THE KNOX COURT: EXPOSITION UNNECESSARY Graham Fricke* Knox has generally been regarded as a disappointing Chief Justice; his high distinction at the Bar was not matched by his achievements as a judge. His undoubted skills as a lawyer were overbalanced by the distractions of interests outside the law'! Australia's second chief justice has generally received a bad press. Perhaps this is due in part to the circumstances of his departure, 2 which did nothing to enhance the prestige of the office. But it may be worthwhile to revisit the decade of his stewardship, for it marks the commencement of a centralist approach to the interpretation of our Constitution. It may also be fruitful to examine the extent to which the justices under his leadership collaborated in preparing their judgments, for that question has a contemporary relevance. PERSONAL BACKGROUND It seems fitting that Knox's supervision of the judicial arm should have roughly coincided with Stanley Bruce's prime ministership. For both men were quintessentially patrician in style-aloof, didactic, disdainful and quite antagonistic to the notion that they should be expected to explain or account for their actions. Both men were the product of anglophile, authoritarian antecedents. Each of them studied law at Cambridge University. Each was admitted to the English bar. Brucewho later became a viscount-may have ultimately spent more of his life in England than did Knox, but Knox commenced his association with England at an earlier age. He received his primary education in Australia, but at the age of 14 he enrolled at Harrow and remained in England for a further decade. It is obvious, then, that Adrian Knox, like Stanley Bruce, was surrounded by circumstances of privilege from an early age. His father, who later became Sir Edward Knox, had been appointed manager and chairman of directors of Colonial Sugar Refinery Co Ltd in 1855, eight years before Adrian was born. Sir Edward had also served as an appointed member of the New South Wales Legislative Council prior to Adrian's birth. After qualifying in law in England, Adrian Knox returned to Australia. His material fortune continued to improve. He read at the Sydney bar with his older brother George. When George died two years later, Adrian succeeded to a large part of his older brother's practice. * 1 2 Visiting Professor in Law, Deakin University. Z Cowen, Sir John Latham & other Papers (1965) at 34. See text below at nn 41-46. 122 Federal Law Review Volume 25 By 1903, when the first High Court was established, Knox had a thriving practice. He soon had the opportunity to observe from the perspective of a busy junior-and from 1906 onwards from that of a silk-the performance of Sir Samuel Griffith whom he was to succeed in office. He could also observe the way in which Griffith handled the combative temperament of the man who was to become his colleague and ultimately his successor, Sir Isaac Isaacs. Like other members of the Sydney bar, he would have noticed the "exceedingly fierce brushes" between Griffith and Isaacs, which "delighted the law students if they scandalized the public".3 Knox was particularly well placed to observe Isaacs' temperament when Knox appeared for coal-owners in the marathon hearing of the Coal Vend case in 1911.4 A number of employers, including Knox's clients, had been prosecuted for breaches of the Australian Industries Preservation Act 1906 (Cth). The trial, which lasted 73 days, resulted in the conviction of the shipping and colliery owners. Knox had by that stage formed a close personal friendship with John Brown, the magnate who was later to leave him an enormous share in his residuary estate. He was well regarded by Brown, who agreed that he should be briefed to argue an appeal from the judgment of Isaacs. ]L Campbell KC and Wilfred Blacket, who had represented Brown and other coal-owning interests at the trial, dropped out, and Knox represented all of the coal-owners during the appeal. He persuaded the full bench to reject Isaacs' reasoning and to allow the appeal. The contrast between Isaacs' 270 page judgment and the dismissive four-page treatnlent of it on appeal created a theme that was to produce echoes during the period of the Knox chief justiceship. Knox was in fact more attuned to Griffith's ideology and style than he was to Isaacs' approach. Each of them shared qualities of dogmatism and invincible certitudeS, while Knox displayed the dismissiveness 6 of his predecessor. THE APPOINTMENT OF KNOX There are always difficulties confronting governments when the time comes to replace retiring chief justices. Should the government promote from within the court? If so, should the pattern of promoting the senior puisne justice be followed? Or should the appointing government run the risk of disrupting the cohesion of the court by helping one of its members to leap-frog over the senior puisne? If the senior puisne is unacceptable to the government-because of his or her ideological bent or age or some other personal