Justice and Mercy.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19139, 24 October 1927, Page 8

Justice and Mercy.

In his farewell speech last week to the Auckland Bar Mr Justice Stringer indicated that he was not only not disturbed by the fact that he had occasionally been charged with excessive leniency, but rather rejoiced in it. In the case of those charged with crimes of violence it would, he said, be found that the charge had no foundation, but he had been lenient "in regard to a "certain class of case," and had, he was convinced, been right. He had been right first of all because leniency had paid: morally, because in the administration of the Probation Act " something like 7000 young people [in "all] have been saved from the ex"periences and contaminating in- |" fluences of gaol life," and eco- ! nomically, because " something like I " £35,000 has been restored by proba- ! '•' Honors to the persons defrauded," while the State has been saved half a million pounds in prison expenses. But his Honour had been lenient for another reason, which few Judges would have dared to give so plainly half a century ago. He had been merciful because "in the strict way "of justice none of us would win "salvation"; because "we all " for mercy " and should " render it to '•others"; because "in a very great "number of cases offenders are more " sinned against than sinning." To get as bold a plea for mercy as that in New Zealand we have to go back to Sir John Denniston, who closed a memorable address on Punishment—it is happily still available in the bookshops for a few pence —with the remark that until the millennium has arrived "our proper attitude to the " criminal is that laid down by Him " Whom all of us, whatever our creed, "look upon as a great Teacher: 'He

"' that is without sin let him first cast "'a stone.'" And to realise what it means we have only to go back a little further to find it laid down in a standard history of Criminal Law that "criminals should be hated," that the punishments inflicted on them should " give expression to that hatred," and "justify or gratify the public desire "for vengeance." "We no longer believe in vengeance as a motive or end in punishment, and if we did we should hardly express our belief so brutally, but it is one thing to have ceased to hate the unfortunate, and another thing altogether—a remarkable

thing of which society is hardly yet aware —that a Judge should say after long experience, and with deep conviction, that ordinary crime is best treated as an intelligent father treats his erring children.