THE UNWRITTEN LAW.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 61, 26 October 1907, Page 2

THE UNWRITTEN LAW.

AUSTRALIAN COMMENT ON THE OPUNAKE CASE. Dealing in an editorial with the Opunake lynching case, the Sydney Morning Herald says tile story opens up an interesting question. "The facts are simple; but the same can hardly he said of the issues involved The law as iyc know it, with all its defects of administration, represents the wisdom and practical experience of the ages as they have been brought to hear on the organisation of society. Its first aim is to take the dealing out of justice from the hands of the individual and renut (o to society as a whole, and civilisation holds itself together by its tacit consent and obedience to this arrangement. There may be some points which the law does- not adequately cover but it is law, and we cannot get away from it except by amendment. 'But however much we may condemn this patent defect in our legislation, the major question which lies beyond it cannot be ignored. In the natural order of things the aggrieved perM™" «w W into his own hands, ,but that is altogether contrary to the order and well-being of society, in the New Zealand case not only did he public sentiment of the township of Opunake defy this axiomatic fact, but it was sustained by the grand iury sworn to deliver a bill against theM? sons guilty of this breach of law The firaml ~ury throw out iho hill, and by >a„- act sanctioned the application of e imwnten law in cases of this pain ul character. We have to go to the flo iitthrag at its worst and best. Th"e [ "nee in the Thaw case rests on the , I'ght of the individual to exact nerbovV'ire n8 „ e ,r" to tiic <ieath iimit *• a dot e the ordinary processes of law On natural and rudimentary ground -ere ,s something to be saidfo/t Bu 1b danger is that it would open the «ay foranv person with even an imagmaiy grievance to take the law into his . mvn 1! " 1 ;' s - A very little of that, and ( Ave should soon have the conditions of primitive savagery back again, with the f revolver and the bowie-knife as the arr bitrators between man and man, and i Judge Lynch displacing the Assizes"