LAYMEN AS JUDGES.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18551, 28 November 1925, Page 9

LAYMEN AS JUDGES.

N.S.W. ARBITRATION COURTS. (noil - OUB OTO COBBXSFOKDEHT.) SYDNEY, November 19. The abolition of the Arbitration Court, under the Bill now before the State Legislature, and the substitution for it of an Industrial Commission and conciliation committees will mean, unless work is found for .them elsewhere, the retirement of two judges, who were appointed with the status of District Court Judges, for the' term, it may be stated, of their continued good behaviour or until they reached tho statutory retiring age. Judge Curlewis and Judge Bolin were appointed' as additional Arbitration Court Judges on those conditions. There has been no complaint against them in the exercise of their judical duties, nor havo they reached the retiring age, but it looks as though they are going to be crushed under Labour's wheel. Tho trained judicial mind .works perhaps slowly, an,d in a way which docs not always meet with approval of those who find themselves in the labyrinthic meshes of the law, but it remains to be seen, under the new legislation, the basic ideal of which is tho principle of conciliation, whether untrained laymen are more competent than judges to weigh evidence and reach just decisions. Judge Curlewis is somothing of a picturesque figure in the industrial courts. • A stickler for pure English, he d6es not at times hesitate to reprove those who show a tendency to defile that limpid stream, and his little dissertations in this respect frequently gel more space in the afternoon papers than tho dull treatment of the cases before him. A comparatively youig man, he will, probably not find it difficult to re-establish the lucrative practice which he built up and then renounced, for a seat on the bench, if he is to be swept aside.