factor-is it better to look outside the court? If so, should it turn its attention to the private bar, the judiciary or to the ranks of government lawyers? Of the eleven men who have been appointed to Australia's top judicial office, only three-Knox, Latham and Barwick-have come straight from the private bar. The first 3 4 5 6 H V Evatt, William Holman (1979) at 116. The King and Attorney-General of the Commonwealth v Associated Northern Collieries [1911] HCA 73; (1911) 14 CLR 387; 15 CLR 65 (FC); 18 CLR 30 (PC). Griffith was, according to Sir Owen Dixon, "dominant and decisive ... he just felt that he knew; and that what he knew was right.": see (1964) 38 ALl 3 at 6. According to Griffith's associate, Sir Samuel was courteous, but he would "dispose of a fallacious argument" in a few short words; it was "always good policy not to pursue a point after he had expressed the view that it was untenable". See R B Joyce, Samuel Walker Griffith (1984) at 219. 1997 Originalism in Constitutional Interpretation 123 experiment with this approach may have been, as Sir Zelman Cowen has said, disappointing,7 but that fact did not deter the Lyons government from adopting the same expedient during the decade that followed Knox's retirement. In that instance, it appointed Latham, who had been a prominent member of its own team, to replace Gavan Duffy. A similar approach was taken by the Menzies government when it appointed Barwick to replace Dixon. There were special circumstances-as indeed there almost always are-when Griffith was on the verge of retiring. No provision had been made at the time of Griffith's appointment for him to receive a pension. Griffith had clung to office until such provision was made by parliament. Even then, there was apparently some conflict about the question of Griffith's successor, and it became necessary to extend his retirement date twice to enable cabinet to have further discussions. The major problem seems to have revolved around the choice between promoting from within and going outside the court. If a government is to promote from within, the most obvious candidate, as already mentioned, is the senior puisne justice. Most governments are averse to the course of promoting a more junior justice, for that tends to create resentment within the ranks with a consequent impact on the harmony and collegiality of the court. In almost a century of the history of the court, no federal government has adopted such a course. But if the government is to follow the conservative course, it is stuck with the person who happens to be the senior puisne justice at that time. That person may be unacceptable to the government for ideological or other reasons. In the case of Sir Edmund Barton, he was not ideologically unacceptable. But, apart from his well-deserved reputation for indolence, he was seventy years of age. He was also overweight and in poor health. As it turned out, he was to die a few months later. There must have been a sentimental attraction to the notion of promoting Barton. He had been a prominent force in the federation movement and Australia's first prime minister. He had also shown self-abnegation in appoillting Griffith to the first chief justiceship, despite some suggestions from colleagues that he should take the top job himself. So cabinet dithered, and consulted the ageing Griffith about his successor. Griffith was well aware of Barton's deficiencies. He favoured Knox, who was fifteen years younger than Barton. His preference prevailed. The agony of the decision was reflected in Prime Minister Hughes' letter to the Governor-General, in which he revealed that every member of the cabinet had wished to give the job to Barton "as a reward for his long and distinguished service". But, wrote Hughes, they had been forced reluctantly to the view "that the hour called for a man in the prime of his life".8 THE IMPETUS TOWARDS CENTRALISM Alfred Deakin had predicted the ascendancy of the central government. 9 For a decade or two the Griffith court had struggled to stem the tide, which had been helped along by Isaacs. With the States' rights trio-Griffith, Barton and O'Connor-out of the way, the pressure finally became irresistible. When the floodgates burst, Knox, who had 7 8 9 Z Cowen, above n 1. W M Hughes to R M Ferguson, 16 Oct 1919 Novar papers, National Library, 696/2824. A Deakin in J A La Nauze (ed), Federated Australia (1968) at 97. 124 Federal Law Review Volume 25 been in charge for only six months, decided to go with the flow. He left it to Gavan Duffy to attempt to resist it. The story of the overruling of the early doctrines in the Engineers' caselO has been told by Menzies, who, as a 25 year old, had been briefed to appear on behalf of the trade union. Menzies began his argument by attempting to distinguish some of the earlier authorities, rather than engaging in a full frontal attack. The employers in the instant case, he argued, had been involved in trading functions, not governmental activities. When Sir Hayden Starke, who had replaced Barton, reacted with characteristic bluntness-"This argument is a lot of nonsense!"