WELLINGTON NOTES

Hokitika Guardian, 24 July 1918, Page 4

WELLINGTON NOTES

THE COURTS DIFFER

MAG ISTRATI4B AND . JUDGES

(Our Special Correspondent) WELLINGTON', July 19. The Stipendiary Magistrates and the Supreme Court Judges arc - not in agreement upon several cases that have latelv attracted much attention in Wellington. The Magistrate recorded convictions in the notorious Keiburn case, in tile alloyed light- weight butter case and in the gambling «» hocused premises case. The public, ignorant of the law and apparently ol the merits of the cases, warmly applauded these decisions. and Wellington plumed itsell on having developed the superior conscience. Hut now the Supreme Court has asserted its majesty and quashed the convictions, holding that the Magistrate was wrong and that the defendants must go free. The zeal of the eitv for putting its house in order as it imagined, lias been sadly damped. BETTING NOT OAMBLING. The only consolation that remains to tiie ardent reformers is that they have an authoritive pronouncement l 'j° effect that betting on horse racing is not gambling within the meaning ol the Licensing Act. The Chief .Justice, Sir •Robert Stout, has consulted Webster s and Murray’s Dictionaries, and has discovered that their definition ol gambling does not include betting. •Colloquially we talk of laying and taking the odds as gambling, but really it is "only betting, and if we gave the word a wider application we should render the put n who speculates on the Stuck Exchange or buys land lor a rise subject to grave pains and penalties. The law trulV is a subtle thing, even more difficult to understand than it is to obey. '. MTT.-TTA T?.y CAMPS.

The message,sent to the Minister of Defence by the Wanganui branch of the Returned -Soldiers’ Association stating that the conscientious objectors in the Detention Barracks are better l vated than the men in. camp, has

• •■iveti rise in some quarters to an nn : pression that a large number of the men in .training are dissatisfied with . their conditions at Treutham and ■ Feathers ton. As far as can be gather- ! e;l from personal encm'ries at both ; places this is very far from bring the case, and the men themselves suggest that the Wanganui returned soldiers ■ made the comparison merely to emphasise their opinion that the conscientious objectors were being treated with more leniency than they deserved. This is the view the Minister himself is inclined to take. THE RABBIT NUISANCE. The rabbit nuisance, which thirty years ago was the gravest peril menacing (lie pastoralists of the South island has lately assumed grave dimensions in the North, and it was only natural that it should have received some at- ! tentiou from the Conference of the : Council of Agriculture yesterday, in discussing a motion to the cfleet that the Department of Agriculture should

take more drastic measures to suppress tiie nuisance, several speakers, including Sir Walter Buchanan, urged that the export of rabbit skins and preserved rabbits shoull be prohibited. People closely concerned in the sueject have been urging this step tor a long lime past, believing that the profits made out cf rabbits were delaying their dest i-fiction, and no.v the Council of Agriculture lias taken the matter in banu the Government may lie expected to do something,.