HALLINEN AND ANDERSEN.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3081, 31 December 1908, Page 4

HALLINEN AND ANDERSEN.

There are always newspapers and individuals in the community who can be relied upon to advocate the payment of large sums as compensation by the State to individuals on various pretexts so long as they themselves are not direct contributors, remarks the "New Zealand Times." The agitation which is being fermented in connection with the Hallinen and Andersen trial is a case in point. We do not propose to discuss the merits of this prosecution, but we say that the Administration would not be justified in handing over a large sum of money to the one man and to the relatives of the other who has since unfortunately died, without a formal application to Parliament and the fullest inquiry into the circumstances. This is not a matter which should be determined upon the representations of special pleaders, nut upon the equities after Parliament has satisfied itself that the Crown authorities have been remiss and that an intolerable injustice

has been inflicted upon innocent persons. Of course, if through the negligence or carelessness or prejudicial action of the police, or the wrongful action of the judicial tribunal, an injury has been inflicted upon these men, substantial compensation is justly due, but it would be a wrongful usurpation of the prerogatives of administration if, at the instance of an irresponsible section o± the community, Cabinet, without consulting Parliament, were to decide upon a course of action which might subsequently be found not only to have established a qusstionable precedent, but to lack justification in other respects.