A bequest to a corporation is not void for illegality if its exuberant rhetoric is not treated as criminal by the authorities of its jurisdiction of incorporation, and any such foreign illegality must be proven by evidence of the foreign law.

Viscount Haldane. -

In this case the learned Chief Justice of British Honduras who tried it had a difficult task, arising out of somewhat obscure materials. But their Lordships think that his judgment ought not to stand.

Appellant 1 is a corporation that is a beneficiary under the will, dated 15th February 1924, of one I. E. Morter, a planter at Belize in British Honduras, who died on 7th April in the same year. Appellant 2 represent other societies, also interested as beneficiaries, who were made defendants (along with appellant 1). The respondent, as plaintiff, commenced an action against the executors and trustees of the will to set it aside. She was the widow of the testator and claimed administration on the ground of intestacy, and, alternatively, a declaration that certain of the devises and bequests in it were void. The executors and trustees have not appeared in this appeal.

The testator, by his will, devised and bequeathed the residue of his real and personal estate to the Parent Body of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, for the African Redemption Fund. It is not in dispute that if this be a valid gift appellant 1 may be taken as representing the Parent Body of the Universal Negro Improvement Association named in the will, a conclusion which is in accordance with the finding of the learned Judge who tried the case. The point was taken for the respondent that the description of this beneficiary was so vague as to make the gift void for uncertainty. Their Lordships think that Chief Justice Sisnett was right in holding on this point that if the gift was a valid one the beneficiary had been identified as representing appellant 1, and that there is a direct gift to it for the Redemption Fund without the constitution of a formal trust. The real question of difficulty is whether the objects of the appellant association were such as to render the gift to it in the will void for illegality.

In considering this question it is necessary to look at the constitution of appellant 1. This was a body incorporated in the State of New York on 17th June 1918. The purposes expressed in the certificate of incorporation were to promote and practise the principles of benevolence, and for the protection and social intercourse of its members, and for their mental and physical culture and development, and to extend a friendly and constructive hand to the negroes of the United States. So far the purposes were prima, facie free from illegality. The territory in which its operations were to be principally conducted was that of United States territories and possessions. The principal office was to be it an address in the City of New York.

On 26th July 1918 there was also incorporated under the Business Corporation Law of the State of New York a stock corporation for purely business purposes with its principal office also in the City of New York. It was called the African Communities League, and the stockholders were in the main the same persons as those already incorporated as the Universal Negro Improvement Association, There is nothing in the declared purposes of either of these bodies that is contrary to British law. A branch of the association and of the league was, on 15th March 1920, formed in British Honduras.

There was a printed book which was put in evidence. It is called the "Constitution and Book of Laws" made for the government of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, Inc., and African Communities League, Inc., of the World, and it has been repeatedly re-issued since 1918. It defines these bodies as founded by persons desiring to work for the general uplift of the Negro peoples of the world. There was also a voluntary society called the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League, which the learned Chief Justice found to be the body intended by the testator under the description of the Parent Body of the Universal Negro Improvement Association. This body consisted of much the same persons as thos