INJUSTICE IN COURT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 267, 9 April 1914, Page 7

INJUSTICE IN COURT.

(To the Editor.) Sir,—l have been watching to see if any of your numerous readers would be sufficiently interested in your gallant attempts of recent date, to help you to stem the growing tendency of doing injustice in "the name of the law, but so far nothing from the general public has appeared in your columns in support of your contentions, or in commendation of your worthy articles. Allow me, therefore, to take off my hat to yon, and to heartily congratulate you in the nam?of the public for faithfully striving in this- matter to carry out the highest duty that can devolve on a \niblic writer. I am proud to know that we have at hand one public print in Taranaki that is prepared to openly and distinctly differ from either judge or magistrate when what is just and fair is violated in the name of the law, in our courts. Stand fast -by your guns, and flinch not; for in this matter you are doing a great public service. Magistrates and judges are mere men appointed to hiirh positions on behalf of the public, and when they fail to carry out their duties in a just and impartial manner, it instantly becomes the dutv of a public newspaper to hold them up to rebuke and censure. The newspapers in this (as in most other countries) are very lax, anil so fail to guard the riehts of the people. Magistrates and judges can readily become petty tyrants, and our courts become instruments of injustice and oppression. Open -comment a*d fearless criticism are the only weapons we can legitimately use against their encroachments on our just rights. In the case of cadet Sole, the magistrate pandered to a State Department and committed an injustice. That beinp bo, yon were well within your rights in calling "üblic attention to the case; indeed you would have failed in your duty hail you not done so. But there is a fax-, worse case than that in New Plymouth, and we have again to tkank you for bringing it into review. I refer to the cruel and disgraceful sentence imposed! on the unfortunate man Hosking, who received three years' imprisonment and five years' reformative treatment for having made away with £32 belonging to his employers. By this cruel sentence this poor man has been doomed by a court of socalled justice to be dogged and hunted for eight lone years by gaolers and pol-_ icemen, and all because of £32! Anil" barring yourself, no man, woman, or newspaper in all New Zealand hqs hart a word to say against iti! If I remember rightly, Shaw, solicitor, of Timaru, made away with £47,000 of trust money and he too received a sentence of three years. Therefore he received five years less for stealing forty-eeven thousand pounds than poor Hosking did for stealing thirty-two! Arid; allow me to ask, what kind of men and women are we to stand idly by and allow such a piece of gross and glaring injustice to csntiu'ie' at our very doors? That there is one law for the influential and another for the uninduential in our country is as clear as noonday. J call unnn every man and woman in Taranaki, who 'has one spark of 'fair play' in his o rlier composition, to rise and rectify this gross abuse o'f power.—l am, etc., I ,1. 0. TAVIjOH. Waiongona, April' 7. v