A NOTORIOUS JUDGE.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 December 1920, Page 7

A NOTORIOUS JUDGE.

GOVERNMENT'S OF CONFIDENCE. Judge Etfing. of Ta.suii.nJa. whose report as Royal Commissioner in regard to the Northern Territory was repudnted by Si'tuuor Milieu, speaiung for thy Government in the Feder-il Senat\ and whose observations on Dr. Gilruth and other officials shocked Australia, and whos-. 1 later action in recommending the release of the I.W.W. prisoners in Sydney raised a storm of indignation in New South Wales, has again made himself notorious. Says the Melbourne Argus of the 7th instant: —

Within a week a Tasmanian judge, Mr. Justice Ewing, has sentenced a man to imprisonment for seven years, and the Governor-in-Couneil lias "reduced the term to three months. The case was one in which a constable fired at the boat of a supposed poacher, who refused to stop when challenged, "but he accidentally killed the master. The jury found the trooper guilty of manslaughter, but strongly recommended him ,-to mercy. The public, no less than the police force, was shocked by the judge's sentence. In a very few hours the matter was mentioned in Parliament, and a stream of indignant protests .to the Tasmanian Government had set in. But the Cabinet anticipated public opinion, for. acting on a report by the Attorney-General, who, of course, had examined the evidence, it advised the Governor to reduce the sentence. There must be-very few instances in modern times in which a British judge has been so heavily censured. Whether or not Mr. Justice Ewing bows to tlie Government's act of censure and retires the stigma will always be there.