South Canterbury Times, TUESDAY, JANUARY 4, 1881.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2432, 4 January 1881, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, TUESDAY, JANUARY 4, 1881.

Accordix<; to latest advices the Boer insurrection, which broke out on an insignificant scale but the other day, is spreading like a conflagration or avalanche all over South Africa. One after another the chief towns of the old Dutch republic have capitulated, and the standard of independence erected by the pilgrim fathers originally seems to be making converts and carrying conquest in every direction. The causes of the revolt are various. There can be no doubt that the old colonists and their families are animated by a deep sense of injustice. The Transvaal, in which they made their homes, from an independent settlement has been converted into a British dependency, for no apparent reason beyond the love of conquest. Colonial maladministration produced the late Zulu war, the same cause excited the struggle now raging between what are called “ the colonial troops,” and the Basutos, and colonial maladministration has induced the Boers to raise the flag of independence. Under the rule of Sir Baltic Frere, and the aggressive policy pursued by the late British Cabinet, the old Dutch colonists wore treated to a sample of the same kind of justice which has been periodically dealt out to the aborigines. The Transvaal was placed under military occupation, and the birthright of the settlers was violently wrested from them. While the Zulu war raged and South Africa was over-run with British soldiers, the settlers of the Transvaal deemed discretion the better part of valour. They yielded to the superior power of the invader with a bad grace, but recent events show

that they were only” subdued, not conquered. What they are now contending' for is the right of local government. The Boers, in this instance, may he termed the Home Rulers of Africa. They have kindled a flame which the introduction of Sepoy troops from India will hardly extinguish. From a strictly British point of view, any concession to these settlers, however gracefully yielded, would indicate a loss of prestige. From a colonist’s point of view, these settlers arc merely demanding restitution for a flagrant wrong, and contending for the common rights of mankind. They may he temporarily suppressed, hut the civilised world will look on in sympathy, and sympathy united with what is right and honest, will eventually carry the day. When the southern slaveholders of America hanged John Brown and his heroic associates, they merely fanned the popular tempest that crushed them. In the same way any attempt to repress by cruel or violent means the efforts of the colonists to regain the liberties and privileges of self-government, is likely to widen and strengthen their cause. A war between mercenary soldiers —Sepoys, for instance and colonists fighting for their homes and their rights, can scarcely be otherwise than one-sided. The brute instincts of hirelings, however well drilled and equipped, arc rarely able to cope with the ardour and enthusiasm of mm who are defending their lives and all besides that makes life worth living for. British rule in various parts of the world has lately been suffering for the sins of the past. The Tory party under Lord Beaconsfield wrought an amount of silent mischief that has involved the present administration in a succession of dilemmas. Their misrule in Ireland, if it did not precipitate a famine, produced a state of distress that has ripened into an almost universal insurrection. Their gratuitous and uncalled for interference with Afghanistan, affairs has cost Great Britain millions of money and thousands of lives, wasted over an inglorious campaign. The Zulu war was another of the same sad but culpable mistakes. The Jingos, in fact, left mines in different parts of the world ready to explode, and the present Cabinet has had to pay the penalty. They have had to undertake the disagreeable and dangerous duty of sweeping up the debris of the merciless fire-eating, reform-obstructing clique, who for years past swayed the destinies of Britain. It is impossible but to sympathise with the Gladstone Cabinet in the various grave dilemmas in which they have been placed. The Eastern Question, hung up in obeyance, has had to he settled, and a vast amount of diplomacy has been the result. The great object of the Government lias been to get out of the difficulties in which the infamous foreign policy of their predecessors had entangled the country. They have had to recede as gracefully as the ignominiousness of the process would allow from Afghanistan. If they only can do it, without severely compromising colonial interests abroad, it is the duty of the Government to repair the outrage done to the old settlers of the Transvaal by pursuing a policy similar to that which lias been pursued in the East. The Boers apparently have right on their side, and they will probably realise the sympathy and succour of the majority of the independent colonists with whom they arc surrounded. If we are not mistaken, the wisest policy that the British Government could at this juncture pursue is a policy of concession. Even at the sacrilice of a little prestige it would be bettor to withdraw from the position of espousing a wrong than to enter into what is likely to become a merciless interniciue war.

so notorious (.hut tlioy have ceased to astonish, and they randy excite adverse comment. Common juries have come to be regarded apparently as necessary evils. Society would he better without them probably,but despite the anathemas of judges and magistrates, it seems impossible to shake them off. The late Judge Fellows rebuked ajur> in a murder case, when, after directing them that they must either find the prisoner guilty of murder or acipiit him, they returned a verdict of manslaughter—by ordering the accused to be detained till the rising of the Court. Judge Molesworlh only the other day told a jury that refused to convict in a criminal case, in spile of the clearest evidence, that they were a disgrace to the country. His Honor Judge Johnstone has a sarcastic way, when an unusually stupid verdict is returned, of laconically observing, “ Very well, gentlemen, that is your verdict,” and quietly entering it. What a singular corollary many of these verdicts must form coming after His Honor's notes ! Yet Supremo Court Judges, who spend their lives in studying the phases of criminal character, and determining the niceties of criminal evidence must put up with these affronts. Can anyone be astonished, that with all the emoluments attached, there is a difficulty sometimes in finding competent and trustworthy: men willing to surrender their judgment by waiting on common juries'? With all the vaunted dignity of the Supremo Bench it has a most humiliating side. The Judge may direct, but the jury has to decide, and the decision need not be in consonance with his Honor’s direction. How often are judges in this way grossly insulted ! The existing process is unfair to Judge, Bar, and public. Incompetent and stupid tribunals are at once a menace to the law-abiding, who are liable to bo falsely' accused, wlulc they offer a direct encouragement to the cunning criminal. It is a notorious fact that the most desperate plagues of society the plausible cut-throat, the accomplished burglar—rest their safety rather with the common jury, than any advocacy from the profession, lienee it is that criminals of the dangerous class, so frequently elect to defend themselves, or, assuming a stolid attitude of wounded innocence throw themselves entirely on the mercy of the cheap henchmen. And thus justice is brought into contempt, till the very name becomes a byword and reproach. An inferior magistracy is bad enough, but the magisterial bench is always liable to be reviewed, while the eccentricities of juries cannot be dealt with. The Imp-hazard dozen mangle the evidence and exercise their tortuous reasoning faculties in strict secrecy, and they arc under no obligation to account for their conclusions. Thus the money spent by the Crown in endeavoring to punish or repress crime is often wasted, and the officers of the law feel themselves at a disadvantage by the prospect of their perserving, ingenious and often risky efforts resulting in the escape of the criminal through this final loop-hole. Something might surely be done to improve or abolish thepresent jury system. If it cannot he improved then it should he swept away altogether, and the full responsibility of dealing with crime should be vested in the administrators of the law. As criminal business is now conducted the pyramid is standing on its apex, and justice cuts a most shocking and inglorious figure, heels upwards.