THE WHAREAMA WAGES CASE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 55, 10 February 1872, Page 7

THE WHAREAMA WAGES CASE.

[TO THE EDITOR OP THE NEW ZEALAND MAIL.] Sir, —In your last number you speak of a case recently decided befoie Justices of the Peace at Whareama as one that " deserves notice on two accounts." You will I hope allow me through your columns to correct any mistaken impressions that your notice may occasion. I am no doubt, as you say, a clergyman, an M.P.C., an M.H.R., and I am also Chairman of a Road Board, &c, &c. So far, any case in which I am a party may have a certain amount of public or local interest. These titles or offices would be invaluable if they secured the possessor against injury and fraud. Unfortunately they do not always do so, and I thought it right as a matter of public duty as well as private concern to stand in this instance on my defence. The case waß not decided in the Petty Sessions Court as you seem to imply. Owing to the drought and fires, the effect of which has been so deplorable in the Wairarapa, a quorum of J.P.s without the chairman was not present at the Whareama Court on the 15th ultimo. In order to save the plaintiff and myself trouble and loss of time in waiting a month for another Court, I suggested that he should withdraw his information and lay another to be decided out of the Court by the two Magistrates at hand. These were competent to form a legal tribunal. The plaintiff satisfied with the impartiality of these gentlemen took this course and lost his suit. You state that the decision was illegal. This conclusion is apparently drawn from the statement that the plaintiff was a weekly servant. He was not a weekly servant, in the sense you seem to entertain, viz, lived from week to week, but a servant engaged for an indefinite time at wages reckoned by the period of a week. Vide Judge Johnston's N.Z. J.P. A broken boundary fence with scab adjacent must be watched till repaired. As the time was Christmas, I spoke to the man carefully and asked if I could depend upon him, stating that if no one else on the station could be found to do the work, I must do it myself. His answer was, " I go, sir ;" but he went not, or words and action equivalent to this. On his reappearance from his carousals, I refused to pay the wage 3 he demanded. Men of a vagabond turn without ties are not easily caught, but my proceedings had the desired effect. It ie no part of my

business to defend the decision which might have been much more severe. I was simply a suitor and not on the Bench. The gentlemen who gave it can no doubt do so, if necessary, to the proper authority, which your columns are not. The question, however interesting in itself, whether the R.M. of the Wairarapa should not be obliged to relieve me of a " disagreeable and gratuitous duty" is foreign to this case. The same objections apply to him near his own residence as to me here, and it is equally desirable that I or some other stranger should sit at Featherston, as that Magistrate at Featherston should sit here. Is the paid or the uupaid officer to employ no hired labor? is he to be altogether self-con-tained and self-sufficient ? If so, he will have little leisure to study his law; ifnothemay have to proceed against his employees for neglect of duty. The question you raise is virtually not my particular case, but whether an honorary or unpaid magistracy is an advantage to the state. I am Englishman enough to hold that it is, but the subject is too large to enter on here.—l am, &c, J. C. Andrew. Whareama, February 5, 1872.