The Standard AND PEOPLE’S ADVOCATE. (PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY.) WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23, 1875.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 283, 23 June 1875, Page 2

The Standard AND PEOPLE’S ADVOCATE. (PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY.)

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23, 1875.

“We shall tell to no man justice or right: • We shall deny to no man justice or right: We .hall defer to no man justice or right.”

Elsewhehe we have given extracts from our Auckland and Dunedin exchanges respectively on two very important subjects, which, as containing the germs of great principles, canuot be otherwise than interesting to the members of this community, particularly at this time of year, when the practical application of them to their own circumstances may become an unpleasant reality. But, as the necessity for the performance of a public duty cannot—or, at any rate, should not—be gauged by the amount of personal pleasure there may be imvolvcd in it, we opine that no explanation is necessary in introducing these matters for the consideration of all concerned. In doing so we have little to say in continuation of the reports themselves. The reasons given by Mr. Justice Gillies in dismissing the appeal of the proprietors of the Daily Southern Croat against a decision of the District Court, will, at least, have the effect of drawing round the doings of outgoing Road Boards the observation of the ratepayers, or, at least, those that are their creditors. Judge Gillies says, in effect, that all accounts remaining unpaid by an outgoing Board cannot be recovered from their successors, because there is no “ saving clause in the Act 1874,” to give a right of action against them. This is a serioi s business ; for, while we cannot conceive of any Board refusing to relieve themselves from the obligation of debts contracted in mutual faith, the

present state of the law affords an engine of oppression to the unscrupulous, while it grants opportunities for plausible disputes, and puts an arbitrary power into their hands which would enable them to dictate their own terms, as to settlement, with an alternative for a luckless creditor to get nothing at all. Judge Gillies is of opinion that Road Boards were “ continuous, and would be continuously liable under the original Act by shich tSey wei*e elected year by year.” This woufdseem to imply that the Boards are not elected “year by year” under the "Set of 1874, or, if they were (which they are) they would be “ continuously liable,” or, in other words, .that .RoadBoards have a separate and unconnected existence with each other, no one of which is bound by the acts of, or legally responsible for, the debts of its predecessor. We are bound to accept these dicta coming from so high an authority, but their effect is somewhat startling. We fail entirely to see where the “continuity” of existence or responsibility is given to Bead Boards in the Acts of 1871, or taken from them in the Act of 1874, although there may be’, and, doubtless, is, a secret lair in the clauses from which such an interpretation can be drawn only by forensic manipulation. In the Act of 1871 the following “saving clause ” to which His Honor alluded, says that:

Any memorial registered or continued under any of the provisions of the said Highways Act 1867 shall be of .he same force and effect as if the said Act were not repealed, / The substance of which should have formed part of the Act 0f.1'874; blit this would' appear only to save, or protect, rights of . action against Boards in transition from one law to another, and not, in any way, to interfere with, or alter the responsibility of the Boards themselves. However, the law which defines the responsibility of Road Boards is now laid down by an eminent jurist. Judge Gillies’ verdict will, assuredly, be quoted in any future proceedings of the kind, and it is as well that the public should be made acquainted with it. The other question to which -We would draw attention, is that laid down by the Licensing Commissioners at Dunedin. Mr. Bathgate is "a lawyer, and Chairman of the Licensing Court in thatcity, and the utters nces he has lately made in the latter capacity have a weight attached to them which would not appertain to the utterartces of ordinary men. Mr. Bathgate sustains an objection made before his Court, against a license being issued -to one James Baxter, because he has a “ store in connection with his licensed premises and the learned Chaitman expounds the spirit of the law qu the point, after giving the matter “ every consideration, ’’ and says, “ the Court “is opposed to giving licenses to “ persons having stores in connection “ with their public houses,” because a double jointed business of that kind “ is very mischievous in the interests “of the public.” The Chairman may well be excused for looking so fixedly upon the “ spirit of the Act ” while dealing with the subject of licensing public houses ; and his interpretation of the law may be perfectly correct from his own point of view; but' we would ask is it a fair meting out of, justice to import a meaning into an Act of Parliament, so opposed toi the liberty and freedom of the age? We shall not stop to enquire furtherintothe merits of the case, believing, as we do, that no other Licensing Court will be found in the colony to give a like verdict; but we cannot refrain from indicating the wide difference there is in the finding of the two eases quoted above. Judge Gillies is compelled, against his will, to read thelaw as he finds it; and casts a plaintiff in a Court below in costs, although he has the merits of the case on his side,/ having no alternative on account of the legal technicalities by which he is surrounded; while, on the other hand Mr. Bathgate apparently looks beyond the strict legal terms of the Licensing Act, and deals entirely with what he considers ought to have been, rather than with what was, the intention of the Legislature. Thus both decisions inflict unintentional injustice.