Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 1921. ONE MAN, ONE CRIME

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 29, 3 August 1921, Page 4

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 1921. ONE MAN, ONE CRIME

With what, to the lay mind at any rate, appeared to be a reasonable degree of accuracy, it used to be said that every dog is entitled at common law to one bite. The aphorism was a free paraphrase of the position which was laid down as follows by a seventeenth century authority: "The owner of a dog is bound to muzzle him if mischievous, but not otherwise; and if a man doth keep a dog that useth to bite cattle, etc., if after notice given to him of it, his dog shall do any hurt, the master shall answer." The measure of immunity which was thus secured for a dog's first bite by the benevolence of the common law was abolished in New Zealand more than forty years ago, but it is amazing to find that the effect of another measure passed a few years later, and brought up to date last year,- is to extend to human beings an analogous privilege to that of which the dog has been deprived. The single bite to which the dog was once supposed to be entitled has now its parallel in the single crime for which the highest Court in the land has given the human offender something like carte blanche. The benevolence of our Probation system as thus expounded does not extend to the whole category of' crime, but the scope of the decision ie sufficiently wide, sufficiently absurd, and sufficiently disastrous to fill one with amazement and even incredulity. The humour of the position is naturally the aspect of it upon which it is least unpleasant to dwell. The audacious fancy of the playwrights whose operas, revived after the lapse of a generation, have recently been delighting the people of Wellington -devised one plot in which, if we remember rightly, it was the privilege or the obligation, or both, of a line of bad baronets to commit a crime every day. With the full flower of New Zealand's legislative and judicial benevolence blossoming before them, Gilbert and Sullivan might have found an equally congenial theme in the licence which has thus been conferred upon crime, and the extent to which the privilege could be carried wffch a due regard to the invidious limitations still imposed upon the liberty of the criminal. Or it may be that more mordant satire of the author of "Erewhon " would have dealt with the matter in a fashion better suited to our needs. Jf, however, we are to measure our achievement not by the topsyturveydoiai of "Erewhon" or " Euddigore," but by that of some existing State, must we not go to revolutionary Russia for a parallel? A similar enactment of the Bolshevik Government would surely have • been advertised all over the world (under such headings as "" Licensed Larceny " or "One Man, One Crime") as an example of what the Red revolu j tionaries can do when they have a free hand. And even in the American States, where the male prisoners were recently striking for cigarettes and the females for powder and paint, it may be that I hands will be held up in pious horror at the extravagant .length to ' which humanitarianism has been carried in our criminal administration. The facts in the case which has revealed this remarkable condition ot our criminal law were very simple. A man who had received from his employer a cheque for £l 16s in payment of wages altered the amount to £10 16s, and succeeded in 'getting a tradesman to cash the cheque for the increased amount.. He had thus committed both forgery and theft. Even in the case of a double offence deliberately committed, there may be circumstances of nervous strain or special temptation or irresistible pressure which would justify a Court, with all the facts before it, in exercising its discretion in favour of the prisoner, and giving to him probation instead of imprisonment. In this case, however, Mr. Justice S almond found that there were "no circumstances of extenuation or excuse," and if he had been free to follow his own opinion he would have sentenced the prisoner to " imprisonment for a term of six months as .a protection to the community^ against thieves and forgers." But, according to the Judge's interpretation of a judgment delivered by the Court of Appeal last week, his discretion to grant that protection had been withdrawn.. The result was that the offender was not sent to prison but admitted to probation. Though a Judge who has been overruled may be tempted to use the next case of the same kind that comes before him for a reductio ad absurdum of the superior Court's decision, we are quite unable to see that any such suggestion is possible here. The case before the Oourt oE Appeal was certainly not less serious than that now iri quesModa £bs piisouar. in, that caic

had stolen a Sayings Bank passbook from his mate, and then committed forgery in order to get the account transferred. Yet the Court of Appeal held that probationl had been improperly refused. The decision (says Mr. Justice S&l----mond) seems to me to aniount to this and nothing elso: That probation is a matter of course and a matter of right in the case of offonces of dishonesty, unless they aro repeated; in other words, every man in this country is entitled to commit one theft or one forgery with safety and remain at liberty. I cannot help thinking that this is a doctrine unsound and dangerous, the inevitable result of which, is the degradation of the standard of honesty in this community. Probation, as I regard the matter, ought to be treated as a special privilege, to be granted on special grounds and hi special cases. This surely was the intention of the Legislature m instituting the system, and whether the lamentable position now disclosed is to be attributed to its own blundering or to that of the Courts, a legislative remedy should be applied at once.