-young Menzies, in what he later realised to be an inspired moment, replied, "Sir, I quite agree". "Well", intervened Chief Justice Knox, never the most genial of interrogators, "why are you putting an argument which you admit is nonsense?" "Because", said the young Menzies, "I am compelled by the earlier decisions of this Court. If your Honours will permit me to question all or any of these earlier decisions, I will undertake to advance a sensible argument."ll The young Menzies (as he described himself) waited for the heavens to fall. Instead, the Chief Justice said, "The Court will retire for a few minutes." And when they came back, he said, "This case will be adjourned for argument at Sydney. Each government will be notified so that it may apply to intervene. Counsel will be at liberty to challenge any earlier decision of this Court!"12 The decision in the Engineers' case, in which the earlier cases were overruled, was based on two majority judgments. The principal one was signed by the new Chief Justice, as well as by Isaacs, Rich and Starke. But it was delivered by Isaacs, and it bore "the clear imprint of Isaacs' style".l3 There can be little doubt that Knox played no substantial part in its authorship. If he had written it, it would have been much shorter and more austere. (Higgins wrote a separate concurring judgment.) One gains the impression, then, that Knox had determined, after years of observation of the Griffith-Isaacs rivalry, that confrontation was best avoided. He must have given a lot of thought to the question of how to handle the abrasive Isaacs. He may have been aware of the views of Gavan Duffy, with whom he was later to develop a close working relationship. In December 1919, two months after Knox had become Chief Justice, Gavan Duffy wrote to his former Chief Justice about the new Chief. "I need not tell you", he said to Griffith, "tllat he [Knox] has come to command a set of feudal barons, not an army staff".l4 Undoubtedly Knox's approach was more effective than Griffith's, and Knox and Isaacs worked together "without serious friction".l5 One should not, however, conclude that they were bosom companions. Their collaboration in the Engineers' case represented a pragmatic accommodation. They were disparate personalities "whose only point of connection was their common membership of the court".l6 As the decade progressed, Knox became more and more aligned with the views of Gavan Duffy, the last of the States' righters, and the man who had dissented in the Engineers' case. 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Amalgamated Society of Engineers v Adelaide Steamship Co Ltd [1920] HCA 54; (1920) 28 CLR 129. R G Menzies, Central Power in the Australian Commonwealth (1967) at 38-39. Ibid at 39. Z Cowen, Isaac Isaacs (1967) at 160. F Gavan Duffy to 5 W Griffith, 23 Dec 1919 quoted in R B Joyce, above n 6 at 357. Z Cowen, above n 13 at 121. Ibid. 1997 Originalism in Constitutional Interpretation 125 There were frequent occasions when Knox would deliver a perfunctory judgment, only to be followed by a long, rhetorical judgment of Isaacs, who would assert propositions which Knox had rejected as untenable. In this there were echoes of the Griffith court, but the conflict between the new Chief and Isaacs was confined to this civilized, formal variety. It never seems to have manifested itself in outright public rudeness. KNOX'S STYLE-EX CATHEDRA PRONOUNCEMENTS Knox's judicial behaviour conformed to his patrician image. He was often cavalier, laconic, dismissive and curt. In the Federal Roads case,17 the first major case concerning the ambit of the grants power, Menzies, by then a highly successful 31 year old, led Wilfred Fullagar, who was two years older, for the State of Victoria. They contended that the scheme for funding roadworks was unconstitutional. They were supported in their argument by Hannan for South Australia and Brissenden KC (with him McTague) for New South Wales. They were opposed by the venerable-and ponderous18-Sir Edward Mitchell KC (with him Drake-Brockman) for the Commonwealth. Since the ambit of the grants power had not previously been explored, one would have assumed that the High Court would have welcomed extensive bipartisan debate. But if Menzies expected to be treated as seriously as he had been in the Engineers' case, he must have been disappointed. Following the arguments for three of the States, Sir Edward Mitchell managed to utter one sentence before he was stopped by the court. The authorised report attributes to Sir Adrian Knox the statement, "The Court will put its reasons into writing."19 There then follows the "written" judgment. The Court is of the opinion that the Federal Aid Roads Act No 46 of 1926 is a valid enactment. It is plainly warranted by the provisions of sec 96 of the Constitution, and not affected by those of sec 99 or any otheri)rovisions of the Constitution, so that exposition is unnecessary. The action is dismissed. The Court was almost as perfunctory in R v Archdall and Roskruge; ex parte Corrigan and Brown. 