"HIGH STATUS IN DOMINION"

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22435, 23 June 1938, Page 15

"HIGH STATUS IN DOMINION"

JUSTICES OF PEACE STATEMENT BY MAGISTRATE AT GREYMOUTH [THE PRESS Special Service.] GREYMOUTH, June 22. “I consider it would be a distinct advantage if every member were always to wear the official, gold and enamel badge of the association,” said Mr Raymond Ferner, S.M., in his presidential address at the annual meeting of the West Coast Justices of the Peace Association, held at Greymouth to-day. “Members in other centres,” said Mr Ferner, “wear the badge and are proud to do so. And they may well be proud, for they are members of a body which was instituted as far back as 1327, in the reign of Edward the Third, and which has continued to the present time, and which is destined to be an office of increasing honour and service." The badge in itself, said Mr Ferner, would, when members were travelling, be found to be a kind of “open sesame” and would admit the wearer, in other towns which he might visit, ‘to much fellowship and to many useful and pleasurable contacts. "I wish to make a brief mention,” said Mr Ferner, “to the place our association holds in the life of this community of the West Coast, and to raise the question whether we should, not •aim at more closely knitting together our organisation by meeting more than once a year. Members will have noticed that the opinions and transactions of the New Zealand Justices’ Association, and of the several district organisations, command an increasing space in the columns of the press. Accounts of the proceedings of the conference recently held in Taranaki were given considerable prominence, and rightly so, for the reason that that conference did not hesitate effectively to discuss many of the great social problems of the day. Arising from these discussions, the conference was able to formulate weighty remits for the consideration of the Government, and it seems impossible that any government can afford to ignore therm “The fact is that the opinions of New Zealand’s honorary justices are of weight, as they crystalise the views of a responsible, disinterested, and well-informed body of men and women. The honorary justices have now assumed, and hold, a high status in the Dominion, and it is well that this is so. To-day, there is a world tendency in the direction of limiting the right and means of free expression and free criticism. We see this in operation in Russia, in Germany, and in Italy, where opinions and propaganda, not in accordance with the views of the powers that be, are sternly and effectively suppressed. Only one view is allowed, and that is the official view. Unfortunately, there are indications that this resentment of criticism is developing as a world tendency. “It is for this reason that organisations of informed and independent men are essential so that independent estimates of social affairs and conditions can be arrived at, and, where necessary, criticism voiced arid reform and progress demanded. I think, therefore, that our association has arrived at a time when it might well arrange to meet more frequently for business and discussion.” The transactions of the West Coast Association, said Mr Ferner, did not at present measure up to the standard prevailing in other • parts of the Dominion, who suggested that an effort should be made to secure the membership of all members of the Commission of the Peace on the West Coast, and that reports of the transactions and discussions of the association should be made available to the press for publication.