THE STANDARD. SATURDAY, JULY 12, 1873.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 69, 12 July 1873, Page 2

THE STANDARD.

SATURDAY, JULY 12, 1873.

“ We shall sell to no man justice or right: We shall deny to no man justice or right: We shall defer to no man justice or right.”

Tuf. Session of the Supreme Court at Napier is just over; the prisoners have been released; the jury were dismissed •with the “ thanks of the Queen and the “ Colony ;” disappointed prosecutors and chagrined witnesses have returned to their homes, and an universal expression of stern reproof from the Judge is the only mark left in the blank page of the Assize.

It is impossible to review the proceedings, which Mr. Justice Johnson characterized as “ chaotic,” with anything approaching to a quiet complacency. If a Judge of the Supreme Court acknowledges from the Judgment seat that he feels “ perfectly bewildered ” on account of the state of neglect and carelessness exhibited in the preparation of the cases coming before him, what must the humble mortals feel who come to him for redress ? Those who listen in silent awe, and with bated breath ? Those who, in humble deference, hardly dare to think their own thoughts, while clinging to the words of learned wisdom which fall from his lips ? What gratification is it to us to have periodical doses of forensic doctrine poured into our understanding, ad nauseam, reminding us of the “ great “ and glorious privileges ” which we enjoy as, Englishmen, in being at liberty to sue for justice,—in being amenable to all the pains and penalties of an enforced duty ?—we ask, what satisfaction is it, in the face of all these advantages, to be told in the highest tribunal in the country, that “ the whole criminal administration “ is out of joint ?” And that through the impotency of the officers having conduct of the cases in the courts below, justice could not be obtained by either the

accuser or the accused? One set of depositions, the Judge said, were “ utterly “ useless.” “ A perverse ingenuity could “ scarcely have devised a more glaring “ series of defiances of the law,” than the state of the records in another. While a third were “not worth so much waste “ paper.” His Honor, in discharging the Grand Jury, said that “he should deem it a “ grave dereliction of duty to allow the “unprecedented condition of affairs to “ pass unnoticed.” We agree with His Honor; and we do trust in the name of that justice which we are taught to believe is unspotted, and surely to be attained, that, to further quote him — “ the most vigorous enquiry ” he is about to institute, will •“ show who are to blame, “ and the responsibility be cast on those “ who deserve it.”

The subject matter of the letter signed by “John Peachy ” which appeared in Wednesday’s issue, deserves something more than a passing notice at our hands —the more so from the bond fide position he occupies in bringing the glaring evils to light which are acknowledged to exist by all persons frequenting the coast between this and the East Cape. The letter of our correspondent, which we were obliged to “boil down” rather extensively, contained many more, and withal, more serious, charges against the many officials who are in the service and pay of the Colony, in the Magisterial district of Waiapu. These we have felt bound for the present to withhold; but they will see the light, ere many days, so soon as we can satisfy ourselves with undoubted proof of their correctness ; or, we shall adopt a more efl ective course of directly calling on the General Government to institute an enquiry thereon. It is only a short time since we had occasion to write disparagingly of the farce of attempting to rule the Maoris in an isolated native district by an European Magistrate, whose blind eye is always to the telescope, and who so freely falls into the habit of temporizing, between duty and inclination, that at last, the former has entirely succumbed to the latter. Now we can but repeat it.

We can hardly blame Mr. Campbell, (so far as has been said) considering his position, more than is the natural consequence of his holding an appointment of Magistrate, without power to enforce the laws he should administer. But, if what is pretty broadly stated, in other directions, be correct; if what public observation decries as a stigma on our petty judicature be a fact, then we say that the dispensing of a corrupt system has so far infected those who dispense it, that it would be criminal to arrest the falling of the sword on the head of the offenders, be they whom they mav.

The direct accusations of Mr. Peachy, against the Native Assessors for abuse of their power as puisne Magistrates of a lower order, cannot fail to draw the attention of the Government, and, through it, the Colonial Legislature, to their proper duty in scanning the native administration of the past year ; as, also, to the peculiar functions of the Native Assessors, whose salaries will have to be re-voted. These accusations will also form a grim commentary on the celebrated Petition which the Ecclesiastical party have been using their influence to get signed by these very drunken revellers—and which is to be supported (so ’tis said) by the Maori M.L.C. alluded to, himself a delinquent, in the Upper House — against the vice of intemperance, and praying for a prohibition ot the use of alcoholic liquors in their district! We may here pause to ask, can the “ folly of “ wisdom ” go further than to allow the perpetuation of such a state of things as our correspondent describes in the graphic letter to a perusal of which we now earnestly and sincerely invite the attention of the Colonial Government ?