Nelson Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1878.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 218, 23 October 1878, Page 2

Nelson Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1878.

The charges brought by Mr Barton, M.H.R., against the Chief Justice and Judge Richmond are of so grave a nature that, although there are few who will credit them, it is impossible that they can be passed over without an enquiry. Briefly put they amount to this, that these two gentlemen, holding the highest judicial positions in the laud, have been guilty of falsehood, favoritism, and corruption. In the interests of the public, and in the interests of the accused, it is absolutely necessary that there shonld be the strictest investigation, for if one half the statements made by Mr Barton are true, the Judges should be removed from the Bench without any delay whatever. If they are unsupported by evidence it is high time that the public should know what manner of man the accuser is. An extract from his speech in the House will show that he does not mince his words, but is sufficiently outspoken to leave no doubt as to what he means, lie concludes a3 follows:— " I have charged these Judges (and I here repeat my charge, and declare that I have ample proofs of it) with corruptly favoring my opponents, aud with refusing and delayiug justice to clients m my hands. I charge them that they have acted as counsel against me ; have worked earnestly to defeat the right whenever my client was the possessor of that right. I charge the Chief Justice with falsification by placing on record, under the seal of the Court, the statemeut that I had consented to an order which the Chief Justice admits he could not have made without my consent, to which I never consented, and which was the forerunner of the ruin and bankruptcy of my client. I charge Mr Justice Richmond with violating the truth from the Bench to sustain an order against my client, which, but for that statement, could not have been sustained. I charge the Court with tying up the case of another of my clients until his opponents should get the benefit of the statute of limitations. I charge the Court with delaying the case of another client who had got a verdict in his favor, until his opponent had issued |a writ in a cross action for matter decided by that verdict, and until he had got a judgment against my client and made him a bankrupt. I charge Judge Richmond with misdirecting a jury so as to defeat the manifest right, and 1 further charge him that when he found upon that jury a person, who was really, though not ostensibly, a co-defendant, and sat to decide his own case, he (the Judge), contrary to the clearest principles of English law, refused to set aside the verdict, though that verdict was based on a quibble directed by himself, and in clear violation of the equity of the case. I declare myself able to prove all these charges and many more, and I have in this address charged Mr Justice Richmond with writing a letter at variance with the truth from the beginning to the end of it." That an enquiry must be held there can be no question, but is will be by no means easy to decide by whom it is to be conducted. As our contemporary, the Post, puts it;— v An investigation must be held, and the question is who shall be the investigators? The matter has been somewhat tinged with party feeling. The lingering flavor of old political antagonists may be detected in this matter; and as party feeling runs high who shall constitute the arbiters? Would it not be wise to apply to some utterly unbiassed person outside of the colony?"