South Canterbury Times. MONDAY, JAN. 19, 1880.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2129, 19 January 1880, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. MONDAY, JAN. 19, 1880.

Wk are told that his Honor Mr Justice Johnstone and Mr Reed, SolicitorGeneral, have been appointed commissioners to consolidate the statutes of the colon}'. Whether we should congratulate or condole with these gentlemen on the task that has been entrusted to them, is doubtful. The work committed to them is undoubtedly one that would relegate any ordinarily constituted Judge or Solicitor-General into a lunatic asylum. As a matter of abstruse oxplora tion, it places the task of the late Dr Livingstone and Mr Stanley completely in the shade. To wade through miles of unpunctuated and unintelligible legal phraseology must, we imagine, be somewhat appalling even to. experts whose lives tire spent in the endless and not very useful task of extracting popular sunbeams from legal cucumbers. Of the utility of the work that has been delegated to this commission there can be no doubt. The statutes of New Zealand are as complex as an Arabian mystery, and nearly as voluminous as a Chinese Encyclopaedia. Some of them —composed, apparently, with the view of bewildering the human understanding —are adapted for no conceivable unless meant as a mental test by which

the amount of rubbish that may be fired through the intellect before it breaks down may be determined. In number these statutes are almost legion ; .in structure the infamous King Harry’s spine was perfection in comparison. Unlike the tricks of the conjurer, they mystify but do not entertain. Let it not be supposed that we undervalue good work, or consider statutes unnecessary. Many of the New Zealand statutes are elaborate, and they contain the germs of utility. Their fault is that as compositions they are far too labored, and their good traits —their germs —arc usually buried in a mass of incoherent nonsense. It is because of this that we regard the task of this commission almost as formidable as the revision of the Old and New Testament.

But while we regard the task with something approaching superstitions awe we cannot help thinking that it has been entrusted to excellent hands. Of the Solicitor-General wc cannot speak with anything like certainty, but we can say with reference to His Honor Justice Johnston that if he breaks down under the trying ordeal it will be because the task is beyond the reach of mortal judge or fallible barrister. When the statutes of New Zealand emerge from his hands we have no doubt they will be sadly shorn of their verbosity. Let us hope that his Honor, in his work of condensation, will make short work of their eccentricities. One of the chief causes of New Zealand being the most law-ridden colony attached to the British Crown is the multitude and inexplicability of its statutes. The statutes of the colony of Victoria, bound neatly in four or live volumes, and arranged in alphabetical order, may be found in every merchant’s office in that colony. The statutes of New Zealand, with its comparatively small, over-governed and over-taxed population would make an ordinary parlor library look very foolish so far as bulk is concerned. Now that there is a chance of boiling them down and extracting light out of the legal darkness, we trust the work will be performed thoroughly, and that no ill-advised leniency will save the cumbrous, unworkable amendments on amendments Acts from the waste-paper basket. If Judge Johnstone and his brother commissioner should prove themselves equal to thetr important commission, the days of incoherent statutes, with long Parliamentary pedigrees, are evidently numbered, and laymen will shortly be able to read and comprehend for themselves the laws by which they arc supposed to be governed.