The Daily News MONDAY, MAY 21. COURT SERMONS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8115, 21 May 1906, Page 2

The Daily News MONDAY, MAY 21. COURT SERMONS.

Si'PJtEME Court judges in New Zealand, as in other countries, have an immense influence for good or evil, i They are fallible human beings, although the law assumes their infallibility. There is no doubt that the exceptionally able men holding the positions of Supreme Court judges in New Zealand would pass sleepless nights if their decisions, after being given, appeared to them—in the light of added light—unjust, Judges discriminate between a wrong of equal magnitude, between persons who have committed a wrong, and also according to the person or persons against whom the wrong has been wrought,

| * * * * A few days ago a youth was before the Supreme Court in Wellington on a charge of having stolen a postal note of the value of 15s from an envelope that had not been closed properly. It was his first offence, according to the report in the Wellington papers. He was poorly paid. He did much work It was admitted that he did it well. He was too weak to resist the temptation of stealing. Counsel pleaded the youth of the culprit, extenuating circumstances, and so on, and thought it was a case in which a judge might fairly exercise his powor under the First Offences Act, and admit him to probation. The learned judge then put on his homily cylinder, and launched forth on a long platitude about the fact that the Post Office must be kept unspotted, and all the rest of it. He couldn't admit the prisoner to probation, because the Pos*i Office must be kept inviolate. In short, the accident of being in the Post Office service is the chief reason why the boy shall be utterly damned by being gaoled. If lie had been in private employ, the probabilities are that he would have been dealt with by his employers, If the lad had gone into Court, he would have been given a chance under tho First' Offenders Act. Boing in the Government service, or the one single branch of the Public Service that must be kept inviolate, he gots no consideration.

* * * # And the inviolability of the Post Office! Who is likely to assert that the service is not open to swindles every day swindles most of which do not come under that heading? The betting swindlers use the telegraph. It keeps all their secrets through the mail. It can't help it. Then, a Minister of tho Grown who is drawing a large salary, is he more honest than that wretched .boy, when he charges 80s a day for travelling expenses, or a sum for tipping waiters, or even a sum for buying books and magazines t And in business life, the man who makes a" deal," in principle grossly dishonest, is he sent to gaol for three months ? Does a judge turn the homily tap on him, and talk about the inviolability of commercial life or the sncredness of business ? Not he. He reserves his pent-up sermon for a first offender, and debars him from the operation of an Act intended by the Legislature for people, not per sons.

# w » # We believe, with all our heart, that the Post Oliice should be kept inviolate, but no fair-minded person could possibly believe that the theft of 15s from a letter was a more deadly offence than the theft of 15s worth of urivate property, or that the person who stole from the Post Office was t» be more deeply damned than anyone outside that institution. Whether or not the sentences of judges are ruled by heart or liver is a moot point, but it seems to us that there was more liver than heart about the sentence of gaol for that first offender. The learned judges always say, " Society must be protected." That's probably why a woman gets three months for persistently torturing a child, and the same sentence is meted out to an over-worked boy in the Post Office for a 15s steal.

# * * # Peculiar mental circumstances don't seem to appeal to judges. That boy's mental restraint, his resistance to evil, and bis will are not going to be strengthened by three months in gaol with criminals around him. A case like this, it seems to us, is one of those rare opportunities which judges appear to delight in. They preach to the gallery, and damn the subject of the sermon. Maybe the judges in New Zealand do their best, but if you will take the trouble to enter up the sentences of prisoners brought before the Supreme Court bench in New Zealand for the past few years you will fir.d : (1) That a judge is always most severe when he is in ill-health ; (2) that he is less severe on women who in many child-beating cases have been absolute fiends; (3) that oll'ences in which small amounts have been involved have been dealt with with greater severity than offences in which large amounts have been involved ; (1) that the alleged " respectability " of people has been the sole reason for many light sentences; (5) that judges and magistrates have spoken i constantly of specific cases being] cases for indeterminate sentences and have licensed the poople alleged by them to be worthy of a life in gaol to sin indefinitely, by a.sentence of three or six or nine months.

* * * *■ Beinh expert logicians, the illogical set of j iifJfces and magistrates are extremely liavd to understand by people wlio can't nee the inside of the homily cylinder. If judges talk about keeping the Post Office inviolate, and solemnly condemn a youth for his fust fail, they ought also to talk about every other kind of office, trade, calling, and occupations boinjr inviolate. Also, to be logical, they should show their entire disapproval of the First Offenders Act by refusing its benefits to all juveniles who comr before them. By this means thev would ho enabled to preach beautiful sermons to youth every session ol Court, they will fill the gaols, and most possibly, pave the way for tht youths to qualify for the indetermin ate sentences. On tho whole tlu jury system is to be much prized. I is not unlikely that twelve mei should be simultaneously sufl'erinj from liver, or should be desirous o damning people per solemn homily If the level-headed, strong-brainei judges of New Zealand, who have nic salaries and no temptation to err—a lenst as petty larcenists couli imagine for a moment themselves a work-nished boys vitli poor wages and much to do with them, am could possibly suppose that the themselves under such circumstance might be liable to err ; if they couli see that it is as much a crime to stea fifteen shillings worth of turnip out of a paddock as a fiteen slullin; postal note, and that under the sam circumstances they might take eithe the turnips or the note, then the; might spo that there was either n need for the First Offenders Act,, o that there was need of its apphcatioi to any person, official or unofficial who had erred for the first time.