The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 1913. DEGRADING THE BENCH.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1707, 26 March 1913, Page 6

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 1913. DEGRADING THE BENCH.

——e —— ■ .An unimportant-looking little cable message in this issue—that which records Mn. A. B. Piddinoton'b resignation of his brand-new _ appointment as a Judge of the High Court of Australia—has a very important background. Some time ago the Federal Government decided that the High Court Bench should be- enlarged, and the friends of the Government left the public in no doubt that the game was to cure the existing Bench of its unpleasant reluctance to base its judgments upon what the Labour-Socialist caucus thought the law ought to be. A couplo ofweeks ago the Attorney-General announced the names of the .two new Judges: Mn. Pi'ddxngton, a New South Wales lawyer of, to put it mildly, very moderate status, and Me. Powers, the Commonwealth Crown Solicitor. Then a very unusual thing happened. The members of tho Bar of Victoria and New South Wales formally condemned the appointments, and passed a resolution requesting the Solicitor-General "not to act on behalf of the Bar in conveying his congratulations to tlie new members of the judiciary when the High Court meets." This action,- which is said to be unique in the history of Australia, was one which the public could not ignore. As the Argus says, the ,members of the Bar are not accounted a hysterical body of men, and they are not, as a Bar, concerned with politics. So little are they influenced, as lawyers, by political opinions when considering the Bench that when Mr. Justice Isaacs and Mr. Justice Hiogins were elevated, the Bar had no protest to make, but cordially congratulated these Judges, and this although the extreme political views of Mr. Isaacs and . Mr. Higgins were probably detested by nine lawyers out of ten. But these two Judges were of acknowledged ability and eminence, and that was all that the Bar required them to be. On behalf of the claims of Messrs. I'iddington and Powers, there is nothing, apparently, to put forward excepting the opinion of Mr. W. M.

Hugiiks, the Federal Attorney-Gen- ; oral, and professional demagogue i and trade-union secretary, that they are good men. By everyone who is in any position to know, and to say what he knows, Mn. Pjddington ishardly .fitted even for one-of Ihe inferior State Courts. Behind the polite and cautious language of his critics, there is visible the opinion that in setting him up to hear and decide upon the arguments of eminent lawyers the Government has done something very little more creditable than the setting up of an ordinary undergraduate to lay down the law to the professors of the University Colleges. Mil. Powejis is described as being hardly better fitted than. Mil. Piddington for the exalted post of High Court Judge. It is not as if Australia did not eontain many lawyers of distinguished ability, and many excellent State Judges. The appointment of Mil. Powers and Mr. Piddinqton looks at this distance like a deliberate attempt to degrade the prestige of the High Court. For nothing could better suit tho purposes of the Labour caucus than to drag down to its own level all the national _ institutions which, as the repositories, and the bulwarks, of justice and knowledge, are, by being that, the enemies of an Australian political faction which works largely by and through ignorance and injustice. It would almost ■ have .been'better had the Fisheu Government searched out and appointed men who, to a violent bias in favour of Labour-Socialist doctrines, added commanding legal ability. For, after all, the High Court is only incidentally' the decider of constitutional and quasi-political cases: it 'is the highest Australian tribunal for the decision of ordinary cases of law in which private rights alone are concerned. But, because it suits the Labour Government to wreck the High Court for its temporary political purposes, the other things that will be concurrently wrecked count for nothing with the caucus. The, original idea was that the High Court should be a final tribunal, which, it was urgccl; it could be made by appointing to it men of the highest legal eminence. It was oven suggested that the right of ap-' peal to the Privy Council might well be abolished. This extreme proposal was rejected in the Convention upon the -Constitution, but some restrictions were placed upon this right of appeal on the understanding that the 'personnel of the High Court should be kept so high that tho nation could accept and respect its judgments. One result of the latest appointments, it has been pointed out, will bo that fewer appeab will now be taken to'thc High Court and a greater number to the Privy Council. Mr. Piddingtox states that his resignation is dictated by purely private reasons, but it is much to be hoped that it is really due, as most people will think it is, to the criticisms to which, his appointment was subjected. The incident is the latest of a long series of incidents which have gone to shake confidence in tho Labour Government of the Commonwealth. The Labour .caucus apparently is prepared to wreck, almost anything—even • confidence in the capacity and integrity of those who preside over the Courts of Justice— if by so doing it can further its own momentary political schemes.