NELSON SUPREME COURT.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 475, 9 March 1869, Page 2

NELSON SUPREME COURT.

A criminal sitting of the Supreme Court was held at Nelson last week. There were no cases from this part of the Province. Roger Pope, for maliciously wounding Arthur Kerr, with an adze, at Havelock, was sentenced to two years' hard lahor at Picton. Thomas Brown, charged wich housebreaking at "Waimea-south, was sentenced to a year's hard labor. Eobert Chapman, for embezzlement, was sentenced to three months' hard labor. Samuel Morrison, for stealing a watch and chain at Motueka, received two years', and Jacob Hebberly, for stealing £4O at the Grove, received one years' hard labor. His Honour, in his charge to the Grand Jury, said that no district was in a state of more profound tranquillity than the district of Nelson, where the most perfect security as to person and property prevailed, as much as in any

part of her Majesty's dominions. This offered a marked and painful contrast to the position of settlers in the North Island. When last he addressed the Jury ■on an occasion like the present, he adverted to the state of affairs in the North Island, but he must say that the prospect of things was rather worse now than then, worse now than ever he had seen it. It occurred strongly to his mind, and he had no doubt it would impress itself upon the minds of the gentlemen of the Jury, that provisions of the law for the administration of justice are not applicable to smch a state of things as now exists in some districts, of the North Island. When a country had to do with a savage foe, which respects neither age nor sex, the ordinary criminal law was inadequate to deal with the •occasion. But the power of colonial legislation to deal with a difficulty thus arising had been called in question in the mother country. There was a casebefore the Queen's Bench, arising out of the Jamaica insurrection, in which the validity of the Indemnity Act passed by the Colonial Legislature of Jamaica had been called in question. It was denied that a Colonial Indemnity Act was available in the mother country. This was a cafe which greatly concerned New Zealand. It was a question ef great importance, and one touching the future action of the Supreme Court of the colony. If the news was true that he (the Judge) had heard that morning [respecting the removal of all the British troops from New Zealand], there would be devolved upon this colony the responsibilities of an independent State. We must be allowed to meet the urgent necessities of our position by such measures as we may here deem expedient and just. He could not doubt that English statesmen would see the fairness of such a demand. In the position now assumed towards us by the Mother Country, it was manifestly fair that Imperial legislation should, if necessary, remove all doubt as to the power of the colony to grant indemnity for acts bona fide done under proper authority to suppress insuiTection.