The Dominion. TUESDAY, MAY 23, 1911. JUDGES AND POLITICS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1134, 23 May 1911, Page 4

The Dominion. TUESDAY, MAY 23, 1911. JUDGES AND POLITICS.

The very important question raised by Mr. James Allen as to the wisdom and propriety of the payment by the Government of special grants of money to the Chief Justice, Sir Robert Stout, supplementary of his honorarium of £2000 a year, continues to provoke comment throughout the country. Of course Mr. Allen' has been bitterly attacked. There has been much virtuous indignation expressed by his opponents that he should dare to criticise the actions of a member of the Supreme Court Bench, and one usually friendly journal, while recognising that Mr. Allen has a perfect right to condemn the principle, has gone to some pains in an endeavour to show cause why the member for Bruce should have spared the Chief Justice, or at least saved his remarks for a formal impeachment in Parliament. The journal referred to has so wholesome a regard for the services of the Chief Justice, and is apparently so upset at the thought of criticism being aimed at one so far above reproach, that it is blinded to the perfectly obvious fact that a formal motion in Parliament on any question at all affecting the Government of the day has as much chance of being considered on its merits in the House of Representatives as constituted as would have a motion to reduce members' salaries. We quite agreo that under normal conditions Parliament is the best place to ventilate a question of this kind, but under the existing state of things there is practically no recourse save an appeal to public opinion from the platform and through the press of the country. But Mr. Allen need not have very much concern regarding these attacks. The principle which he is striving for is one vitally affecting the strongest bulwark of individual liberty—the assurance to every citizen, high and. 10w,.0f the honest administration of justice.' Mn. Allen's protest, as our readers will remember, was based on the payment to the Chief Justice by the Government of two large sums of money, one for his work in assisting in the consolidation of the New Zealand statutes; the other for presiding for a period over the sittings of the Native Land Commission, in each case the sums paid were substantial, the total ran into several thousand pounds; in each case, but more especially in the matter of the Native Land Commission, the Chief Justice was detached from his ordinary Supreme Court duties, and for a period an actingJudge was appointed to do his Supreme Court work; and yet, in addition to the large special payments referred to, Sir Robert Stout drew as well, during the whole period, his ordinary honorarium as Chief Justice of £2000 per annum.. Mr. Allen considered the special financial favours thus conferred pn t'ne Chief Justice improper and prejudicial to the public interest inasmuch as they were calculated to, and actually did, give him a conscious or unconscious bias towards the persons who were responsible for the payments, and that this bias, conscious or unconscious, disclosed itself in the remarkable inaccuracies in the uncalled-for comments of the Chief Justice on one of the charges.made by Mr. Hine, a political opponent of the Government. The whole point underlying his protest was that it was wrong in principle that any payment or reward should bo made to our Judges beyond the' amount definitely fixed by statute with the object of making our Courts cf justice independent of Parliament and independent of political influences.

AVill anyone dare to say that this principle should be departed from? Wc think not. Efforts will bo made, they have already been made, to obscure the issue The Chief Justice has been spoken of in one quarter as above suspicion; the suggestion that the payment of "a paltry sttm" could bias his judgment, consciously or unconsciously, has been scornfully repudiated by a Minister of the Crown; and so on. But whatever may be our opinion on these points they lnve no real bearing on tho main principle involved. Tt does not matter, as wc have pointed out before, whether the Uniei uiibticc is or is not affected by the payments received—the harm is done when suspicion, is .aroused in the public mind that- the independence of the Supreme Court Bench may be influenced by such payments. Every action of the Judge concerned is then liable to be interpreted according to the political views of members of the community, and confidence in the honesty and integrity of our Courts of_ Justice must gradually be undermined. Such possibilities with their attendant harmful effects on our public life and on the tone and morals of the cotamunity as well are far too serious to bo passed over in silence in order to spare the feelings of anyone. Some years ago the imperative _ necessity for placing our Judges in a position that would give them a fixed salary, independent of the vote of Parliament and thus independent of politics of any kind, was exhaustively argued in our Law Courts). The circumstances that gave rise to the action in question were of a different nature to those under discussion on the present occasion, but the general principle involved was reviewed and emphatically insisted on by the learned counsel who appeared in support of the Crown unci who quoted voluminously and effectively the greatest authorities available on the question. It is not out oJ place that we should reproduce some of the quotations then made use of as under:

Next to permanency in office nothing caii contribute more to the independence of tlio Judges than it fixed provision for their support. ... In the general course of human nature, a power over a man's subsistence amounts to a poivcr over his will. And we can never hope to see realised in practice the complete separation of Hie judicial from the legislative power in any system which leaves the former dependent for pecuniary resource 011 the _ occasional grants of the latter.—Story, in his book on tho Constitution of the United States.

