THE WEEK, THE WORLD, AND WELLINGTON.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9068, 18 April 1908, Page 6

THE WEEK, THE WORLD, AND WELLINGTON.

(By Frank Morton.)

Things seem on the whole to be moving a little more briskly at tl.e capital than they did a week ago. Interest in the Mayoral election has heightened, though open recriminations have been somewhat fewer. Judging by what one can see, I still think that" Mr Aitken will beat Mr Hislop; and I'm still glad. But it ia mit at all easy to estimate the probabilities with precision. There is, for instance, the big no-license vote. In the case of a parliamentary election, this would go pretty solidly for Mr Aitken. But in the case of a mayoral election the prohibitionists' vote is independent; they do not regard no-license as an issue. In short, there are many of them who, because of Mr Aitken's opinions in the matter of no-license, are perfectly content that he shall sit in Parliament; but who will not vote for him as Mayor. The more you think that over, the quainter it will seem. They judge a mayor on his general merits, but a legislator by his particular opinion in one matter which is allowed to ''warf and overweigh everything else. For myself, I should be glad if localoption were a matter left entirely to the municipalities; if only in order that Parliament might be able to give all its attention to the general government of the country. A man, you s e, may be a stubborn prohibitionist, and still be an utterly foolish legislator; just as a man may be an excellent legislator, a.lthough utterly opposed to the no-license methods and idea. Men who have to make laws should be judged and selected solely on consideration of their ability as lawmakers. I like to sift these matters and examine them. I hold that the journalist is, or should be, the true critic of life: this insistent, various life of everybody, everyday. Ho should be what a great critic has called, in a great phrase, a dissociator of ideas. When peoplu habitually and harmfully connect things in their nature and essences dissimilar, it is his part to cut the connection and let in the light. It is his to drag ideas and motives and their results from the dust of the hurly-burly, and to set them up in the open where the folks may judge of their qualities and estimate their worth. If he does his work well and honestly, he will help on the race, and incidentally let the sun into many shameful guarded places. This by way of introducing my opinion, which is merely my opinion, that when an idea becomes an obsession it is in a fair way to become a disease. "To make our idea of morality centre on forbidden ' acts," says R. L. S., "is to defile the imagination and to introduce into our judgments of our fellow-men a secret element of gusto." There are thousands of excellent people in New Zealand who are so preoccupied by thoughts ci excess and abstention in one kind that the world roally holds nothing else for them. And this, think, is not good: not good for the excellent people, and not good foi the rest of us. JUDGES AND JURIES. I have known juries do extraordinary things in Australasia; but here a<?ain America makes a record. Ir New York a jury that differed recently decided its verdict by the spin of a coin. The judge discovered this, fined the jurymen ten pounds each, censured them severely, and ordered a new trial. This, if you please, was a very dreadful jury. The thing for U3 to consider is whether some Australasian juries are much better. l v have known cases, many cases, in which the obstinacy of a small minority in the juryroom has turned the scale and reversed the verdict. I have known, and you have known, many cases in which the verdict of the jury was not by any means the proper verdict. The average jury, in short, is almost as stupid as the average policeman, .and almost as dull as the average judge. If I ever went into Parliament, I should try hard to pass a Bill to Protect Juries against Judges. The jury, you understand, "has to decide on points of fact. What happens? The evidence is given, arid the jury gradually gets a sort of idea of what the case is about. Then there arc speeches of counsel, which, when the counsel are able men, help enormously to fog the issue. And finally comes the Judge. He refers to his notes, which are always invariably confused; and in the blurred light of his notes he ravievvs the evidence. If he stopped at that, the jury wouldn't be baffled to any great extent. But he doesn't stop at that. As he reviews the evidence, he twists it topsy-turvey and turns it inside-out. He smothers it with blind assumptions and vain hypotheses. He has a sort of personal picnic now and then, climbing to a pedestal while ho utters moral sentiments that have positively no bearirg on any question of fact at all. This terrible modern growth of moral sentiment in colonir.l judges is becoming one of the problems of the time. A jury is expected to give an exact and unbiassed verdict on matters of fact, quite apart from any or all consideration of sentiment. A judge is expected soberly and scrupulously to declare and administer the law. It was never intended that a judge should be a perfervid homiliat and confuser of juries. He has simply no justification at all for usurping the functions of a theologian or a priest. The great judges of the old world are content to be judges, and nothing more. The Gummings -up of Sir Henry Hawkins (to give him still the name by which he is best remembered) were admirable in brevity, in lucidity, in .simplicity, and they were •dispassionate and impersonal. I'm perfectly certain that the Bill I should introduce if ever I sat in Parliament is urgently required.