THE STAGPOOLE COSTS,

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1729, 21 April 1913, Page 8

THE STAGPOOLE COSTS,

, ??r>T To -- ay 1 was staggered at the latitude you allowed to my critics in regard to tho costs paid in the Teachers' Court of Appeal case, after emasculating my letter, only mildly expresses my conclusions on reading tho "special" in your Thursday's issue. An attempt is plainly being made to»clond the issue, whether by yourself or tho powerful combination you refer to in your special article, it is hard to say,_belauso my limited experience of journalism enables mo to separate a correspondent's letter from the line you havo taken and to put the credit on the writer. Kindly let mo again inako my pointclear. You stated in a local last week that no attempt had broil made by the New Zealand Educational Institute to use a technical defect in the order for costs to escape liability. I replied that your statement was untrue, and quoted from (lit* annual report of (lie executive of the institute an exact contradiction of what was evidently the statement of its representative to you and adding that tho technical defect was caused by the magistrate following the request of tho New Zealand Educational Institute's representative in the Appeal Court (Jlr. Stewart). Now you give Jlr. Myers nearly double the space you allowed to me for the purpose of proving what T stated to bo incorrect. out he evades tho direct issue altogether. I did make a slip, certainly, in crediting to Jlr. Myers a knowledge of the law he evidently lacks, by writing that he had contended in the correspondence that tho order for costs should havo been made against Jlr. Stagpoole. He now states that ho never suggested that tho order should have been made so payable. Well, if lie will look at Section 207, SubScction (II), he will find that costs should In awarded against tho appellant, even when a teacher's corporation guarantees the payment, and in this case the Wangaliui branch only guaranteed to pay costs awarded "against, the appellant." The whole point is this, and no amount of ingenuity can evade it: "At the rfquest of counsel for ihe New Zealand Edncat'oinil Institute, the costs were made payable by it, the secretory ol' the institute stated on oath in Court that, the New Zealand Institute and not tho Wanganui branch would pay tho cost.;, and after the order had been made accordingly, Jlr. Jly-?rs comes on the scene and attempts 'to reduco tho amount of costs awarded because the order made in the form requested by Mr. Stewart is technically incorrect."

As you have nuwle pointed reference lo the special fee allowed lo me, it is only fair to point out tlvit t never asked for a fee, and 1 am given to understand that it vas avardod us an answer to the

aspersions cast on ray conduct of the case by my friends on the other side—especially Mr. Parkinson, who harangued the audience at length—and which tho magistrate characterised in Court as utterly without foundation. Again I say that tho attitude taken up by tho institute, presumably on the advice of its solicitors, was that "owing to an error of the Court"—an error committed at the request of tho institute's representative ill Court—"only Jiß9 9s. 4d. was passed for payment for costs out of .£207 fls. -Id. allowed by tho Court." And if that is not an attempt to uso a technical defect to escape liability, I don't understand plain English. Tho whole of the procedure in connection witli tlite case, , c o far as tho instituto is concerned, was such as to badly besmirch that institution's reputation, and tli? ending of it is tho paltriest trick of all—l am, etc., FRED. PIRANI.