21 An earlier High Court had provided a glimpse of a broad approach to s 80 of the Constitution, an approach which, as the Court put it, laid down "as a fundamental law of the Commonwealth"22 that trials of federal offences should be by jury. But Knox CJ participated in a joint judgment which dismissed this aspect of the argument in one sentence. The suggestion that the Parliament, by reason of section 80 of the Constitution, could not validly make the offence punishable summarily has no foundation and its rejection needs no exposition. 23 It is arguable that these cavalier and dismissive judgments had an unfortunate effect in prematurely rigidifying the development of the law concerning the grants power and 17 18 Victoria v Commonwealth [1926] HCA 48; (1926) 38 CLR 399. See R G Menzies, The Measure of the Years (1970) at 243; cf P A Jacobs, A Lawyer Tells (1949) at 151. [1926] HCA 48; (1926) 38 CLR 399 at 406. Ibid. [1928] HCA 18; (1928) 41 CLR 128. R v Snaw [1915] HCA 90; (1915) 20 CLR 315 at 323 per Griffith CJ. [1928] HCA 18; (1928) 41 CLR 128 at 136. 19 20 21 22 23 126 Federal Law RevieuJ Volume 25 trial by jury. One gets the clear impression from reading his judgments in two leading cases2't that Sir Owen Dixon took that view about the contributions of Knox, of whom he was no admirer,25 in the Federal Roads and Archdall cases. In relation to the grants power, Sir Owen had not had the opportunity to express his views in the First Uniform Tax case. 26 He had been serving in Washington as Australian Minister at the time. But in 194727 he had accepted one of the steps in the States' arguments in the Uniform Tax cases-that the Commonwealth Parliament could not legislate to restrict or control the States in the exercise of their taxing powers. When he got his first opportunity to deal with the tax scheme in the Second Uniform Tax case,28 he expressed the view that the States' contention might have been supportable if the question of the reach and limits of the grants power "came before us for the first time for interpretation".29 "But", Sir Owen added, lithe course of judicial decision has put such limited interpretation of s 96 out of the question."30 That "course of judicial decision" included, of course,-indeed commenced with-the Federal Roads case, which he had analysed earlier in his judgment. Likewise, Dixon plainllJ regarded the precipitate and dismissive judgments in the Archdall case as erroneous. 1 ALLIANCES AND JOINT JUDGMENTS The conclusions about the Knox court to this point may seem fairly negative. But a positive side does emerge. That is, that the incidence of joint judgments appears to have been fairly high during the Knox stewardship. Of course, one can pay too high a price for the accommodation of disparate perspectives and simplicity in the law. Nevertheless the more recent trend towards a diffuse approach by the High Court has attracted a good deal of criticism. 32 A large number of seminal cases have comprised four-three majorities, in which all four of the majority justices have gone off on different tangents. 33 This makes it very difficult for subsequent courts and observers to extract the relevant principle. It is responsible for endless argument about what really has been decided. An examination of the reports during the Knox regime is revealing. It shows that his approach was conducive to simplicity, although at times it produced merely simplistic solutions. One striking feature is the volume of reported cases. He is recorded as giving judgment in just under 500 cases-an average of more than one per 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 Victoria v Commonwealth [1957] HCA 54; (1957) 99 CLR 575 (Second Uniform Tax Case); R v Federal Court of Bankruptcy; ex parte Lowenstein [1938] HCA 10; (1938) 59 CLR 556. See 0 Dixon, Jesting Pilate (1965) at 258. South Australia v Commonwealth [1942] HCA 14; (1942) 65 CLR 373. Melbourne Corporation v Commonwealth [1947] HCA 26; (1947) 74 CLR 31. Victoria v Commonwealth [1957] HCA 54; (1957) 99 CLR 575. Ibid at 609. Ibid. R v Federal Court of Bankruptcy; ex parte Lowenstein [1938] HCA 10; (1938) 59 CLR 556 at 581-583. Cf the remarks of Attorney-General Daryl Williams, QC at the swearing in of Chief Justice Gleeson: Weekend Australian 23-24 May 1998 at 4. For example, Koowarta v Bjelke-Petersen [1982] HCA 27; (1982) 153 CLR 168; Commonwealth v Tasmania [1983] HCA 21; (1983) 158 CLR 1; University ofWollongong v Metwally [1984] HCA 74; (1984) 158 CLR 447; Dennis Hotels Pty Ltd v Victoria [1960] HCA 10; (1960) 104 CLR 529; Western Australia v Commonwealth [1975] HCA 46; (1975) 134 CLR 201. 1997 Originalism in Constitutional Interpretation 127 week if one excludes vacations. 