LAW MAKING.

Tuapeka Times, Volume V, Issue 234, 25 July 1872, Page 5

LAW MAKING.

Mr T. B. Gillies, the Superintendent of Auckland, recently delivered a lecture before the Young Men's Christian Association at Auckland, upon " Our laws : and how they are made, in the course of which he made the following remarks upon the land laws of the Colony : — "Our land legislation is, perhaps, the greatest disgrace to us of any portion of our statute-book. Our land legislation makes a tolerably large statute-book of itself, and of the most extraordinary character. Not only are tbere separate land laws for each of the provinces, but for some of them — such as our own — there are three land laws. There is the Waste Land Act, or rather Ac' », which regulate the sale, disposal, and occupation of the Provincial estate, as it is called — that is, the Colonial estate committed to our administration. Then there are the Native Land Acts, which regulate the acquisition of native lands — a very intricate operation, as many have found to their cost. And then there are the < rders in Council, which regulate the sale, disposal, and occupation of the confiscated lands— those lands which have been acquired, as the South will tell you, by the expenditure of the three million loan, but which we can tell, have been acquired by the ruin of many a flourishing homestead and the blood of some of our best settlers. With such a chaos of land lands, how can we — I mean the Colony — hope to attract the settlers whom most we need— the men who come to attach themselves to the soil, and make homes for their children ? Until the Colony resumes the coloniil estate, and enacts one uniform land law, and that a liberal one, for the Col< ny, the notion of a united Colony is a sham, and the hope of a successful colonial colonization a delusion and a snare."

In an art : cle commenting on the lee' lire, the Herald remarks :— Mr Gillies, wo see, proposes as a remedy against the prese-it mania for making laws, that no amendment shall be considered in committee which has not previously been submitted to the member in charge of the bill, and placed on the order paper of the House, aid that the member in charge be called upon to say whether he agrees or disagrees to the amendment proposed. Thus the onus of any blunder would be thrown upon the member in charge of the bill ; or, in the case of a Government measure, on the Government itself. It appe .rs .to us, however, that thn plan would ratier fix responsibility than actually provide a remedy. No doubt it would lad to, increased care and attention ; but wemig^t, we think, suf ly go a step further, and de-nand that the charge of every bill p-ssipg through committee of the House should be made the care of the Attorney -entra] himself, or, if we are t" have a Minister of Justice, to that functionary's department. Amendments treated as Mr (•( • illics suggests, could be framed by such officer in workable language, and, if inconsistent with other portions of the Bill, reported as such, the report containing suggestions how the spirit of the amendment might still be retained so as to harmonise with the whole Act, or, where desirable, the Act itself be altered to harmonise with the amendment. In this caae we should not only fix responsibility, but provide the necessary legal acumen, the want of which on the part of laymen tinker* ing with a measure, clause by clause, renders more than a qnarter of our laws passed unworkable without amendment.