The Globe. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1878.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1453, 12 October 1878, Page 2

The Globe. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1878.

The session is now drawing to a close, and there is no doubt hut that many of those important subjects which require reform will once more be allowed to drift out of sight for at least another year. We do not refer to any of the large questions which, in the recess, Sir George and his colleagues promised should be dealt with during the following sittings of the Assembly. Most people by this time have amply satisfied themselves how these promises were redeemed, and the few measures in which the so-called new policy of the Government were embodied have been before the public for many I „ rrVw« T J rn<w TUU TUnvjtorai Bill, for instance, which are now puzzling the brains of Legislative Councillors to a not ordinary extent may be said to have completely absorbed the administrative vitality of the Cabinet, and it is now a settled fact that further than those two Bills the capabilities of reform and of statutal consolidation which the Ministry may possess will not go this year. But it is in smaller matters of administrative reform that the Government has most woefully deceived the country. Let us look, for instance, at that question of consolidating and placing upon a cheaper and more satisfactory basis the administration of justice. Besides the introduction of a singularly theoretical and impracticable measure, the Local Judicature Bill, whoso discharge the Attorney-General moved yesterday, what has the Government done towards remodelling the disgraceful state of chaos in which matters judicial are placed in the Courts, and the Lower ones especially? When the late Minister of Justice, Mr. Bowen, assumed office, it was fondly hoped that at last something would be done, in the way of legislation, to effectually heal the many sores which disfigured the daily transactions of the public in reference to judicial requirements. Mr. Bowen had himself been a Resident Magistrate, and, during a long experience on the Bench in one of the largest cities, had practically acquired—and sometimes to his cost and trouble a full knowledge of how painfully inadequate to the public wants the various enactments bearing upon the administration of justice were. For various reasons, over which probably Mr. Bowen had no control, and owing perhaps in a great measure to the many exigencies of a time when the Parliamentary world was busily engaged in the work of legislative re-construction which Abolition rendered of immediate importance, the tenure of office of the Ministry of which he was a member was determined without any change whatever being effected in the existing state of things. A very general hope was expressed that Mr, Stout would signalise his career as Attorney-General by introducing legal reforms in the way, at least, of cheapening and rendering less absurdly impracticable the administration of justice. But, as we said before, beyond hastily concocting and introducing in the Lower Bouse, as a matter of form almost, that grotesque piece legal machinery, the Local Judicature Bill, the judicial member of the present Executive has absolutely done nothing towards redeeming the promises which he had so lavishly made in that direction a few months before. As things are in the Lower Courts, it may almost bo said that, next to losing a case, tiro worst that can happen to a man ie to gain it. The extraordinary expenses in the shape of Court fees, counsels’ retainers, &c., expenses to witnesses, which are but seldom if ever recouped to the successful litigants, besides a host of other pecuniary contingencies, render the application of the process of settling commercial and other differences so impracticable as to make wise people prefer the first loss sooner than become involved in the legal annoyances which might follow. Not man? day* ago oue of

those numerous cases of “ legislative” extortion, if wo may use the term, again came to light. A defendant who was resisting a claim for some £3 made hy a trader with whom he had had a difference of opinion, got a verdict in full in his favor. Ho and his witness had kicked their heels in the Police Court for nearly a whole day, the case could not have been determined without the testimony of the latter, yet when judgment was recorded on all points for him, the unlucky individual found that ho was £1 18s out of pocket, besides having to pay for the attendance of three witnesses, whoso evidence had been found necessary hy the Bench! Of course it may he urged that the Resident Magistrate was at fault, and that he had been too dictatorial in pooh-poohing the application of the successful suitor for the reimbursement of his costs, but then the law should be so framed as to prevent the possibility of a Magistrate’s ruling in such matters being influenced by, say, the state of his liver. And in the Supremo Court also the machinery of the law is quite as expensive and needlessly so. During the last session of the Supreme Court at Dunedin, the jury awarded a plaintiff £IOO, or a fifth of his claim, yet the costs amounted to no less than £325 ! It is also a matter of continual occurrence for suitors to elect to lose large sums of money so as to be enabled to bring their claims before the Lower Benches instead of the Superior Courts, Not long ago, in Christchurch, a bill of particulars amounting to £IBO was reduced to LIOO by the advice of the claimant’s solicitor, so as to come within the jurisdiction of the Magistrate’s Court, which is limited to the latter sura. With the strong feeling which has for so long agitated the public mind on this question of the administration of justice, we can scarcely understand how the Government has not applied the scarifying knife to so outrageously bad a system long ago. LAST NIGHT’S FLOOD IN THE WAIMAKARIRI. Telegraphic messages received by the railway authorities this morning, the first arriving at 7 o’clock convey most disastrous intelligence of the rising of the river Waimakariri. The river isjhigher than it was at theflast flood, at least half a mile of the line being under water. The platelayers fear that it has broken through at Irishman’s Plat, but cannot speak positively. A man who had just returned from trying to get along the high road, reported that it was 4ft. deep and impassable. A settler named Stanton is flooded out, and he stated he never saw the North road in so bad a state, it being impossible for anything to get along it. A later telegram states that the flood is so great that people were watching the river all night, and a great part of the town is from 3ft to 7ft below the top of the made embankment, and the water is nearly over the top of it. At five o’clock a.m. the fire bell was rung to get the people up, and every man that could get a shovel, barrow, and dray was hard at work patching the embankment. Hopes were entertained that the flood was at highest at about 7.30 a.m., but it showed no signs of going down, and if it broke through, and it only wanted a few inches to do so, there would be great distress in the town. The railway authorities have been working indefatigably night and day since Thursday morning, and a man is stationed on the North road to report as soon as it is possible to cross it. At 10 a.m. the mail driver, who is considered one of the most daring men on the road, reported that he had tried to cross, but ineffectually, the water wo. _ r *. i;. i wo ujj uurseuacs, and it his horse could have swum he would have ventured. If it is at all possible, Millet’s coaches will run this afternoon from Chaney’s to Kaiapoi in connection with the 4.55 train from Christchurch.