The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, JANUARY 14.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 3, Issue 260, 14 January 1879, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, JANUARY 14.

The second of the -Ministerial postSessional utterances was made a few days ago in Dtinedin.. The Hon. R. Stout, Attorney-General, addressed hisf constituents on Friday last in the Queen's Theatre, Dunedin. There is a marked difference, not to say contrast, between the address of the honorable gentleman and that of his chief.. By this we do not mean to imply that any differences of opinion between the two on matters of pblicy are apparent, but the manner and tone of the two speeches is widely different. The rhetorical hyperbole in which Sir George Grey revels is conspicuous by its absence from the utterances of his Attorney-General. We hear nothing about ."posterity" find the "human race ;'' hisjiearers are not treated like children who must be nourished on spoon, food and lollies, but as intelligent men and women, to whom a clear, incisive logical statement will be welcome, whether they agree or disagree with the " ...•>■ Mr Stout commences by apologising for the absence of his colleague, Mr Macandrew, and defending the Government from the charge of undue partiality to Otago. In this connection, he goes at length into the history of the Tapanuj Railway and the Otago University Bill. Into this part of his speech, which is chiefly of local interest, we do not intend to follow him. Mr Stout went on to say— " He wonld now come to matters affecting the whole Colony. They were told by newspaper writers, speakers, and others who had nothing else to say against the Government, that the late session had been a barren one, but it had only been barren to the Opposition. Let them look at the social legislation first, which, in his opinion, was of the utmost importance to the advancement of a people. (Applause.) They passed several Bills that would confer a great benefit on them socially ; in fact, some people might consider them revolutionary."

We are not surprised to find Mr Stout calling attentiou to " social" legislation first. An ardent social reformer, trammelled by no prejudices of habit or caste, we feel convinced that to his presence in the Cabinet is the country indebted for for most of the measures he here-goes on" to enumerate. These are the •TradesUnion Act,' the Amending Friendly Societies: Act; ah important alteration in the Juries Act, providing-"that a person to be tried by a special jury should not know the names of his jurors till he steps into Court, a Licensing Act dealing with the Natives, several measures of Law Reform, and the Administration Act. .

We quite agree with Mr Stout that he has made out his case, showing that the late Session was by no means a barren one. The same opinion has already been expressed in these columns. The Native Licensing Act referred to gives the Natives the power to say whether they will consent to be decimated by strong drink being sold in certain districts or not. The Administration Act is a most important one. By it primogeniture is abolished, land is divided equally like other property, and is made liable for the debts of the deceased. Thus a monstrous and indefensible privilege is swept away. That a man could succeed to a valuable landed estate, and quietly ignore the debts owing by its deceased owner was an injustice that certainly required improving off the face of the earth.

In speaking on what he called " political legislation," Mr Stout naturally dwelt on the Land Tax Bill as a measure of great importance. He said the Govemment looked upon land as different from every other kind of property. All civilized countries, he said, admitted this view of the case as correct.

With regard to the loss of the Electoral Bill, the hon. gentleman corrected an erroneous impression which has been industriously circulated, that the Council merely wished to restore the Bill to the form in which it had been introduced by the Government at first. He showed that this was not the case, and said— "The Government asked that things might even be left as they were, but this was not agreed to, and he determined to have all the objections that were taken to the Bill placed on record."

As to the policy of the future, the speaker .emitted no uncertain sound. Triennial Parliaments, manhood suffrage, electoral districts based on population, were among the measures which he promised to use his influence to secure. Besides this the laws should be framed so as to avoid some of the social evils of the old country. The aggregation of Inrga landed estates must be prevented, and means given to the bona jit le settler to acquire land.. Mr Stout wound up what is described as one of the best speeches he ever made in Dunedin as follows :—

'•He had sketched out to them a few liberal measures, and he might tell them that he went into politics with a desire to see some of his hobbies carrid out. So long as he reinaied in politics he should speak out the opinion he held and believed in, and he could assure them that nothing should prevent him trying to carry these opinions into effect. If they thought that the present Government were working hard for the advancement of the good of the Colony, be -asked them to give it their support."

We are not surprised to learn that Mr Stout was frequently applauded, and we hope and believe that, as long as the present Government works in the direction indicated by the Attorney-General, it will receive the support of the mass of the people throughout ttis£ c010ny.,., _•• ,- > \: :-. . . - "~ ' — : — y — %•' / • . The new regulations the Pee Act 1875)" which tiba £on\.tbe Ist inst.,. are Kl&jy ,to. lead to considerable' ineonvenwsice fry many localities. The regulations require that " all fees, fines, and penalties . . . . payable under any Acts 'mentioned or,referred florin* tiie .'Schedule hereto shall be Collected by Stamp'under the said Act." The stamps to be used are known as "Law Court Stamps," and no others may. be,used.. Now,, in some places where Resident Magistrate's Courts are held,, there are no Depositaries from whom such stamps may be procured. _n others a considerable distance intervenes between] the Court-house and the Post-ojfice which is 'usually, in country places, the only place where: they are sold. But" the climax has been reached in a "drunk" was fined ten ;shil_ngsj He had.some money on him at the time of his arrest, which the police duly restored to him. Oat of , this the prisoner tendered his fine. The Clerk of the Bench refused to take it except in- : sta'mps. Now, if the Clerk is right in his interpretation of the regulations, we are landed in a very pretty, quandary. A person charged with drunkenness or any criminal offence is a prisoner from the time he is arraigned till his fine is paid. Evidently, therefore, he cannot go running about looking for stamps. The police are expressly forbidden by their instructions to receive money for payment of fines, so their services cannot be enlisted. The man must therefore either remain in custody, or be released, trusting to his honor to procure the necessary stamps and return. But we doubt if the police would be justified in detaining in custody a prisoner who, having been fined, had tendered the amount of his fine in lawful money. In the absence of the Acts referred to in the regulations, we cannot say positively whether the state of confusion which is likely to arise under this reading of them is due to the., regulations themselves or to misinterpretation of them by the Clerk of the Bench. The " Acts mentioned and referred to in the schedule hereto" are—"The Resident Magistrates Acts 1867, 1868, 1872," " The Resident Magistrates Evidence Act, 1870," "The Imprisonment for : Debt Abolition Act, 1874," "The Jus- , tices of the Peace Act, 1866," and «• The . Licensing Act 1873 Amendment Act, 1874." If |Lnes for drunkenness are inflicted under, either of the above-men-tioned Acta, then the Clerk is evidently right in his position, whatever conse- ; quences may ensue. But if it is under the Police Ordinance that the offenders :■ are dealt with, he is apparently wrong. In any case, we can foresee serious difficulties in ihe way of collecting fines for criminal offences by means of stamps. If the. present decision is right, part of the necessary equipment for any one going " on the spree " will be a supply of stamps, varying from 10s to 40s, and if he contemplates assault and battery, he had better provide himself with j£s worth at once, in case of accidents, for which quantity, by-the-bye, he is entitled to a discount of two and a half per cent. It will be seen by a telegram published elsewhere (received since the aboie was written), that the above-men-tioned difficulty is felt in a still greater degree in the larger towns. In Wellington the system, it is stated, "is being reduced to an absurdity." It would seem that the Clerk to the local Bench is not alone in his interpretation of the regulations, and it is possible that they may have to be altered, for it will ' never do to continue working out a re- I reduction to the absurd. At the same time we are by no means clear that the present reading of the regulations is the correct one, in spite of the apparently high authority in its favor.