THE LAW OF CONFISCATION

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 146, 25 August 1941, Page 4

THE LAW OF CONFISCATION

THAT the law of confiscation was a survival of the dark ages, and its deletion from the Act embodying it was only overdue is the expressed opinion of many sportsmen throughout the Bay of Plenty. In the past one or two efforts have been made to effect its abolition, but it reuires the united voice of all sportsmen to actually achieve anything. Endorsement of these views comes from the North Canterbury Acclimatisation Society, members of which view with equal repugnance the enforcement of a law which besides heavily fining a sportsman for illicit shooting or fishing, permits the right to depirve him of his firearm or tackle. All right-thinking sportsmen., we feel, will agree that the nineteenth century is scarcely an age which will countenance such mediaeval procedure, and will lend

support towards securing its deletion from the regulations. Apart from its utter unfairness, the'stigma of having come under the law of confiscation is most keenly felt by an otherwise straight and honest citizen. The prosecution of three men in a neighbouring town serves well to illustrate the ridiculous extremes to which the law can go in its interpretation of "just and equitable" punishment. All the men were fined, and their arms confiscated by the law. One man's firearm was valued at £5, the second at £15. and the third at £55. Thus it will be seen that the latter suffered an enormous penalty which was out of all proportion to that imposed upon the other two —yet it is the law! Protected game must be safeguarded, and Acclimatisation Societies are keenest in the enforcement of this law, but why should not offenders be held punishable by a rising scale of fines such as governs all other civil defaulters. Because a man—particularly if he be a natural hunter—makes perhaps one. unfortunate slip, should he be branded, a criminal? In all ether respects he may be a respectable member of society. We have pas'sed through and left far behind us the age when an unfortunate could be imprisoned or deported for poaching. We live in an age of restoration, not confiscation. We have the example of the restoration of the hunting rights to the Maoris on land and lake. The term lis obnoxious to colonial ears, and in our opinion, its retention is but a vicsous reminder of feudalism which will serve only to create bad blood in more enlightened times. The fact that the actual power of confiscation rests with the Minister of Internal Affairs, who considers it, does not lend the action any truer sense of justice or fair play. Upon close scrutiny the confiscation clause that has crept into our penal system appeaxs to modern thought as being odious in the extreme, and should be done away with.