South Canterbury Times, TUESDAY, JULY 27, 1880.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2296, 27 July 1880, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, TUESDAY, JULY 27, 1880.

[t requires no special pleading to show (hat (he Bench and Bar in Now Zealand do not constitute a happy family. Judges and barristers, magistrates and attorneys are not very happily assorted. To use a term, familiar with carpenters and joiners, they do not dove-tail. The pyramid rests on its apex, and it is constantly tumbling over. In many instances (ho relative positions arc ludicrous. The bar, rather than the bench, is master of the situation. This is (he natural result of cheap magistrates, and it is eminently unsatisfactory to the community. It renders justice exceedingly expensive and uncertain. The administrator of the law. whoso decisions arc regulated by weight of legal argument, is a more automaton. Mis judicial docility is a standing menace to poor professionals and their poorer clients. In his court the “learned counsel ” is a veritable life-raft, and (he ease must be a bad one, in which this much favored individual cannot (loal his client over the rapids. The term “Court of Justice” applied to such a tribunal is an evident misnomer. It is neither a court of law nor a court of equity, but it is an exhibition of magisterial imbecility. We arc sorry to say that in this colony of ours, these exhibition sare too numerous.

It is perfectly obvious that cheap magistrates mean dear law. The paltry economy of the Slate-falls like a cat-o’-nine-tails on the backs of clients. It is frequently argued that if an injustice is done, the sufferer has his remedy —he can appeal. But in ninety-nine per cent of the cases decided by popular tribunals, this reined}' would be worse (ban the wrong inflicted. It is a remedy that few clients, however well inclined, can afford to purchase. Moreover, it. is obviously unfair that except in difficult and complicated cases, reference from one tribunal to another should be made desirable or necessary. Judicial decisions to be of real instead of ap-, parent value must possess finality How often do we find it otherwise ! How frequently is equity set aside, and an irreparable wrong inflicted, simply because through an incompetent and too tractable bench, the struggle is one of might against right, and flic

issues depend, partly on the stratagems of counsel, but chiefly on the litigants’ powers of endurance —as measured by the length of their purses ! The maintenance of an incompetent bench involves the infliction of an all round wrong. Society suffers, the bar suffers, and the bench itself suffers through being placed in a false position. What can bo more humiliating—more subversiveof good order and discipline—than the .spectacle of a magistrate tossed about like an artificial Japanese butterfly on the wings of forensic argument ? The position is a most unenviable one. The supposed administrator of the law is tortured into subserviency. He discovers relief from the confusion and chaos of legal authorities and conflicting ,statutes by finally assenting to a flagrant wrong. If be troubles himself with subsequent reflection, and in calmer, cooler moments finds a difficulty'' in reconciling the issues with the evidence, expediency comes to his relief and enables him to compound with his conscience.

» The .slightest consideration will show that the condition of the Bench in this colony is a reproach to our intelligence and .sense of right. Tor every other branch of the Civil Service except the judicial an examination is deemed necessary. The humble teacher, who has to preside over a few lisping village babes, must prove bis efficiency and earn his certificate of competency before he is allowed to enter on his monotonous and poorly-paid duties. The late Civil Service Commission fwhose fustian privileges soared from flour mills to Government departments) complained bitterly of a locomotive inspector having graduated as a carpenter. Yet,although the Bench stands first and foremost in the civil

