ABOLITION OF THE DISTRICT COURT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3205, 3 June 1909, Page 5

ABOLITION OF THE DISTRICT COURT.

1 A SENTIMENTAL REVIEW. WHAT THE PUBLIC WILL MISS. "There is no doubt that if the District Court goes out and no substantial Court of equal or greater jurisdiction is established, Masterton will suffers distinct loss," remarked an old Masterton resident to a Wairarapa Age reporter yesterday. "The District Court, as I remember it this twenty years, has been an nstitution the utility of which to Masterton and a wide district has never been disputed. Therefore it comes as a great surprise to me to hear that the Government seriously contemplates abolishing it without providing an equally efficacious tribunal. "I have made it somewhat of a custom with myself to attend the District Court wh'en any cases of unusual interest have been before it. There are, in my opinion, few places other than a Court where a better insight can be had into human nature, and * a better grasp obtained of many' interesting features of commercial and sometimes social happenings, or where an hour or two of a general enlightening nature can be more profitably spent. We have comedy and tragedy, and the intermediate performances, and when learned counsel are not humorous, the Judge perhaps maybe, and the witnesses very frequently of course are. To me, as a layman, the loss of the Court will be mostly a sentimental one, but it will be keen nevertheless. We have seen some fairly exciting battles in the way of litigation in Masterton when the District Court has been in session, and in the past Masterton has listened with intense interest to the scholarly pleading, the critical and clever cross-examinations, and powerful addresses of such now distinguished advocates as Messrs Jellicoe, Skerrett and men of equal standing, and more latterly to the brilliant advocacy of such men as the well-known Mr Wilford, of Wellington. Then in our local law professional ranks we have—l have heard authoritative persons state —advocates wJho would

be a credit to any Court in New Zealand, and I have heard the Judges repeatedly congratulate one or other of them. In a recent case, when Mr Pownall was matched against Mr Wilford, the legal duel was a genuine treat, and provided a crowded Court with splendid entertainment, though quite devoid of those artificial devices which make only for a cheap, though popular Court entertainment. Mr Hollings