Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1863.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume III, Issue 153, 18 December 1863, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1863.

We remember mice hearing ajiseutentious but brilliant light in a particular political set say by way of satisfactorily settling an open question, “ There’s a reason for everything.” Just so ; but it by no means follows that because there is reason for a thing, that there should be much reason in it.

Of this we have before us a very remarkable instance, in the case which occurred a few days since, when Major Whitmore took upon himself to go hail for some delinquent Maori. No doubt the Major has reasons for taking this important step, hut we much doubt whether the step itself is a particularly reasonable one. Nor is the question confined to the mere reasonableness or unreasonableness of the procedure. It is a very open question whether or not it is a legal act.

When some short time ago we found it necessary in the interests of the community to stimulate our Commandant by a little wholesome castigation, that intelligent gentleman turned round upon us and iu one of the most remarkable literary endeavors we have ever met with, took, firstty, great pains to show how utterly worthless and insignificant this little journal, as a journal, is, and then, at great length proceeded to contr overt certain assertions which this insignificant and contemptible paper had chosen to make, “ for reasons, - ’ according to the Major, “ too obvious to need special remark” ! But what these “ too obvious reasons” are, does not to this day appear. It naturally occurs to the disinterested observer, that under these circumstances—that is, under the circumstances of Major Whitmore being a very ill-used gentleman, in the case referred to, —that he would be extremely cautious not to give us a second chance of applying that refreshing stimulus to his energies and general system, which to us appears so very necessary, but to him so extremely unpleasant. It is our painful but righteous duty to call the above gentleman to a strict account for this latest act of weakness and folly,—thi s act of making himself personally responsible for the re-appearance of the native lately concerned in the matter of Shirley v. Karauria. That that singular specimen of New Zealand jurisprudence, the Resident Magistrates’ Court Ordinance, should give almost unlimited discretion to the particular fuuctionary to which it refers in matters between native and European—or mixed cases—is a fact too well known to need at present special comment, hut that that astonishing Ordinance gave power to one or other of the judges sitting to try a case of this nature, to become security for the future appearance of either party concerned, is so entirely a new view of the matter that we are compelled to confess that not even so much as a remote notion of it ever before occurred to ns. In short, such a line of procedure as this lately adopted by Major Whitmore, if proceeded in or accepted as a precedent for future action, is so entirely subversive of all British principles of justice,-that should the like oc-

cur again, it would be essential to the stability of society to bring the matter before the notice of the next General Assembly to prevent the repetition of such a gross and destructive attack upon the freedom and impartiality of the administration of the law.

With such cases as these to which vve now particularly refer, before us, and many other equally loose and weak proceedings of Major Whitmore’s, to comment upon and expose, how can that high dignitary expect that much mercy or much tenderness will be shown him at the hands of the press. If the press, from over-nicety or a puerile sensitiveness, neglects to expose the errors of men in high places the effect of this laxity of healthy discipline upon those but too despotic notables would very soon result in the complete ignoring of even the name of Justice. We are therefore compelled again to hold the Major up to nature, so that he who runs may read, and in doing so we hope that it will be the last time, and that that gentleman, instead of rushing in a wild and indiscriminate manner into the vortex of print, will have the goodness to repent him of his evil ways in sackcloth and ashes, for a reasonable period, and take care not to commit himself again. All tampering with the ends of Justice, saps the foundation of society; all laxity or one-sidedness in the administration of justice, as between two persons of different races leads ultimately to bloody and remorseless wars, of which we have a notable example in the history of all our colonies, and of this one in particular.