The Daily News SATURDAY, MAY 18. CURRENT COMMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 59, 18 May 1907, Page 2

The Daily News SATURDAY, MAY 18. CURRENT COMMENT.

In these enlightened days when from the Bench one is treated to little hoini- ] lies on the advisability of giving the erring person a chance, it is startling to lie faced with a problem such as was presented to the Supreme Court at Gisbovne the other day. A man accused of sheep-stealing iiad been imprisoned for eight months awaiting a trial. In law that man was innocent up to the time that the Judge of the Supreme Court found him guilty, so that—in law—an innocent man had been wrongfully imprisoned for eight mouths. The man was not. in fact, innocent, but it is quite possible for an entire!,' innocent person under the ridiculous obtaining in .New Zealand 10 have- undergone a similar period of ioi-)..s jiiment. Everybody knows that the judges of the Supreme Court of New /.-.Uand are worse paid and do more vivrk per judge than the judges of any ;iher part of the Empire. This is a statement that may be proved by any person who desires to prove it. •lust because of this press of work, and iiifrequency of judges' visits to various towns, cruel injustice may be done to innocent persons. It is indeed high time that this barbarous method of administering injustice stopped. Supposing the Gisborne man had been in fact innocent. Does anyone suppose that any compensation that might be made to him would pay him for eight months herding with unfortunates and maybe confirmed criminals? Does one suppose that the incarceration of an innocent man would not embitter him and possibly start him on a career of sinning? It would not matter to any British country what it costs to fairly and impartially administer the law. The blackening of a man's character is the worst thing one can do for him, and in the. present state of the law it has been proved possible to utterly ruin an innocent person.

Many other grievances against the methods of tiie Courts might be aired. A grand jury which undertakes a particularly onerous tasked is called "grand," presumably because it has to use its best faculties without pay. The anomaly of paying a common juror and not paying his supposed superior is a strange one. Common jurors are not exactly well treated. Anyone who has undertaken the enforced duty of considering the alleged sins of his fellow man will bear us out when we say that the average juryman puts much earnestness into his work. The method of keeping him cooling his heels in the precincts of the Court for days at a stretch even when he is not wanted is a survival of a barbarous custom that should not be tolerated. Most jurymen in New Zealand are men that have to earn their living. Every juryman should he paid his day's wages for each day he is summoned whether he sits or not. The present system actually robs him of his day's wages and is likely cuoTtgh to lose hiin his billet. Employers cannot suspend their operations even for a Supreme Court, Equal injustice is done to witnesses and the injustice is genrally the fault of the lawyers, who are not ready *o go on with a case or who desire ad jourmnents for private racsons. Casea that cannot be proceeded with at the time set down for hearing ought, to be struck out. This is impossible in criminal cases, we know, but the fining of lawyers who dally would improve things considerably. Many a man's liberty has been hung in the balance while a lawyer amused himself away from Court. We protest against making a Courthouse the glomiest building in the town. It is almost invariably. The effect is in the last degree depressing to all concerned. It is liable to affect the liver of His Honor or His Worship and an attack of Hie liver might mean hanging for somebody, "bet there be light," is a good motto for administrators of justice. None of the Supreme Court buildings of New Zealand would know what had happening to them if they were fitted with six times the number of windows they now possess. There was in not very remote times a British window tax. Anybody wdio possessed more than the maximum of windows by this asinine law was taxed for each excess window. How heavy the tax was may be guaged by the fact that there are still in England thousands of "blind'' windows, the original ones being built up to evade the tax. The Government 'appears to believe that this law has not been repealed, and to act accordingly. Every hall of justice needs light, and the methods of our Courts need light, too. We have outlived the time of Henry VII I.

The British people are in the habit if assuming that we have many moral virtues other people do not possess. We regard Frauee as too "gay," and when we go to France we see all that is "gayest" in order that we might go home and say how very wicked France is. The birth problem in France is so acute that the State now takes every possible precaution to give young Jean a chance. Britain is apparently not so much concerned with the birth problem. 'The Old Country gets a very large proportion of adult foreigners and presumably cares for them more than for the potential British citizen. Touching this important question, we have taken at random one small weeky illustrated London papc. Is reading matter is apparently respectable. It is published by one of the greatest houses in London. It has an immense circulation, although it do-s not deserve it. Ou two small advertisement pages we find some dozens of advertisements all having (he same purport Here arc some of llieiii:-'-Siiiital Midy. Cures in -18 hours," "Rubber Goods," "Every man suffering from, etc.," "Rubber Goods, best and cheapest," "Boon lo weak men, etc.,'' "Ladies, my improve.l remedies,''' "Married ladies," etc." "Wife's Handbook—together with rubber goods," "Weak men, etc.," "Dr Vigoroids," "JJr Colden Seeds," etc. Ami lino-.; arc others siekeiiingly reiterating. As we say, the paper is highly respectable, and the English are a moral nation wlu hate the immorality of France. There are dozens of '■respectable - ' papers in Britain whose pages are full of similar advertisements.

An echo of the past comes to us in the shape of a news item which asserts tln i , officers of the New Zealand regiments that served in the Afrcan war have not received all their pay. It will be noticed that the general officer who commanded the Afrikander army —General liotha -is now drawing .£4OOO a year British money, and the new Transvaal Premier will probably have no tlifliculty in getting bis salary. The War Office at Home and its minor circumlocution departments in the colonics are not rapid. A man may be dead of starvation before cither remembers it owes him anything. But there is aiiotlcr side to the picture. So badly were the books kept when the war was in progress, that scores of New Zealand soldiers got a great deal more money than they were entitled to. 'The extraordinary department that has its sleeping quarters in a big metropolitan barracks wrote to'each man whom it thought it might have overpaid and demanded a refund of any sum it happened to think of.

There is no record of any men returning money that Jniglit have been lost by the foolish lack-'of book-keeping skill. It is not only ofocrs of New Zealand regiments who are owed arrears of pay. Many men of the rank and file-are still pining foiv a tardy settlement. It is with the greatest difficulty that pensioners of the African war get the money to be brought from L'vcry part of New Zealand yearly to be examined by tiu Defence doctors who have power to st >■> pensions' if it is found that men have recovered; a little. On the other hand colonials .-who were granted Imperial pensions receive their money regularly and without any red-tape.