelty to animals. The Commissioners held it to have been proved conclusively that (a) a large amount of present- day medical and scientific knowledge is due to experiments on living animals; (b) many valuable cures for and preventatives of disease have been discovered and perfected by means of experiments on living animals, and much suffering both to human beings and to animals has been either prevented or alleviated thereby. We are satisfied that the experiments on living animals were to be forbidden, that is, if vivisection were abolished, a very serious obstacle would be placed in the way of obtaining further medical and scientific knowledge calculated to be of benefit to be public. The weight of the evidence called on behalf of the Crown, and accepted by the Commissioners, dealt with the advances in medical knowledge made by means of experiments on animals in regard to the prevention or cure of various diseases, such as malaria, typhus, typhoid, yellow fever, diphtheria, tetanus, smallpox and diabetes. The treatment of such diseases by inoculation, vaccines or drugs, as the case may be, has been rendered possible by means of experiments on animals, whether for the purpose of ascertaining the causes of the disease, of testing the efficacy of suggested remedial treatments, or of testing the purity of drugs or vaccines. Valuable knowledge has also been gained with regard to the treatment of burns, would infections and gas gangrene (Case, paragraph 9). To all such experiments on animals the society is opposed and, as a logical consequence, it is opposed to immunization of human beings against typhoid and diphtheria (Case, paragraph 6).

(3.) On the question of the extent to which cruelty or the infliction of pain or suffering is involved in experiments on animals, the matter stands as follows : The Cruelty to Animals Act, 1876, was passed as a result of the report of the Royal commission of the practice of subjecting live animals to experiments for scientific purposes, which was appointed in 1875 and reported in January, 1876. The preamble recited that it was expedient to amend the law relating to cruelty to animals by extending it to the cases of animals subjected when alive to experiments calculated to inflict pain. Section 2 prohibited the performance of any such experiment except subject to the restrictions mentioned in the Act, and imposed penalties. Section 3 gave a list of the restrictions. It will be noticed that the Act, so far from prohibiting experiments calculated to give pain, in fact recognised that such experiments could lawfully be carried out, provided that the statutory restrictions were complied with. The restrictions limited the permitted experiments to those performed with a view to the specified advancement of knowledge (paragraph 1) on for the testing of a former discovery (proviso 4) by a person duly licensed (paragraph 2). The subject of pain is dealt with in paragraphs 3 and 4 and provisos 2 and 3. Paragraph 3 provides that the animal must during the whole of the experiment be under the influence of an anesthetic of sufficient power to prevent it feeling pain, but this is subject to proviso 2, which permits the performance of experiments without anesthetics on a certificate being given that insensibility would frustrate the object of the experiment. Paragraph 4 requires that the animal be killed before it recovers from the anesthetic in cases where the pain is likely to continue after the effect of the anesthetic has ceased, or if serious injury has been inflicted; nut this is subject to an exception (proviso 3), where a certificate is given that the killing of the animal would necessarily frustrate the object of the experiment; in such a case the animal must be killed as soon as the object has been attained. I need not take up time by referring to other provisions of the Act which (Sections 22) does not apply to invertebrate animals.