OUR LAWS AND HOW THEY ARE MADE.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 222, 25 June 1872, Page 3

OUR LAWS AND HOW THEY ARE MADE.

Tim above was the title of the third of the seiies of the winter-evening- lectures now being delivered under the auspices of the Young Men's Christian Association. The lecturer was his Honor, the .Superintendent, Mr T. 13. Gillies, and the lecture was delivered in the large room of the Associafion, on June 21st. The room was crowded. The iiev.E. N. Bree, the president of the Association, occupied the chair. After prayer was .engaged in by tiie chairman, he delivered a few introductory remarks. ILis Honor, in comingforward, was received with applause by the audience, and after a f ;w introductory remarks, said that New Zealand was a great country for Jaws, for during the last 10 years over 9tlo laws had been framed and passed, ami all these Judges were supposed to understand, the lawyers to make themselves acquainted with, and the settlers lo obey. If they bait the moans to carry out “ the boiling down" process with these laws it would be a bene lit to the colony, but if that process were adopted and carried out be was afraid the residuum would be small. Tin; 000 laws he referred to did not include the Acts passed by the old Legislative Assembly, nor the laws passed by the various Provincial (Jouuc’Js, City Boauls, and other local legislating bodies, hut the laws passed by the Government of the country. They would therefore see that they had been very laborious with legislating for the colony. In Biilaiu with her 32,000,000 inhabitants, there were only some 3200 laws in all, so that tho proportion oi laws for New Zealand with its quarter of a million of colo nsts was out of all propoition to the laws of Brit«ru. Of the New Zealand laws there were about 700 of them amendments to existing legislation. It was against this incessant patching and tinkering- of the laws ho spoke strongest. It was most trying to the Judges, and irritating to the lawyers to bo always searching out when new Acts interfered with past ones. It would bo far belter if their Legislature were to pass fewer laws than to be continually patching at them. A large number of them, moreover, were not colonial in their scope. lie recommended that local matters should be dealt with as local matters, and not as at present. A great number of their laws were made to depend upon the will of the Governor ortho Governor in Council. This was an unfair way of legislating, and, as the Governor in Council meant the will of the Ministry of the day, it placed too much discretionary power in their hands. Instead of acting in such a manner he thought it would bo far better to pass only Acts which had been carefully considered, and found needed. Many of of those laws which had been passed were not obeyed, and were dead letters. The financial Acts, and by that he meant all those Acts which touched directly the public ‘.'purse, were the only ones that were fully carried out. He never heard of an Appropriation Act that made an appropriation of the public funds, but what was faithfully carried out, and every penny appropriated spent. He also spoke of the land lcg’slation, and held that the legislation of the colony respecting the public lands was a disgrace to us. Those laws were very numerous in themselves, and some of them were of a most extraordinary character. There were separate land laws for each province, as well as special legislation in this respect for waste land. For this province there were three kinds of laws in existence. There were the Waste Lands Act, the Natives Land Act, and there were the orders in Council which regulated tire sale and disposal of the confiscated lands. These lands were procured out of what was generally known as the lands which had been got out of the expenditure of the .-£3,000,000 loan. These last-named lands were dearly, bought; they had been obtained by the destruction of many a homestead, and the blood of man}* of our best colonists. All this separate tinkering about the waste lands of the colony was most destructive to the truest colonial interests ; and, until the colony resumed the control and management of the colonial estate, the notion of ever obtaining a united and independent colony was absurd, and to entertain the belief . that the colonv would be prosperous without this was a delusion and a snare. From the discussion of the land legislation he proceeded to discuss die food laws, and passed a good many jocular remarks about oysters, which produced no small amount of pleasantry. He next referred to the

legislation which lias been made fo- the native race. Until lately theie had been quite a mania for legislating for them. He was not in favor of this special legislation, and thoughtful men, both North and South, were now against this special legislation for the native race. The same laws should be for them as are for tl*o Europeans. Teaching them a manly independence, and showing them a fair and impartial equality so far as the laws were concerned, would arouse in them the deepest springs of human action. By adopting with them the good old golden rule—the Christian rule of doing unto others as we would wish to be done by —wo should have no more need of fighting, and could at once dispense with the costly Native Department. He then referred to the commercial legislation. There was little to approve of in this matter. Their tariff has been restrictive

