The Feilding Star. Published Daily WEDNESDAY, JAN. 31, 1894. HASTY LEGISLATION.

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 227, 31 January 1894, Page 2

The Feilding Star. Published Daily WEDNESDAY, JAN. 31, 1894. HASTY LEGISLATION.

Ov Monday last, in the Resident Magistrate's Court in Dunedin, severe strictures were passed on the Contractors and Workmen's Lien Act of the session of 1892. It appears that an action was initiated under that statute by two workmen against a contractor who is said to have absconded. On the case being called the solicitor for the plaintiffs withdrew his claim to have a lien*registered against certain land, saying the Act was a perfect disgrace to Parliament, because every section contained blunders. • The solicitor who appeared for the owners of the land, on which, we presume, the contract work had been done, and who would have been prejudicially affected, said the Act was one which set many problems, and was at the same time defective in all its provisions. Both counsel agreed in the opinion that a man was safe for so long as he committed the worse fraud intended to be prevented, but he might be caught — and punished — if he perpetrated a little wrong. The Resident Magistrate, without expressing any opinion, said he could find no definition of the word " claim." We believe that the Government had already discovered the many peculiarities, not to say eccentricities, of the Act in question, and last session passed " The Workmen's Wages Act, 1893," with the view of removing them, the Act to read with the Truck Act and Contractors and Workmen's Lien Act. It would appear, however, that they have made " confusion worse confounded.'' Yet there are people who condemned the Legislative Council for objecting to unseemly haste in making these " Labor Bills " alleged law.