Learned counsel further sub mitted: <

According to Uearn it was absolutely necessary that if the Judges were to bo independent their salaries should be ascertained and established and removed beyond the control evtn of Parliament. , . , On every ground Hearn lavs down the principle that in order to secure the indcpcndenco of tho Benc.h two things are necessary; first, a fixed tenure, and. secondly, a fixed salary. That is tho view of all constitutional writers.

There are many more similar extracts which might be made, but we

will -content ourselves with the following—the closing words of a most eloquent address:

In order to make the Supreme Court Bench independent—to bo removed above party struggles and parly feeling—it must have the salaries of ihc Judges made independent of Parliamentary vote.

. . . If, however, it be held that the defendant [Mr. Justice Edwards] is right and that he still remains a Judge of the Supreme Court Bench, then Iho dignity and honour and independence of the Supremo Court Bench in New Zealand have vanished.

Those of our readers who remember the action by the Crown to test the validity of the first appointment of Mk. Justice Edwards will no doubt have guessed ere this that the eloquent advocate of a judiciary independent of Parliament and of political influences was Sir Robert Stout, then counsel for the Crown, now Chief Justice of the Dominion. We do not think it can be suggested that Sir Robert Stout would to-day repudiate the views ho then expressed as counsel; nor do we think the public has any doubt as to the soundness of the principle laid down in the extracts from 1 his argument which we have quoted. If it was a wrong thing and derogatory to the "dignity, honour, and. independence of the Supreme Court Bench" for Mr. Justice Edwahbs to be dependent on Parliament for his salary, is it not wrong for the Chief Justice to-day to be dependent on the Government for special and substantial payments while at the same time drawing as well his full honorarium by virtue of his office? It appears very clear to us that a Judge or anyone else is susceptible to influence, consciously or unconsciously,_ through the payment or possibility of payment of something more than his statutory salary as well as through the payment or possibility of something less. But, after all, the common sense of the public is quite sufficient guide in such a matter, and wc have not the least doubt that the public will appreciate and support Mr. Allen's protest and admire his courage in undertaking a task so unpleasant, yet so necessary to the maintenance of the high standard which has hitherto been set by the Judicial Bench of our Supreme . Courts of Justice.

NOTES OF THE DAY. v At a meeting of the New Plymouth High School Board it was suggested !by Mr. S. Percy Smith, formerly j Surveyor-General, that it would bo a good thing if a sound knowledge of history were made a necessary qualification for membership of Parliament. This is hardly a new idea. "We think we have suggested it ourselves more than once, but, of course, it must have occurred to many peoplo during the past few years. At first sight there might appear to be small virtus in having educated men, equipped with a good working knowledge of the political history of other countries, at the head of a democracy that is not educated and that wifl have whatever it wants, whether, bad or good. ..But this,is to overlook the forco that intelligence in the governors can exercise upon the governed. Where ignorance proposes or eninjurious political doctrines, intelligence would abstain from proposing, them ..and, * a still greater thing,' would 'be active in counteracting their spread through the democracy.. There is hardly any lesson taught by history that -has not been 'completely disregarded by the State Socialists 'in New Zealand who call themselves the "Liberal" Government. It is surely desirable that he who prescribes for society must understand society's anatomy and the laws of its growth. But the tendency of Governments in democratic countries is to disregard the teaching of the past: and when ill results do not immediately, or in a generation, follow their infractions of the maxims of history, they are more confirmed in their belief, and they more strongly urge the ignorant to believe with them, that they have discovered the only truth. The demagogue always laughs thus at the utility of historical study. Coleridge expressed a permanent and imperishable truth when lie said: j

There will never bo wanting answers and explanations, and specious flatteries of hope to persuade a people and its Government that the history of the past is inapplicable to their case. ... I well remember that when the example of former Jacobins, as Julius Caesar, Cromwell, and the like, were adduced in France and England at the commencement of the French Consulate, it was ridiculed as pedantry and pedant's ignorance to fear a repetition of usurpation and military despotism at tlio close of the enlightened eighteenth century.

If we cannot insist on historical knowledge in our M.P.'s, and no way is open for insistence upon it in the case of Ministers, what are we to. do ! Only, it would seem, to urge Ministers to spend in the Assembly Library some of the time they employ in electioneering tours. "Why," as one writer has said, "should it be considered enough equipment for a statesman that he should have vehement party prejudices, a thick skin, and physical endurance enough for an all-night sitting?"

