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Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21714, 22 February 1936, Page 14

"The law is always common sense," said Mr Justice Blair at Palmerston North when advising a jury concerning aiding and abetting in crime. "It is surprising how much it is ordinary, everyday common sense." Everyone who took part in a crime was as guilty as the principal. Even if a blacksmith put a point on a jemmy for a man who said he was going to use it to break into a house, and did so a week later, the blacksmith would be guilty with him. However, after an accused person has been found guilty, judges, who were "supposed to have a bit of common sense," could make a distinction. Nevertheless, any person who took any part in a crime contracted a liability, "guilty or not guilty," and the law made no distinctions. In the Orkney Islands there was hardly a trace of the widespread poverty, said Dr. J. Pottinger at Invercargill. Unemployment was virtually unknown and the result was a contented community. By their isolation from the rest of Scotland and Great Britain the Orkneys had scarcely been touched by the competitive spirit of industrialism, and had remained largely co-operative. They had been saved by being just outside the circumference of the industrial world, near enough to know about it, but too far off to be drawn into it. Perhaps this was tne only -way in which any community could achieve a. partial salvation to-day and liye a desirable life, surrounded by an industrial world.