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Westport Times, Volume IV, Issue 706, 3 September 1870, Page 2

Dr Giles proceeded to Greymouth yesterday, for the purpose of attending a conference of Wardens to be held shortly at Cobden. If the conference will have the eiFect of rendering the Goldiields law as certain as it can be made, or at least more certain than it is at present, a great boon will be conferred upon the community. \V e want to know, as nearly as possible, which of our lawsuits are good and which bad before spending money on them,and the judgments of Goldfieids' Wardens, so long as they are antagonistic on iuanv points, render it impossible for counsel to decide with any degree of confidence whether the client's case is good or bad. There is nothing to guide the Wardens iu the past decisions, and although the Court may profess to decide on some ground of past precedent, very often, and of necessity in such circumstances, this is nothing but profession. In such cases, without any guide in past decisions, one Warden may rely on a fancied analogy and another on another, and, consequently, in so many cases it is but a " solemn toss up" bow tho decision will go. Judicial legislation would be tolerable if it were declared on solid principles, which could with tolerable confidence be predicted beforehand, but this cannot bo where cases are arbitrarily decided, and when the various Courts are really making new law, but are not making it on any definite and substantial principle.