The Dominion. MONDAY, MAY 13, 1912. A NOTABLE DECISION.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1438, 13 May 1912, Page 4

The Dominion. MONDAY, MAY 13, 1912. A NOTABLE DECISION.

—. e :.' A recent important decision of the King's Bench Division of the High Court has an interesting the modern "craze for legislation"— a craze that turns now in the direction of destroying an existing principle of law and now towards hacking and chopping at particular laws in order to meet what appear to be now and special circumstances. This craze takes insufficient note of the fact that laws themselves, without changing their shapes, can change in meaning and effect with the changes of social thought and opinion, and that British lawyers can generally he relied upon to see that the parallel movement goes on. The case in question was a suit for the restoration of a child to its natural parents. This child, then illegitimate, was adopted by a childless couple'named Walker in 1901. The parents of tho child were married in 1008, and last year, finding their circumstances bettered, they sought to obtain possession of their son, now eleven years old. • The Walkers naturally refused to give him up, and their counsel argued that the Court should be guided solely by what would be best for tho child. On the other side it was urged that the wishes of the parents of the child should, as was the case in the past, be considered paramount. There was no suggestion of unfitness on' the part of the real parents, and although tho Court could overrule .the parental right if it thought fit, i't should not do so unless convinced that the exercise of the parental right would be in some way injurious to the-child. Tho three Judges concurred in refusing to order the restoration of the child, being satisfied that his interests required, on the whole, the maintenance of the present arrangement. ,Mr. Justice Darling made one observation of uncommon interest, as showing tho accessibility of the King's Courts to very modern and practical ideas. The natural mother of the child was to come into a half-share of £17,000 on her mother's death, "but he (Mr. Justice Darling) was by no means sure that it would be to the benefit of the boy to bring him up in the expectation of coming into money rather than bring him up to a way of earning a respectable living for himself." British justice is clearly not a cold and stagnant pool when such a striking reason can be put forward to support a decision which, as the Times points out, might not many years ago have been described ns "a blow struck at the family, a menacing inroad upon parental rights." The lesson of the case is the disappearance of the older doctrine of parental, and even maternal, dominance over the child, and the elevation of the child to the status of having independent rights and inlen-sts of its own. "The fact hi. tort'ler again to the comment of the Times, "that a jurisdiction exorcised by tbo Courts rßsrcsontLuj! Uw Kma 84.

parens pal fine, and, so to speak, supreme parent of children, has assumed more and more importance. The welfare of, in the largo sense of the term, the child is the guiding principle." The Times dons not touch the large question whether we should feel rejoicing or regret that there should be a strong and steady movement in the direction of giving the State a place of authority under the family roof-tree greater than • that of the parents. The movement, however, is one that can lead to excesses and evils through direct legislative impulses, hut the Courts are unlikely ever to give to the principles of existing jaws any seriously undesirable application. Evil is more to be apprehended from the "viewy" politicians of the Jt adieu I side, who hav» already shown a tendency to enact expressly Act after Act in the march towards exterminating, not mere parental rights, but that much more important and vital thing, parental responsibility. No- : thing, we know, can be said that will curb the appetite of the "Stateaction" advocates for more and more statutory interferences with individual liberties and duties. At the back of their minds they distrust and despise British law as a sort of drag on the wheels of progress. Yet in honesty they should admit that the, case wc have discussed, taken willi others of different kinds, does show that British law is not a dead thing at all. It is not a heavy anchor on a straining ship; it is the rudder.