JUDGMENT>

Taylor J:>

[1] This case is somewhat anomalous.

[2] The plaintiff is a printer and stationer and the defendant is the executor of one Lee Tuck Onn, a man of considerable independent means who developed leprosy and entered the Leper Settlement at Sungei Buloh for treatment sometime before the Japanese invasion. At first Lee was able to receive substantial sums from the income of his property but as the enemy occupation dragged on these remittances dried up. Sometime about the end of 1944 Lee became connected with the Anti-Japanese Resistance Movement and lived in the jungle near Sungei Buloh but he continued to come into the Settlement, unostentatiously, to receive medical treatment. He was on friendly terms with Dr. Che Lah, who was at that period the Superintendent of the Settlement and who was also a friend of the plaintiff.

[3] Sometime about May 1945 Lee was in pressing need of funds and asked Dr. Che Lah to raise a loan for him, to be repaid, after Liberation, in British or Allied currency.

[4] At that time the local population were all living more or less under the shadow of the Japanese Gestapo and had only irregular and surreptitious access to world news but they knew that the war was developing favourably to the Allies and they foresaw Liberation within a year or less though they could not possibly foresee whether Malaya would be relieved by British forces or by a Joint Allied force. Still less could they foresee what the new financial arrangements would be. There might well be a new joint Allied Currency if several of the enemyoccupied countries were recovered simultaneously or the Indian Rupee might be introduced in order to provide currency for immediate needs. Anything might happen. Only one thing in this field was certain. The Japanese "printing press" currency was depreciating more and more rapidly, and when the country was liberated it would become valueless for all practical purposes, whether it were legally proscribed or not. It was in these circumstances that Dr. Che Lah, acting in a friendly way as agent for both parties, asked the plaintiff to make an advance to Lee. The plaintiff handed to the Doctor $20,000 in Japanese notes and a blank printed form of IOU The doctor handed these to Lee who signed the IOU for $20,000. He also wrote on the face of the document the words:

[5] In British or Allied Currency" and signed them separately.

[6] Two or three weeks later a loan of $30,000 was made in the same way, except that on this occasion the plaintiff met Lee himself in the Leper Settlement. The IOU was in exactly the same form.

[7] Both IOUs were antedated to 1944. This was done by Lee because he thought there might be additional danger to the plaintiff if by mischance the IOU fell into the hands of the Japanese and they thus became aware that the plaintiff had had dealings with him after the date when he, Lee, had withdrawn to the jungle. From the Japanese point of view Lee was the equivalent of a bandit supply agent in the present emergency and he was "wanted". This precaution was almost useless because if the Japanese had even suspected the plaintiff of being associated with Lee they would have visited him with their displeasure and the mere date would have been of no avail. In any event the antedating of the first IOU was by Lee on his own initiative, not on any suggestion by the plaintiff, and it has no real significance, the true date being established, though not exactly, by the independent evidence of the doctor.

[8] Malaya was liberated in August 1945 and, as things then turned out, the Malayan dollar was reestablished on the pre-war basis, equivalent to 2s. 4d. sterling. It was impossible for Lee to obtain any substantial funds until his estates had been rehabilitated and in April 1946 he died. On 17 July 1946 the plaintiff wrote to the executors claiming $50,000 but nothing was done for three years, presumably because of the Moratorium. The executors then denied liability and this action was start