Day 158 - 19 Jul 95 - Page 44


     
     1        rhetorical.  What bearing does this plea in paragraph 1
     2        truly have on the issues in this case which your Lordship
     3        has to decide?  Question 2, which is another way of
     4        putting, perhaps, the same as question 1: how far, in
     5        reality, even if it were proved, would it be capable of
     6        sustaining any relevant case in respect of the leaflet
     7        complained of in this case?
     8
     9        My Lord, for that purpose, it might be helpful if
    10        your Lordship had another look at the third page of the
    11        leaflet.  I am not going to stop where Mr. Morris stopped.
    12        I am going to start, if I may, under the box in the first
    13        column on the third page and invite your Lordship to look
    14        at the whole of it.
    15
    16        My Lord, in a sense, though the question of whether a plea
    17        is a good or a bad plea is not a matter of discretion but a
    18        matter of law, one of the things that your Lordship might
    19        be considering at this stage of the case is how far it
    20        would be a proper course in the administration of justice
    21        to allow a plea which, at best, was only marginally
    22        relevant to be put on the record and so give rise, if it
    23        stayed there, to a vast amount of work, discovery and
    24        witness evidence.
    25
    26        My Lord, the column starts: "Why is it wrong for McDonald's
    27        to destroy rain forests?"  There is no equivocation about
    28        what it is that McDonald's are said to be destroying; it is
    29        the rain forest.  No fudging, no humbug about tropical
    30        forests.  These are rain forests. "Around the Equator there
    31        is a lush green belt of incredibly beautiful tropical
    32        forest untouched by human hand", and so on.  I am not going
    33        to read any of the rest of that.
    34
    35        "Pet food and environment/index.html">litter.  McDonald's and Burger King are two
    36        of the many US corporations using lethal poisons" -- not
    37        peasants driven indirectly on to the rain forest land by
    38        beef production for a few restaurants in Brazil -- "lethal
    39        poisons to destroy vast areas of Central American
    40        rain forest to create grazing pastures for cattle to be
    41        sent back to the States as burgers and pet food and to
    42        provide fast-food packaging materials"; and then the
    43        parenthesis about the destruction of 800 square miles
    44        forest just to keep McDonald's supplied with paper for one
    45        year.
    46
    47        "Colonial invasion.  Not only are McDonald's and many other
    48        corporations contributing to a major ecological
    49        catastrophe, they are forcing the tribal peoples in the
    50        rain forests off their ancestral territories where they had 
    51        lived peacefully without damaging their environment for 
    52        thousands of years.  This is a typical example of the 
    53        arrogance and viciousness of multinational companies in
    54        their endless search for more and more profit.  It is no
    55        exaggeration to say that when you bite into a Big Mac you
    56        are helping the McDonald's empire to wreck this planet."
    57
    58        My Lord, as I have had occasion to say times without number
    59        in this case -- not your Lordship's benefit, I know, but in
    60        the vain hope that the Defendants may in due course take it

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