34 The constitutional cases represent slightly less than 10 per cent of the total. Of the total of private and public law cases, the Chief Justice dissented in slightly more than six per cent of the cases. So he was in the majority in almost 94 per cent of the cases. Furthermore, he participated in an astonishing 260 joint judgments in which he was a member of the majority-approximately 53 per cent of the total of the private and public law cases heard by the full bench. Knox was frequently partnered by Gavan Duffy in these majori~ joint judgments (180 cases or almost 37 per cent of the total number of such cases).3 The next in line was Starke, with whom he wrote a joint majority judgment in approximately 30 per cent of the cases which he heard. He participated in a joint majority judgment with both Gavan Duffy and Starke in approximately 23 per cent of the cases. Sir Adrian was joined by Rich in a joint majority judgment in slightly less than 20 per cent of the cases, by each of Powers and Isaacs in approximately 5 per cent of the cases, and by that staunch individualist, Higgins, on two occasions. During the short period in which his tenure coincided with that of Dixon, they participated in joint majority judgments in approximately a third of their cases. As Sir Zelman Cowen has observed, in the course of the decade Knox tended increasingly to align himself with Gavan Duffy in cases involving the industrial arbitration fower. This placed him more and more in opposition to Isaacs' centralism. 3 THE IRVINE DOCTRINE Another favourable attribute of Knox's stewardship was that he resisted government pressure for justices to conduct Royal Commissions. On the very day after he was appointed to the High Court, Knox was asked by Prime Minister Hughes to nominate a justice to conduct a Royal Commission. He refused, despite the precedent set by his predecessor, Griffith, in agreeing in wartime to conduct an inquiry and in allowing Rich to conduct another. Thus Knox anticipated the Irvine Memorandum, which in 1923 established a similar policy for the Supreme Court of Victoria: The duty of His Majesty's Judges is to hear and determine issues of fact and law arising between the king and a subject, or between subject and subject, presented in a form enabling judgment to be passed upon them and when passed to be enforced by process of law. There begin and end the functions of the Judiciary. It is mainly due to the fact that, in modern times at least, the judges in all British communities have, except in rare 34 35 36 Even more striking, perhaps, is the figure for the Griffith court: 950 reported cases, or an average of 68 a year: see RB Joyce, above n 6 at 357. Both Griffith and Knox had significant periods of absence during the last years of their tenure. He also participated in a number of dissents with Gavan Duffy eg, Bunvood Cinema Ltd v Australian Theatrical and Amusement Employees Association [1925] HCA 7; (1925) 35 CLR 528; Australian Insurance Staffs' Federation v Accident Undenvriters' Association [1923] HCA 61; (1923) 33 CLR 517. These cases reveal a resistance by the dissentients to the expansion of the arbitration power. See also Federal Commissioner of Taxation v Munro [1926] HCA 58; (1926) 38 CLR 153. Z Cowen, above n 13 at 172-176. 128 Federal Law Review Volume 25 cases, confined themselves to this function, that they have attained and still retain the confidence of the people.37 In the same year as the Irvine memorandum, Knox again refused to furnish a justice for service as a Royal Commissioner. On a further occasion, in 1928, Federal AttorneyGeneral Latham asked Knox to make a High Court justice available to preside at an inquiry "as to the means whereby a member had been induced to retire from the House of Representatives apparently in favour of another person". When Knox again refused, quoting the Irvine Memorandum, Latham wrote a long letter to Knox seeking to justify his request. Knox remained unmoved. 38 In 1955, Sir Owen Dixon cast Iiqht on Sir Adrian's persistent refusal in this area. Following a paper on the subject,3 Sir Owen was invited to provide his comments. After observing that the High Court had almost invariably maintained the position that its judges ought not to act as Royal Commissioners, he said that he had in his possession "a communication written by Sir Adrian Knox on the subject which has never been made public". Dixon went on to say: In the 1920s the position was firmly reasserted, and it has been maintained. It has not been maintained without a little difficulty. Governments of various periods have requested judges of the High Court to serve as Royal Commissioners. But nevertheless throughout the history of the court the judges have taken the position that they ought not to do so. I have been a judge of the High Court a very long time, and during that period there have been a number of requests made. Looking back in retrospect I feel that on every occasion we were right. Events as they have gone on, have shown that embarrassments would have occurred at a later date if a judge had participated in the Royal Commission.40 THE MANNER OF HIS DEPARTURE It could not be said