instead of being favourable to the development of commerce. The Bankruptcy laws were a blot to their legislation. Those Acts came into existence in 18(>2, and the way the present law has been administered it has been rendered the very gates of Paradise to the dishonest tradesman. So much had tin’s become the case of late that there were but few commercial men who would not wioh to see these laws taken away from them, and nothingleft in their place. The class of laws which he termed our social legislation was next referred to. They embraced the Contagious Diseases Act, the Vagrant Act, &e. In this respect their legislation had been a progressive one, but it did not show much capacity for such legislation. Their laws relating to justice could not be worse composed than they were. Those laws were intended to make the administration of the law reasonable in cost, and

to make the resort to legal tribunals easy. Such had been ilie ease in ways oftentimes md desirable, as instanced in grogselling eases at Hokiangn, and Molii and Craig, and others of the same class. They were in such a state that he would not attempt to describe them. lie then referred to the way in which many Judges ought to carry out the spirit of the laws, as well as the verbiage of them, and not try to find legal Haws in them, and then declare them ultra vires. He could not help expressing a hope that it was high time their Judges, both high and low, should lie made to comprehend and endeavour to carry out the spirit of the legislation rather than that they should be the frustralors of that legislation. He next referred to how their laws were made. In dciug so he asked them to look to the personnel of the Legislature. If they required any carpentry work done about their promises they did not send for a shoemaker to do it. When any member of their family fell sick, they did not send for a mere hone-seller to put that one to rights, hut a physician, unless th y had sufficient faith in homoeopathy, and then a homoeopathic dose might cure them. In selecting representatives for the General Assembly they'did not generally look out for educated men to represent them, but for the wealthy. The fault was their own. Look at the members of the General Assembly, and they would see that there was not a sufficient number of men with trained intellects to deal with legislation. The Legislature of New Zealand would be much improved by more of the legal element in it. There were only six members in the House who had received a legal

trainin'! - . In the Mouse of Commons lie found liierc were 120 members so qualified for their legislative duties—nearly one-fil’th of the whole. He did not say that the whole of those 120 had practised the law as a profession, hut they had studied it, and the House had the benefit of their legal training. There was no training like that for fitting a man to take his proper sphere in life, whether that life was that of a merchant, a settler, or a legislator. Another thing made legislation void of eifect, and that was the ignorance of the legislators of the matter or district on whom they professed to legislate. How few of the Auckland members have even seen Otago, and fewer still bad been in Westland. But, to bring the matter nearer home, how few of them had ever been at Poverty Bay, how few of them had seen Mangonui, not to speak of Barengarenga. Even Tauranga and the Waikato were districts unknown to some of them. This was one of the greatest causes for their had legislation. Again there were hut few men in the Assembly who would devote a portion of their time to figures. Unless this was done, they could not expect efficient government. Sound finance was at the bottom of a sound state of their affairs. Respecting the origin of their laws much could he said. Some of the laws were brought in by the Government, and were called Cabinet measures. The majority of those Government measures were not of an important character. He showed how some of the measures appeared to be merely brought in for the purpose of producing debate amongst the members, while more important measures were being quietly

passed into law. They were thrown at the members like a bone at a watch-dog. He explained the bringing into the House of private hills, and the various dodges adopted to get them to become law. The process of making amendments in passing bills through the committee of the House was explained and generally condemned. After referring to the ability’ of the legislators to interpret their own laws, he expressed a hope that educated men would be sent to the Assembly—men who had a greater interest for their country than a love for their personal gain. Al the close of the lecture lie was warmly applauded. —A vote of thanks was passed on the motion of tbe Rev. Wallow Davies, and in replying to it Mr Gillies repudiated the statement that he was about to he elevated to the Bench. lie thought the rumour was the work of the enemy. The mcetwas closed by pronouncing the Benediction.