PRAISE OF ENGLISH JUSTICE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 296, 10 September 1919, Page 7

PRAISE OF ENGLISH JUSTICE

Mr, Lloyd George's 'recent announcement that the ex-Kaiser is to be tried in London has elicited some interesting editorial comments in America. Tho "New York Times" says: "It is lucky for William HohenzoMern that his trial is to Lake place on English soil; not at a/ll because the English will be more sympathetic with him than an-, other nation might be, but.because there is a traditional fairness and impartiality about English justice which no other country, not even our own, has been able to surpass. The object of French and Italian Courts is to obtain a eon, yiclion; the aim of an English Court is to administer justice. Our own practice is marred by far too much opportunity /or delny, by devices, of technicality that cheat justice of her due. It is not going too far to say that within tho period covored by the life of n generation tho future of a crimiual has been almost a gani'blo here, with personal or local prejudices entering 60 largely into the decisions of Court and jury, and that it has been sometimes regrettably hard and sometimes regrottablv easy to predict the outcome. But in England in a Court Oi Justice tho personality of tho accused pwson is forgotten the moment he takes his placo m the dock. Few technicalities intervene. A chango of venuo on the ground of local prejudice is of rnro occurrence, for the reason that tho English mind cannot conceive of a prejudice overruling tli'o orderly processes of justice."