of Sir Adrian Knox, as it was said of Cawdor,41 that nothing in his life-or in his judicial career-"became him like the leaving it". In fact his retirement was mired in bitter controversy. It is necessary to recall that public feelings ran high as the Great Depression worsened and unemployment increased. The general public was unaware that Knox was a close friend of the multi-millionaire and coal-magnate, John Brown, for whom, as we have seen, Knox acted in substantial litigation in the decade prior to his appointment. During the 1920s, while Knox was presiding over the High Court, Brown had become a hated figure, particularly in the coal mining areas of northern New South Wales. In February 1929, the Northern Colliery Owners' Association gave employees fourteen days' notice to accept a reduction in the hewing rate, on pain of dismissal. The employees refused, and on 1 March 1929, 12,000 miners lost their jobs. The lockout 37 38 39 40 41 Vic PD 1923-1924 Vol 164 at 523. Following allegations of bribery and misconduct in the carrying out of public works at Warrnambool, the Victorian Attorney-General had asked Chief Justice Irvine to provide a justice of his court as a Royal Commissioner. N Rosenthal, Sir Charles Lowe (1968) at 92-94. J D Holmes, "Royal Commissions" (1955) 29 ALJ 253, a paper given at the 9th Legal Convention of the Law Council of Australia. Ibid at 272. Macbeth Act I, Scene IV, 8. 1997 Originalism in Constitutional Interpretation 129 lasted fifteen months. The miners experienced a brief period of grim satisfaction when the conservative Attorney-General Latham announced that John Brown would be prosecuted for breaking the industrial award. It seemed only fair that, if unions were to be prosecuted for breaches of the award, so should the employers. Their satisfaction was short-lived. A fortnight later, Cabinet withdrew the prosecution. So the miners and the public at large were astonished to learn, only a year later, and while the lockout was still in force, that John Brown had died, leaving the principal part of his considerable fortune to the Chief Justice, whose court had decided cases in which the magnate had been involved. By his will, Brown left Knox an immediate legacy of £10,000, the Darbalara estate-valued at £150,00()42-together with all fittings and bloodstock ia large stable of valuable racehorses) and an equal half share in the residuary estate. 3 Knox concluded that his new situation, which involved him taking a direct interest in the business of J & A Brown, was incompatible with him remaining on the court. 44 So he felt obliged to retire. His decision to do so is understandable, at least in retrospect. Knox loved horseracing. He had owned a number of horses, including Vavasour, which won the Sydney Cup in 1910. He had been obliged to sever a number of his horseracing connections, including the chairmanship of the Australian Jockey Club, on his appointment to the High Court. And now, at the age of 66, he was being handed the opportunity to pursue his great love in affluent surroundings rather than sitting in court each day grappling with esoteric constitutional and legal problemswhich he never did fancy very much anyway.45 But public perceptions were not so charitable. Knox was now associated with an industrial ogre, popularly considered to have been responsible for the suffering of thousands of miners and their families. On 10 April 1930, the Labor member for Martin, JC Eldridge, expressed the views of many mining families when he spoke in the House of Representatives. He mentioned the great industrial crisis in the northern coalfields of New South Wales, and the High Court's involvement in the ensuing litigation. He suggested that the former Chief Justice had "exposed his undoubted partiality for the mine-owning interests", and had "made a dramatic exit from office". When Latham interjected "Shame!", Eldridge responded: The shame is that such a man dramatically resigned his high post to become a benefiCiary to the tune of a million pounds under the will of one of the chief coal magnates, whose law-breaking tactics plunged thousands of men, women and children into a long period of distress, poverty, destitution, and suffering...46 42 43 44 45 46 Age 5 April 1930 at 23. Sydney Morning Herald 4 April 1930. See his letter to Isaacs of 23 March 1930, reproduced in Z Cowen, above n 13 at 121-122. 0 Dixon, above n 25. Cth ParI Deb 1930, Vol 123 at 1145. A perusal of a number of volumes of the Commonwealth Law Reports preceding Knox's retirement suggests that Knox did not in fact sit on any of the cases in which John Brown's interests were involved, despite the suggestion to the contrary in J Robertson, ]H Scullin (1974) at 224. The footnote references to the Sydney Morning Herald and the Maitland Mercury do not bear out Robertson's assertion. Knox seems to have been careful to avoid sitting in such cases as Caledonian Collieries Ltd v Australian Coal and Shale Employees' Federation (No 1) [1930] HCA 1; (1930) 42 CLR 527.