AFFIRMATIONS IN LIEU OF OATHS. TO THE EDITOR.

Evening Post, Volume XXVI, Issue 74, 25 September 1883, Page 3

AFFIRMATIONS IN LIEU OF OATHS. TO THE EDITOR.

Sib— Among the Bills whioh came before the Legislative Connoil during the later days $ $?*&&!* /« Becond reildin & waß on ° entitled Tho Affirmations and Declarations Act, 1883." Introduced by a Ministor it poised tho Houao as a matter of oourso Tho C^eat of ftV> Bill was limply to abolish tho practice of taking ev.donoe upon oath in all Courts of Justice in tho colony. At present any ono who states that he conaoiontiously objoots to taking an oath oan havo his ©\ - denco taken npon solemn declaration. Thero is therefore no hardship imposed upon witnesses by the existing practice— a practice whioh, it may bo remarked in passing, has existed for thousands of years. Many persons, possibly a majority of the people of New Zealand, believe that a reference to tho Deity as attesting the truth of the evidence to be given by a witness without reference to scot or dogma is a means of securing greater attention on the part of the witness to the acouraoy of the statement he makes than would do sooured by simply taking his declaration. At all events the matter involved in tho Bill appeared to be one of too

imicli importanen for it to bo hastily pasned at tho oiid of a (!cn j ion, Iwforo tlio attention of tho goncnil public haH been nailed to tho Hnbject, uiid in tho absence of any exprewon of public opinion thereon. I am, Ac,