Tiib public has for many years been accustomed to regard those telegrams in tho newspapers headed "Per Press Association" as being accurate and unbiased reports, and in most cases its confidence has not been misplaced. But on several occasions, some of which seemed to us to be of an importance requiring comment, the Wellington agents have' sent forth messages which have been biased and misleading, and, once, utterly false. The persons responsible for this "poisoning of the wells" arc apparently incurable, and on Friday last they outdid their previous efforts in the way of misrepresentation. It will be remembered that, at the final hearing of the Macdonald case, Macjdoxald's solicitor filed an affidavit, and Mrc. Blair, for plaintiffs, filed a reply of great importance and interest. The association's agent, in concocting his message to the press of the colony, sent forth Macdonald's affidavit almost in full, and entirely suppressed all reference to, and any mention of, the far more essential affidavit in reply. We are not going to speculate as to the motives for this very serious plan to convey to the public outside Wellington an entirely false view of the merits of the case; it is enough to say that it is exactly like some previous performances by the persons concerned. The Press Association is a public institution of the first importance. It enjoys, and has in a largo degree merited, exceptionally rich privileges at the hands of the public acting through the Government.' If it intends to tolerate such misbehaviour on the part of its agents as we have referred to, it must be prepared to forfeit the confidence of the news-paper-reading public, and, what will

perhaps scorn dearer to it than public vespect, to imperil the privileges it enjoys. As \vc have said, this is a long way from the first time that the association's attention has been drawn to the matter. Is the association willing to have it believed that it approves of the methods of its "Wellington agents'!

Some time ago we had a reference to the protests of the London Morning I'ust and the Daily News against the favouritism shown by Government Departments to one of the London newspapers. The ground for complaint seems still to stand, for in the London papers to hand yesterday there is a good deal of comment upon the viciousncss of special favouritism shown to a newspaper by the Government. The J/orning Post- opened the chorus of protest on this occasion also. In supporting the Post, the Westminster Gazette, on the opposite side in politics, insisted that "where institutions supported by public money are concerned the readers of all the morning newspapers have a right to be treated on the sa,tne basis." The Pall Mall Gazette was even more emphatic than its rival. Rightly blaming the Departmental officials rather than the Government, it said: "The exclusive supply of information by public institutions to one particular newspaper is a scandal which demands _ the drastic intervention of authority. . . . There appears to bo some extraordinary misconception on the part of public officials of a certain class as to the nature of their responsibilities and their relations with the public press, and we shall look to the Government to administer some elementary education upon the point where it is required. We do not know whether the officials concerned claim the right of turning an unofficial penny by acting as newsvendors in their spare time, or whether it is that they conceive ' themselves entitled to determine upon other grounds the channels through which the nation shall receive information of its own affairs.■ The Globe, in the course of a vigorous protest, observed : "Public officials, paid out of public money, are not entitled to pick and choose in this fashion and to favour this journal or that." We need hardly point out, since it is obvious, that the principles invoked by these criticisms,, and the maxims that are implied by them, must apply with tenfold force to the case of a Government which, in spending the nation's money in advertisements ncccssary to inform the public of the public'? own affairs, systematically penalises one particular newspaper. Nor need we point to the contrast between the ctliics of Ministerialist journalism in this country in this matter and the ethics of British journalism as laid down by the loading Lo" <■'<",n newspapers of all shades of politics,

LOCAL AND GENERAL. The mails which left Wellington on April 13 per the s.s. Mokoia, and connected at Sydney with the Naples mail per It.M.S. Orvieto, arrived in London on tho morning Of May 21. . Last week's registration returns for (ho Wellington Military District show that, excluding tho Taranaki district (yet to come), 1137 cadets and Territorials were accounted fori as follow Wellington: 147 cadets, and Do .Territorials. Mt\nawaju:, 209 cadets, and 145 Territorials." Last Coast: 351 cadets, and I'JO Territorials. Total, 1137.

The City Engineer some time ago submitted to tho Minister for Public Works proposals for tho establishment of a tramway terminal station in Post Oflico Square. The Minister disapproves of seme details embodied' in tho proposals and has referred the matter back to the corporation in order that these details may be varied. The proposals will be resubmitted shortly. The scheme proposed by the city authorities involves the •starting of cars bound for various suburbs from the Post Office terminus and, when carried into effect, will reduce the "dead" running of suburban cars through tho city.

