THE MEIKLE COMMISSION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8099, 2 May 1906, Page 2

THE MEIKLE COMMISSION.

FEB PBESS ASSOCIATION. Dunbdin, May 1, The Meikle Commission opened this morning before Judges Edwards and Cooper. Mr A, R, Atkinson, Wellington, appeared for Mr Meikle, and Dr. Findlay for the Crown. At the request of counsel it was agreed to rise daily at t o'clock. Mr Atkinson then addressed the Court at some length. If, he said, Mr Meikle was shown to have been rightly convictod lie ought to be sent back to gaol as a determined and persistent scousdrel; if, on the other hand, he had been wrongly convicted on the evidence of a perjured witness, and Mr Meiklo's innocence was- established, neither the Commission nor the Government, nor Parliament, would have have much inclination to haggle over the terms of redress to which the man was entitled. The Commission, sitting in 1906, was asked to decide whether the man was rightly convicted in 1887. That was the main question, but thero wore other questions. If Meikle was not a sheopstealer, and if, as he contended, >fie was not merely wrongly convicted but innocent, then he was as grossly wronged a man as he could be. His fate had been worse than that of a murderer. He had bocn unjustly robbed of his liberty, reputation and practically everything that made life worth living. He had succeeded in securing the conviction of the chief witness against him, for perjury, and as yet ho had been permitted to go on for eleven years with his great wrongs unredressed. Counsel thon went on to review the evidence given at the hearing of the charge against Meikle, and commented on it, and he then referred to the difficulties encountered by Meikle on his release from prison in working up the ease against Lambert for perjury. Counsel had not concluded his addross when the Commission adjourned.