The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 1928.

Hokitika Guardian, 20 April 1928, Page 2

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 1928.

•GOVER.ME.NT BY REGULATION At last a very influential protest is being made in the Dominion against the disponit ton on tHo part of the Government to resort to Government by regulation. A conference of Law Societies was held recently in Christchurch. As a contemporary noted it was remarkable that the present was the first occasion on which the' lawyers of New Zealand had met as a corporato body to consider questions of interest to the profession, and matters of importance to the general public regarded from the legal point of view. H

should hardly l>e necessary to emphasise the value of such, discussions; the resolution carried in regard to the extensive use of Orders-in-Council should arrest attention. After ' rending a paper on “The Present Trend of legislation” by .Mr A. F. Wright, the conference passed a resolution expressing “strong disapproval” of the growing tendency to “legislate hy regulation” in important matter;*, and the allied tendency “to entrust to officials wide powers not subject to control by the Courts,” coupled with the practice of “deciding questions affecting private rights” without appeal to the ordinary judicial tribunals. An attempt wap made by Mr A. Fair, K.C.. to blunt the force of the criticism to which government hy Ordor-in-Cuuneil had been subjected, lint it appeared that the Solicitor-General, while malting out a plausible ease for tin* Crown from the strictly legal paint of view, did not take into account adequately the grave dangers to which the rights of the people and the principles of constitutional liberty are exposed. During the discussion reference was naturally made to similar protests hoard recently at Home, and to the address delivered to the American Bar hy Lord Hewart during his recent visit to the I'nited .States. The Lord Chief Justice drew attention, not for the first time, to “the increasing tendency of the Executive Government to supersede the regular administration of justice between the Crown and the subject ns administered in the Courts.” The result lias been the growth of “a

system of administrative just ire” which. Lord Hewart condemns ns “unknown to the Common Law and wholly alien to the doctrines and its spirit.” In New Zealand as in Britain, there has been noticeable of late “a marked and increasing tendency of bureaucratic pretensions." resulting in the withdrawal of important matters involving private rights from the jurisdiction of the Courts, and subjecting them to “official determination.” An outstanding example here was when Sir Francis Bell in regard t > forestry control, took the jurisdiction from the Warden’s Courts, and handed it over to officials of fbe Forest Service, in regard to whose dictum there is not any legal appeal. Lord Hewart held that unless steps are taken to check “the restless pretensions of bureaucracy” the control of public affairs will ultimately fall into the bands of “a vast army of anonymous officials hidden from view, but placed above the law.” It is easy for the Solicitor-Gen-eral to show that conditions here are not precisely the same as at Home. But the fact remains that “government by regulation” on the advice of departmental officials has made rapid strides here of late, and that bureaucratic despotism may he as dangerous to the rights and liberties of the people here ns in Britain or Bnifec] 1

States. It is certainly very irksome bore, as those connected with sawmilling must realise. There is a ease in band now where the milieus made representations to the Forestry Commissioner, not being satisfied with the official decision, and the matter being still in abeyance the millers had to go eap-in-haud to the Prime Minister. This form of procedure is not satisfactory and opens the door to abuse and certainly to favouritism. It would l>e much better for the legal process of the Warden’s Court to obtain, and justice be meted out and the law administered in open courts so that, all the world may know what is transpiring. At present there is a suggestion and innuendo abroad which brings the Government into disrepute and open to grave charges.