Evening Post. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1897. THE AWARUA SEAT.

Evening Post, Volume LIV, Issue 101, 26 October 1897, Page 4

Evening Post. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1897. THE AWARUA SEAT.

The public will hail with a certain sense of relief the conclusion of the Awarua election case. With the decision of the Court yesterday it is to be hoped that the unfortunate confusion of personal, political, and legal questions which has arisen out of the ill-judged action of Mr. Ward and the Awarua electorate will be allowed to die out. Even those, like ourselves, who have not looked at the matter in the same light as the Judges will be glad of an opportunity to lift the question out of what might to the unobservant look like the sphere of persecution to the higher plane of general political principles. To our own thinking, the real issues have been very much disguised by the fact that the member whose qualifications were questioned was a prominent Party politician, and in a sense a mainstay of the Government of the day. Now, however, that the position of the gentleman in question with relation to the House has been clearly defined, the political and personal elements can be eliminated and the House freely enter upon a discussion of the general principle of the advisableness and seemliness of an undischarged bankrupt being allowed to occupy a seat in the Parliament of the colony. As our readers will remember, we have ourselves thought that the present law was such as to permit the election of an undischarged bankrupt, but to forbid his taking his seat and otherwise exercising the privileges of a legislator. It is needless to recapitulate our arguments, and the less so since the highest Court of the colony has decided to put a different interpretation upon the Electoral Act of 1893. For this result Mr. Ward is doubtless in a measure indebted to the skilful arguments of Mr. Cooper. The judgment given yesterday amounts to reading "is " in section 130 of the Electoral Act to mean "shall become," and although, in the light of the facts and sidelights brought to bear upon the section by Mr. Cooper, we are quite willing to admit that there is very much to be said for such an interpretation, we cannot acknowledge a lenie of error » put view, especially

since we have reason to believe that one of the greatest leaders at the English Bar gave his opiniion to much the same effect as our previous articles — viz., that Mr. Ward could lac elected, but could not sit while an undischarged bankrupt. There is no need, howuver, of further discussion upon this point ; the law courts have decided that an undischarged bankrupt can, if elected after his bacikruptcy, retain his seat in the House of Btepresentatives. It remains for Parliament to say whether the law is as it should be^ or whether there is to be some amendmenit in this respect. It is a point to the good that some definite opinion has been authoritatively given, and the colony is to be congratulated on the fact that the Parliamentary Committee was wise enough to refer tlue legal side of the dispute to the highest law officers of the State. People and legislators now know exactly how matters stand, and if they consider the judicial interpretation of existing statutes inconsistent with their ideas of political expediency or civilised ethi.es they have their remedy in the law-maki\ig powers of Parliament. For our own part, we should be ! satisfied to see our law in the matter of 'bankrupt members assimilated to that of the United Kiugdc-m, which, according to the Bankruptcy Act of 1883 (46 and 47 Viet., c. 52), disqualifies all undischarged bankrupts for election or sitting as members of the House of Commons. Peers of tba United Kingdom are also disqualified by bankruptcy from sitting or voting in Parliament. It seems that we might with advantage follow the example of the Old Country. Until he has obtained his discharge a bankrupt is under a sort of cloud, and it is most essential in democratic communities that the character of public men should, as far as possible, be above suspicion. Not for a moment that we would cast a slur iapon those who have to seek the protectuwi of the Court through misfortune or pardonable miscalculations, for such vrould readily obtain their discharge, and their disqualification would be only a transient one. Besides, a man who has to settle up and help to liquidate an estate cannot at the same time do his duty to his creditors and to his constituents. The Ward episode has at least exposed what appears to be a defect in our legislation, and although to our own thinking the whole affair has been a deadly insult to the true spirit of democracy, time must bring its revenges, and the people can only learn to act wisely by experience— which is after all but a process of continually burning one* fingers.