THE SOUTH SEA SLAVERS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4387, 12 April 1875, Page 5

THE SOUTH SEA SLAVERS.

. (From the Melbourne Leader.) Although the ingenuity of counsel and judicial misinterpretation of the law procured the discharge from custody of Mount and Morris, those South Sea marauders stand a fair chance of returning to the Melbourne gaol at an early date, to expiate the crimes of which they were found guilty. It will he remembered that his Honor Judge Stephen, who was at that time Attorney-General, and Mr. Kerferd, who -was Solicitor-General, maintained that there was sufficient vitality in the law under which these men were tried to hold them in custody. This view, however, was not held by the bench, and Mount and Moms were accordingly set at liberty. The Government of Mr. Francis appealed against this decision to the Privy Council, and that tribunal has declared that the prisoners were illegally discharged, and that their position now is that of escaped convicts, who are liable to be apprehended if they are anywhere in the British dominions, or in any country having an extradition treaty with Great Britain. This decision of the Privy Council is not only a satisfactory proof of the soundness of the legal view held by both Crown law-officers, but is a vindication of the justice of the case. No act of the judicature in the colony ever brought the law into such contempt as the release of these kidnappers and marauders; and to the world beyond Australia it must have appeared that we had got up a mock trial solely to throjv dust in the eyes of the European public, whose opinion upon acts of great injustice and oppression no colonial community can afford wholly to despise. It now rests with the Government to take the steps necessary for their re-apprehension.