The Daily Telegraph SATURDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1882.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3516, 14 October 1882, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph SATURDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1882.

The Timaru Herald gives the true cause of tbe delay that has occurred m the issue of the Acts of last session. Our Southern and well - informed contemporary says that the scandalous manner in which the Acts of 1882 were hustled through all stages during the last weeks of the session has led to a nice muddle. The great majority of them came into force on tbe last day of the session, but such was the pressure on the printing office that it was quite impossible to publish them, the session actually having to be prolonged for some days after all the legislative business was concluded in order to enable correct copies to be prepared for the signature of the

Administrator of the Government on behalf of the Queen. We do not wish to thrown any slur on the officers of the House or the Government Printer ; but we venture, nevertheless, to express a doubt whether correct copies in all cases were prepared after aIJ ; and we shall not be in the least surprised to learn that all sorts of errors exist in many of the Acts. If that surmise should prove to be correct, indeed, the blame will rest neither on the officers of the House nor on the Government Printer, but solely on the Ministers who, to suit the exigencies of party politics, insisted on a multitude of new laws being passed, long after the members had made up their mind to give no further attention to business. There never was a more reckless or disgraceful proceeding in the parliamentary affairs of this country, than the forcing through of the Bills which bad been delayed from one cause or another, until the dying hours of the late session. It is impossible as yet to measure the full extent of the evil produced by that proceeding. But

one result of it is already apparent. There are a great number of laws in force in New Zealand, some of them laws of the flre>t importance, concerning the provisions ot which the people are profoundly ignorant. The Judges them-

selves do not know what the laws

are which tbey have to administer from the bench of Justice. Only a few days ago a case in the Supreme Court had to be postponed, no doubt at great inconvenience and expense to those concerned in it, for no other reason than because the sitting Judge had not yet seen an Act bearing on the subject of tbe suit, and dared not proceed until he had seen it. The Magistrates are in a still worse plight because the number of subjects coming under their cognisance from day to day, on which new legislation has taken place, is much greater than in tbe case of the higher Court?. There is no doubt, we believe that numerous judgments have already been given by Resident Magistrates and Justices, which are quite at variance with existing enactment?. In all such instances, we presume, any persons who have suffered penalties or incurred any damage by the decision of the Court can get that decision reversed or procure some other legal remedy. The legal profession are also placed in a serious difficulty. They are called upon every day to give advice upon points of law that "may be affected by Statutes which they have never seen, and which they cannot get. access to. Finally, the people are in the position of being subject to laws which they do not know they are subject to, and as to the contents of which they cannot get any information. The newspapers in this colony commonly perform a most useful function, quite outside of their legitimate province, in publishing and explaining for the convenience of the public, the principal legislation of each session. But this year the newspapers are as much in the dark as the public. They cannot get a copy of the new Acts for love or money ; and the number and bulk of the new Acts are so great that when they do get them, the work of examining and describing them will be a very onerous one and will necessarily take a long time. In all probability it will be beyond the powers of any but the strongest journals ; and thus the public will be denied an advantage, the maguitude of which, perhaps, they have not hitherto realised.