The Wairarapa Daily. MONDAY, JUNE 2, 1884. R.M. COURT FEES.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1700, 2 June 1884, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. MONDAY, JUNE 2, 1884. R.M. COURT FEES.

To-day a new scale of R.M. Court fees comes into force throughout the colon? undor which a further tax is levied on all who hfivo the misfortune to be involved in legal proceedings. Those who have had occasion to sue or be sued in the past will probably remember that the old scale of fees was by no means a low one, and they will view with somo dismay the present increased rates. From one point of view the change may be productive of benefit to the community, The increased cost of litigation will tend materially to diminish the number of cases in our Courts, and it is even possible from this result the Govennment, instead of deriving an increased revenue, from their new scale, will find that by overshooting the mark they have defeated the object which they had in contemplation. Prom another point of view the alteration is very undesirable, It is evident that if the cost of obtaining justice is excossive only comparatively wealthy men can afford to go to law. The new scale, in fact, cuts the ground from beneath, the feet of a poor man who desires to recover a small debt. He simply under the enhanced rates can not afford the fee. We lancy the Department of Justice must want a thorough overhauling! It does a largo business and receives vory large sums intho way of fees and fines, at the samo time it frequently pays very inadequate salaries to its officers. In the • Wairarapa and in Wellington for example, the receipts must exceed the expenses, and we must, thercforo, assume that in many other districts of the colony the reverse is the case, In this district we pay dearly for our whistle, in tho shape of a section of a Resident Magistrate. We are illsewed, and at the same time anyone who may on or after this date take out a summons, will find "that he pays a very high rate for the accommodation he obtains.: We trust when the House meets some notice may be taken I of the recont increase in Court fees. It is clearly a new tax on the public, and the obvious result of it will be to place a .■recourse.: to law outside the means of poor,men. We have confi dence, ourselves, in cheap and speedy justice, but tho tendency of recent changes is evidently in the direction of dear and of delayed justice.