THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY. MONDAY, APRIL 15, 1872.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1158, 15 April 1872, Page 2

THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY. MONDAY, APRIL 15, 1872.

..he judgment of his Honor Mr Justice Ridhmond which appears in another column demonstrates the necessity of more care in the preparation of our statutes. In this case, as it happens, our local legislation is not so much to blame, inasmuch as the enactment in question follows in ipsissima verba the Imperial Statute 31 and 32 Viet., cap. 116. We remember that this Act was extended to New Zealand to meet more than one case of stealing from mates which occurred in Westport, and which were heard before Judge Clarke. These cases were as flagrant as the one now in question, and that such offences are not punishable is a 3erioas reproach to our Bystem. According to the spirit of English jurisprudence, the utmost good faith and the most scrupulous honor is required in all dealings between partners ; and yet we find that stealing from a partner is quietly glossed over under the gentle euphemism of "a fraudulent conversion," and the stealer goes unpunished. There is no possible room for any dispute as to Mr iJ-uotioo Rtolini<-mrl'a rlhilmm,. A-Hhrnigh wfi think some of his illustrations are less felicitous than usual. It might, perhaps, be urged for the Crown that the golden rule of construing enactments — even penal enactments — might have allowed the conviction to stand. We speak with diffidence, however, upon such a nice question of law, but the idea has been suggested that if the Court had regarded the mischief intended to be remedied, and the remedy the Act proposed to provide, the prisoner might have been convicted without doing violence to the language of the statute, or without shocking either our common sense or any leading principles of law. Speculations of this kind must, however, give place to the solemn fact that the law only means what it says, and that before a person can be put in peril of either life or liberty the Legislature must speak with no uncertain sound. It is to be hoped that this defect will not much longer be permitted to characterize our Law of Larceny, and that our Parliamentary draftsmen will take this particular case as a hint to a more precise definition of what is or is not to be regarded as a crime. In a community like ours, it is a question of vital importance that some security should bo afforded to persons who necessarily have to entrust their money or gold to mates. Many a man who naturally would be honest and faithful is tempted to offend by the verylaxness of which we complain, and a great source of uneasiness to many, and a positive incentive to crime in some, would be removed if the law on this subject were only amended so as to embrace the class of cases we have here indicated. No respectably-disposed miner could object to such a provision. On the contrary, such a wholesome provision would be hailed by all as the one thing wanting to produce that very confidence in the honor and faithfulness of mates which is so indispensible in mining partnerships above all others. There can be no doubt that the importance of this question will be at once grasped, and that the next session of Parliament will place the law on the subject in a reasonable and satisfactory state.