SOME PLAIN FACTS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1138, 27 May 1911, Page 4

SOME PLAIN FACTS.

We note with a good deal of satisfaction the growing feeling in favour of Mr, James Allen's protest against tho payment by the Government of special grants to Judges. It is true that in one or two instances while forced to recognise the soundness of the principle involved an attempt has been made to injure Mr. Allen for daring to associate the name of the Chief Justice with the question. This comes with 4 very bad grace indeed from newspapers which, until Mr. Allen took the bold stop he did at Auckland, had shirked discussion of a subject of such vital importance to every member of the community. The matter came up in Parliament months ago and was discussed and protest made in the columns of The Dominion, the Otaqo Daily Times, and possibly one or two other journals, but was ignored altogether by those papers which are now condemning Mr. Allen for his mode of raising the question. Had the member for Bruce taken a less courageous means of exposing the unfortunate state of things objected to, he would probably have attracted as little attention as the discussion in Parliament did a couple of years ago. Perhaps this is what his critics, who are so solicitous about the feelings of the Chief Justice, desired. Now we must refer once again to the very _ unjudicial comments given expression to by the Chief Justice in his letter to the Prime Minister regarding the Hine charges. We are forced to do so because, despite our exposure in Wednesday's issue of the attempt to bolster up the action of the Chief Justice by making it appear that the whole of the Judges endorsed his inaccurate comments, use has again been made by a contemporary of that portion of the Chief Justice's letter.

The facto simply arc as follow: Sir Joseph Ward, in accordance with the resolution of Parliament, submitted to the Chief Justice the charges made by Mr. Hine and asked him to appoint two Judges to sit as a Royal Commission to investigate and report on the charges, Amongst the charges was one numbered 4, which set out that Mr. Symes, then a member of Parliament, threatened a certain newspaper that he would U6e his influence as a member of Parliament to prevent Government advertisements being given to the said newspaper unless he received its support during the election contest to be held that year. In replying to the Prime Minister's letter the Chief Justice went out of his way to comment on the whole of the charges made,'and as to Charge 4 wrote:

Charge i is tho reproduction of the babblement of nn election contest and if the threats mentioned were uttered they are of a class that have not so far as I know been made the subject of a Parliamentary inquiry. The person making the threat was not at the time a member of Parliament.

Wo will not comment on the impropriety of the •' action of the Chief Justice in thus prejudging the charge without a tittle of evidence to guide him. Our readers will remember that Mr. Hine was able to produce the letter written by Mr. Syjies, on which the charge was based and which even a partisan Parliamentary Committee was forced to admit might be open to the interpretation placed on it by Mr. Hike.- What we specially wish to direct attention to, however, are the inaccuracies in this unjudicial statement by the Chief Justic:. He says:

(1) Charge i is the reproduction of the babblement ofl an election contest. . (2) 31 r. Symcs was not at the time a member of Parliament, The facts are: (1) That Mr. Symcs wrote tho letter on which the charge was based lit the House of Representatives, Wellington, on October 4, 1905, while Parliament was still sitting and weeks before he was released from his rarliamentary duties. Therefore Sir Robert Stout was wrong and did Mr. Hine grave injustice by prejudging the case—without any evidence to guide him—by describing the charge as "the babblement of an election contest."

(2) Mr. Symcs was a member of the House of Representatives at the time, although Sir Kobert Stout prejudging the any evidence to guide him —said ho was not a member.

These are the facts. Mr. James Allen, discussing the special payments to tho Chief Justiee by the Government, expressed the opinion that the astonishing inaccuracies in these un-called-for comments on the merits of the charges,' for it must be borne in mind that the Chief Justice was not asked to express any opinion in that direction, may be regarded' as evidence of eonscions or unconscious bias on the part of Sir Robert Stout. The public, with the facts before them, can form their own opinion on that point. But what is being done is to make it appear that the whole of the Judges endorsed these inaccuracies and this unjudicial comment. And the reason given for this is that at the end of his letter the Chief Justice stated: "I may add that my brother Judges approve of this my reply to your letter." Now the only question submitted for the Chief Justice and his brother Judges was the question of appointing two of their number to condiict the inquiry as proposed by Parliament. They were of the opinion—and we now think they were right—that it was undesirable they should so act. It was on this point, wo have not the least doubt, that they were unanimous. We cannot conceive it possible that members of the Bench, such as Justices Williams, Denniston, and Edwards—Judges of such ripe experience, of such balanced judgment, and so justly esteemed for the high standard they hayo set in the administration of could fall victims to such inaccuracies or endorse such comments with not a shadow of evidence on which to base an opinion as to the merits of the charges made. Probably there is no more justification for saying that they endorsed the whole of the Chief Justice's letter than there is for saying they endorsed the judgment of the Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Chapman in the Macdonald case, when in answerto a telegram from the Chief Jus-

ticc they stated that, they agreed that the Court had power t,o diseh.irgc. They expressed no opinion as to whether or not that power should be exercised in the case before the Court. In the case of the Chief Justice's letter, no doubt, they endorsed the principle that it was undesirable that Judges should sit as commissioners on such charges. It is inconceivable, however, that they were in agreement with the unfortunate tenim— so unjust to the member who made the charges—in which the Chief Justice chose to convey the opinion of the Supreme Court Bench to Parliament.