Sir William's Defence.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 5316, 5 September 1888, Page 2

Sir William's Defence.

Some tune ago the full penalties allowed by law were imposed by Sit William Fox on persons brought before him charged with drunkenness. The press warmly commented on the sentences, and the ! following reply has been published in the N.Z. Herald- " The case, which has created so great » flutter in both the Northern and Southern papers, was simply this:— Mve drunkards were in the dock. Two were old offenders who had been convicted times without number; one a poor • tatterdemallion» of what had been a woman; the other an elderly man, brutalised to an extent that made it sickening to look at him, and so Utterly prostrated that the police suggested that he should be put under medical treatment as the law directs. The other three were what are called ' first offences ': ono a very dissipated and bad-looking lad of, say, IS years of age; and the other two women, of by no means attractive appearance. All five pleaded guilty, aud none of them offered a word in extenuation; they had neither been christening a baby, nor burying a husband nor sitting up with a sick friend, nor had met with a dear brother whom they had sot seen for forty years. They had sinroly been and got drunk for the sake of thtj drink The Act of Parliament, under which the* were brought up expressly says that sn C n persons, on conviction, shall be liable to a penalty, on a first conviction, of not lees than Sβ, nor more than 20s, or (in default of payment) imprisonment not exceeding forty-eight hours; for a second offence, not exceeding 60s, or imprisonment for seven days; for a third or more, £o, or fourteen, days. Withm these limits the law leaves the amount of punishment absolute!)/ to the discretion of the Jmtiets. Well, we exercised that discretion ; and seeing no extenuatinir circumstances, gave the fall penalty in each case. On delivering the sentence on one of the nrat offenders I used these words • 'It is a maxim with old soldiers never to fire blank cartridge over the heads of a mob; they fire ball first, and if a penalty can do any good, it is clemency to give tiie severest on the first occasion, in the hone that it may deter the offender for the future.' These are the simple facts on which I am declared to be no more trust1° $ ™- n * ' crank ' and lfc is suggested that the Minister of Justice should to aecouut for what the writer terms a ' magisterial fad.' Th*> Minister of Justice is, I hope, a morn discreet person than- to be guilty of such an impertinence "Now so far from my 'indulgingmr fad in these cases, my private opinion & quite the other way. Ido not believe that any punishment, however ssvere, ever has or ever will, oure a drunkard. I fojl oiten, on tho platform, offered aW e reward to any person who. could produce a reformed drunkard, reformed by a five shilling or any other penalty. I have never had any response. If the loss of all that makes life worth living, health, home, wife, children, friends, property, prospects m this world and hopes in tho next—jftha loss of those; trill not deter a man from drink, is it likely that a 5s or £o penalty or forty-eight hours, or seven days' in gaol will do it? I know of few sights mow calculated to provoke a pitying smile than, a Resident Magistrate employed at a mX salary, or two ordinary Justices sittiaer on> the Bench of a Police Court, clothed in all, their judicial robes (which usualkr means suits of oolonial tweed at 455), spending the best hours of a iine summer's day i n the vain attempt to cure poor drunkards by 5s penalties If I had be«n "indiilgin/niv own fads,' I would hare let all five, of the poor wretched creatures go scot free Thn criminals who ought to have been "in tho dock wore tho brewers and publicans who had made them drunk, but who, unfortunately, were not there. Somehow they never are. We have tl. c spectacle alined every day of the yea,- ,'„ A m kk,JrTli the poor victims of Uμ traffic brought U p for sentence with their pockets eraetr but the viot«nwer ft g 0 f ree with the» BopWe full. But whenlfind myself JtheEf I put away my own opiia'utw of the in-' efncienoy of punishment of drunkards, and! simply carry out the law as I find it; a very foolish law, as I think it, made by Wiela tors on whom tho experience of the 01* Country for -tOO years, and tho dictates of common sense, seem to have been cnuallv thrown away. It is clear that tho fraraew of tho l«w believed m the efficiency of punislimont by penalties, and I oxerciso my discretion-as tlie law has directed in the way I think most likely to carry out their intention. *vi.«.

" Another reason for the higher penalties is this Tho offender* have by their a≥ put the country to great expense. The. police, the gaols, the lunatic asylums, the refuges, the hospitals, are all largely if not mainly, kepi up for the benefit and filled by the victims of the liquor traffic; and if a tew pounds «:m be got out of them in the way of penalties, it really only amounts to a special tax upon tho class for whose necessities these institutions are kept ud at the pulriio cost. Unfortunately, they too. often, as they will say themselves, ' take it out m bricks, , and so the profit is not «„ groat as it might be, Bw "Tho weakest thing that has beoa said on tho subject was, I think, fa, y " ~'"„ paper, namely, that I ought to hafX! that.it had always been" 'Sfioo M» New Zealand that the smallestplSy o" 6awould always bo inflicted for afet offence. How can the» have b«a any such undewtondiHg F There Cst be $ least.two eonecnting- parties to any understanding Who were they? The poor drunkards on the one .illX magietoates of the ooloay on tho other ? Or wee it among o,e various Benches all over tho colony .■> When was it arrived H t ? Are • underebibdMigr," that the words of an Act of Parliament should be interpreted in a particular way, and that di.scretioij given by it should not be exercised .' It is of a piece with that other theory that, notwithstandan Act of Parliament, there has always been an •understanding' that a license once granted must be renewed for ever unless forfeited by misconduct. Foolish talk without a shadow of reason to support it "'