list, overshadowing in importance every other department of the State, it is the only branch of the public service for which no examination is required. This is surely an anomaly. IVc have no wish to speak disparagingly of the 13enc.li, but wo maintain that it should he above the bar, and not beneath it. A magistrate or judge should owe his appointment to something more than the fact that he is the pet of a minister or ministry. There should be a proscribed standard of competence. We arc quite aware that price and quality go together. To ensure genuine justice, instead of the spurious shoddy article which in New Zealand so often passes for justice, the remuneration must he adequate. At present the payment is insufficient, and (he public have to suffer. For quack justice is a dear article. It may he cheap to the State, but how expensive is it to the community ! Wo do not deny that in Now Zealand there are judges and magistrates who arc an ornament to the position they hold ; whose decisions arc marked by an intimate acquaintance with the law, and that sound good sense —that unerring instinct —which commands respect and assorts its supremacy. Put the efficient is Largely adulterated with the incompetent, and this is prejudicial in the extreme to the bench as an institution. A better paid and carefully selected bench would give the colony cheaper and better justice than is now ail'ordcd. If the Government instead of weeding out the police, whoso numerical strength is not at all 100 great, would devote some attention to the revision and improvement of the magisterial roll, they would confer a lasting service on the colony.

A ha id has been commenced on (ho un certificated scSioolmast er. The edict has gone forth and his doom is sealed. There is no room fur sentiment ; the public school must not be a refuge image and indigence ; the teacher and his family may suffer, but the children must not. The old provincial brooms have swept their sweep, and in turn they must be swept out of the way. They may be useful servants and diligent drudges, but past services cannot be taken into consideration. They may have wives and families or dependent relatives, but the ease-hardened department has no room for sympathy. Bor those who are to-) old or delicate for hard work, there is (hesoup-kitchen, the hospital, or the gaol. This may seem hard on the teacher, but we are told it is for the benefit of the .♦ltiMren. It is for the benefit of the latter that they are crow ded promiscuously in huge education mills, and crammed like Christinas geese with indigestible studies. In a similar way it is for (heir benefit that long experience and (ho practical acquaintance which it begets, should be thrust, aside in order to make, room for the thinly veneered showy article with its certificate. There appears to us to ho something peculiarly heartless, decidedly disreputable, and on the whole excessively stupid, in (his raid upon uncertitieated teachers, We have no sympathy with incompetence in any shape or form, but we hold (hat a raid of this kind should not be indiscriminate. A school should not bo a temporary refuge for ignorance and adversity ; but it is not tlio ignorant or inetlieieut who are likely to suffer. The teacher who is threatened is the old provincial schoolmaster, who is thoroughly up in all the rudiments of a sound Lnglish education, although not a proficient in the modern science of cramming, and consequently unable to obtain his certificate. In weeding out these teachers it occurs to us that the department is not only doing an individual wrong to men who by long connection with a particular avocation have incapacitated themselves for other kinds of work, but it is pursuing a. course that will probably a bc prejudicial to the cause of education itself. Is it desirable that the old wheat should be east aside to make room for the new chaff? Let it not be thought that wo are inclined to make disparaging insinuations in reference to the young school of certificated teachers by comparing them with worthless material. Vfhat wo submit is that many of (ho certificated teachers are raw to their work, and the ripening and mellowing- influence of time will do them no great harm should they be required to await the disappearance by natural process of (heir uiua-rtilieated !mt far mure experienced predecessors. This grubbing out of ftio good old stuck from our country schools is ruthless and heartless, and we trust the education Department wi'l ro-eonsidcr the mailer. The school teacher lias a vested right in his occupation, and, certificated or not, he cannot in justice bo deprived of bis living without compensation. We cmild understand tiie conduct of the department if it followed the example of some of the other colonies in dealing with public servants, and while insisting on examinations in future, granted certificates to present occupants on the ground of their practical knowledge and experience. But this cruel and heartless method of turning old servants out of their groove, and leaving them without the least compensation, handicapped by a calling of no further use to them, like fish out of water, is something that we cannot understand —something that resembles a tyrannous abuse of power, which is neither in accordance with expediency nor the dictates of humanity, and which if prescribed at all should be applied experimentally to the inventors of the process. InspcclorGeneral Ha bens, digging potatoes for a living, would be a less demoralising spectacle than (hat of an old teacher, whose only fault is (he want: of a certificate, who has never deserted school, congregation, or pulpit, being ejected from his only means of earning a livelihood.