At the request of the Jliramar Borough Council the City Tramway Department commenced running an extra car from Seatouil at 7.1G a.m. The first of these additional cars running yesterday morning, did not carry any passengers, but this is attributed to' the fact that tho suburban residents concerned were unaware that the service had been augmonted. It is anticipated by the Mirn- • mar authorities that the extra car will be well patronised.

S. Brown and Co. have contracted to supply the City Council with 10,000 porcelain insulators for tho Electric Lighting Department at a cost of ,£298 Gs. Sd. Unaccepted tenders were those of 1\ 11. Baillie (.£313 155.), Turubull and Jones (,£339 -Is. Gd.), A. and T. Burt (,£3Bl lis. 6d.), British General Electrical Company (.£372 Gs. 4-d.), Cederholui and Tolley (.£375).

Plans and specifications for the construction of the approaches to tho Hutt Pipe Bridge have been prepared by the City Engineering Department and a Government warrant authorising the prosecution of the work will be applied for forthwith.

The morning special car on Sunday last carried 218 passengers and tho late evening specials carried 285. The midnight special cars, during the week ending on Sunday carried a total of 110 passengers.

The street-flushing machine which is to be procured by tho City Council consists ir. its main features of a leather hose, mounted on a trolly, so that it may be readily shifted from one hydrant to another. Machines of this typo are used by the London County Council. They have a range of about three hundred fe'et. By their agency a street can bo flushed for 150 feet in either direction from a fixed point.

"You have been exceedingly kind to us in Wellington," said Mr. Donovan, one of tho Irish envoys, at their meeting last night. "And in travelling throughout New Zealaud under tho guidance of our marshal, Mr. Kennedy, wo have been phenomenally successful. Wo have completely beaten the record of .£.">000 collected by Mr. Devlin a few years ago. Our meetings have been largely attended, not only by Irish people, but also by young New Zealandors, in 110 way connected with Ireland, and they have assisted us in every way. We are deeply indebted to them. Our mission is a success, and we thank especially the Irish peoplo in this country who have enabled us to carry on successfully this tight for our liberties."

It is expected that within the next two weeks a satisfactory arrangement will be come to whereby Tetonc's meat, will _ be inspected, under conditions which, stated Councillor R. W Short at the Borough Council meeting lost evening, will comply with all the requirements of tho lav.- governing abattoirs and the inspection of meat. The Pctone butchers are at present negotiating with tho common object of obtaining sonie coiivcnicnt yet thorough system.

Tho order by the Native Land Court with reference to the Maungaraki Blocks —taken under the Public Works Act, 1908—fixing the amount of compensation to be paid to tho Nativo owners affected, has been drawn up, ami will bo signed shortly. . The amounts fixed are as follow:— Scction 4 (S7 acres 3 roods, at £5 per acre), -CI3S 155.; Scction 7 (119 acres, at JCS per acre), «C 395; part Section 8 (10 acres, at £5 10s. per acre), ,£55; Section 8b (51 acres, at .£5 10s.), .£297.

A sitting of tho Assessment Court is to be held at. Petone on June 5 next, at 2 p.m., Dr. A. W. M'Artliur, S.M., presiding.

People from every part of the province speak in the highest terms of JCazol as a remedy for Fresh Colds, Coughs, Chills, and Nasal Catarrh. It relieve? and cures uioro quickly than anything else.—Advt.

"What aro ire going to do for tho Coronation:-" osked the .Mayor of J'etono of his councillors la.st evening ill meeting assembled. "Nothing," said one member.

"Everybody will go to town to sea (lie big show," said another. "Let's have a moek coronation and crown somebody King of Petoue," suggested a third. Obviously, the council was int disposed to give the great occasion much serious consideration, and the .Mayor contented himself by hoping that councillors would give their patronage to any local function that might Iro held in tho borough.

It is anticipated (hat the Wadestown tramway will be ready for tho running of cars* early next month.

A special meeting of tho Mirnmnr Borough Council will be held at noon 011 Friday to mako and levy tho rates for the year.

It has been decided to form a senior cadet company in connection with tho Thorndon Koman Catholic parish, on the same lines as the St. Anne's cadets o\ellington South), and St. Vincent Cadets (To Aro). This decision meets with the lull approval and concurrence of tho Defence authorities, and an officer of tho bepnWmcnt will attend at the Guildford Terrace Schoolroom on I'riday night to explain the steps to be taken to carry out the project.

At a meeting of St. Matthew's Vestry (Masterton) on Monday, Mr. C. J. Mountford, of Christchurch, was appointed architect for tho new Anglican Church which it is proposed to -creelt uM* ton at an estimated cost of iMO. it .is expected that the work will be put in hand in tho course of a few months.