New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) MONDAY, JULY 3.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4767, 3 July 1876, Page 2

New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) MONDAY, JULY 3.

Mb. W. D. Stewart, who has just returned from a tour through the United States of America, recently delivered an interesting and instructive lecture on the “ Contrasts between American and English law.” Among other points of contrast noticed by Mr. Stewabt was the following ;— Nearly all the States have a code of procedure, and it would certainly be a great advantage if such a code existed in this colony, instead of haying some of the Acts relating to the administration of justice in almost every volume of the statutes of the General Assembly. Nor would such a code be difficult to frame, it being a very different proceeding from codifying all the laws of the colony. Every practitioner knows, and the public feel .sensitively, that is, through the pocket, that it would hardly be possible to overstate the evil here referred to by Mr. Stewabt. IVe in New Zealand are in. a much worse position than .other colonies, or even than England. England has her Judicature Act and her Common Law Procedure Act, and Victoria has her own Common Law Procedure Act, but what have we 1 Well, besides the scraps affecting practice referred to by Mr. Stewabt as scattered through the volumes of the statutes, we have a volume of Supreme Court Rules. We fear much it must be said that this last-mentioned volume, although professedly aiming at .the simplification of practice and procedure, only succeeds in making confusion worse confounded. These rules were intended, we are told, to be only “ tentative:” that is to say, while they interfere with almost 1 every part of common law and equity practice, they settle nothing, and they leave everything in such a haze of doubt and uncertainty that it is almost impossible to say what any single rule means until the Judge, when it is referred to him, decides it to mean this or that. Every legal, practitioner knows full well that in nearly every case, at some stage of it, some one or more of these rules come in question: each party seeks to put on the rule that interpretation which is favorable to his interests, and there is only too good prima facie cause for the view taken of the meaning by one side or the other. The rule is generally so vague and indefinite that practically it means nothing till the Judge decides that it shall ■ have this or the other meaning. Now this is a very serious affair in all aspects, both to the lawyers and to the public; it is in the last degree irritating and unsatisfactory to the practitioner : to bo eternally groping in the dark, and it is perhaps still more unsatisfactory to the clients who have to bear the costs of the discussions in Chambers and in banco which are necessary to settle these exceedingly hazy rules. We agree with Mr. Stewabt that the advantage would be enormous if we had in New Zealand a code of procedure such as those possessed by nearly all the American States., We, also concur with him in believing that the settlement and construction of such a code would be a work comparatively simple and inexpensive, in.. fact, .out of all proportion in these respects to the amount of trouble and expense which it would save. It would be really both curious and instrucy tive if some one could, collect and exhibit in one vie w the amount of ligitation which has in each year .arisen out of the ambiguities of our procedure alone —it would be./Startling. ; ,We shall, of course, be

met with the objection :, Oh, your code would not be final ; you would be always having decisions or / practice cropping up everywhere over the face of it from time to time.” As if, forssoth, because we cannot haye perfection all at once we should not' try for improvement; as if, forsooth, any human thing can attain finality until the ultimate end of all things. The fact is, that, there are some people, who take-a positive pleasure in having things in' confusion. They havo. an inborn horror of anything like order or method. _ Their minds are so muddled and their ideas, if they have more than one at a time, - are always so falling out with each other that the mere sight of order or arrangement conveys a silent censure to them. Speaking in general, our New Zealand statute law has now got into such a state of muddle that it is really become an intolerable social evil; instead of being, as it ought to be, an impelling power in social progress, a lubricator of the wheels of life, it is a veritable drag. Once the great measure of abolition is perfected, we hope to see earnest and prompt efforts made to put our statutes into something like decent form. Large and systematic legislative reform of any sort cannot be expected till abolition is accomplished, but once effected, the country, and the profession of the law will certainly look to the Government to initiate these much-needed reforms of the law. Good laws lessen the evils and add to the- comforts of life, but laws bad in substance or obscure and unintelligible are much worse than none at all. -