JUSTICES OF THE PEACE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10213, 15 April 1911, Page 4

JUSTICES OF THE PEACE.

It would be interesting to know exactly upon what principle appointments are made in New Zealand to the Commission of the Peace. The power of estreating the liberty of their fellows should, in all righteousness, be" entrusted to men of a judicial mind, of integrity, and of some standing in a- community. But the "rigbte«nsncss which exarteth a na-

tion" would seem to be a negligible quantity in this Dominion. An examination of the list of recent appointees to the Commission of the Peace reveals a lamentable lack of appreciation of the true principles of equity and justice. With few exceptions, the men appointed are creatures of the party in power. Half of them have not the saving virtue of average intelligence, whilst a great many have done absolutely nothing in either public or private life to justify their preferment. The system under which Justices of the Peace are appointed is absolutely wrong. It has : nothing to recommend it save the opportunity it affords for offering a cheap reward to jx>litical hangers-on. So long as this, is so, the name of "Justice" cannot be held in other tlian disrepute. The time is coming when Magistrates without stipend will require to pass some sort of an examination, and be nominated by Judges instead of by memlbers of Parliament.