JUSTICE UNDER REFORM

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 109, 4 November 1926, Page 18

JUSTICE UNDER REFORM

RECENT EVENTS CRITICISED

ADDRESS BY BEY. HOWARD ELLIOTT.

''Are we satisfied with the Ecform administration of justice?" was the subject of an address by the Rev. Howard Elliott before a largo gathering at the Town Hall last.night organised by the Protestant Political Association. Mr. Elliott said in opening that there was no desire hi anything that might be said from the P.P.A. platform to attack tho Anglican Church. In the last few weeks, he said, the people had been stirred by certain events—particularly tho releases from prison of certain men and the appointment of certain men to the Public .Service. He protested first of all against the appointment of Mr. B. L. Dajlard as Controller-General of Prisons, against the method of tho appointment, and "the system of which this appointment is but an illustration." Mr. Elliott said it had been promised by the Prime Minister, when a deputation approached him, that Mr. Dallard would not on any account be appointed permanently to the position of Controller, and that the appointee would be either a-military man or one who had had prisons experience. As soon as Air. Coates was out of the country the appointment of Mr. Dallard was madci If Mr. Coates had not gone away he felt sure . another appointment, would have been made. The whole idea of the prison ■ system to-day was that prisoners should be ' restored to citizenship as quickly as possible. Mr. Elliott pointed to the advances in prison reform, and to the decline in British prison population, attributable to improved administration changes. He did not question Mr. Dallard's qualifications, but he denied his suitability for the office of superintendent of the prisons of New Zealand—a clerk out of an office who perhaps had never before enteried a prison. If it was important enough to bring from overseas men for high railway and other positions, surely the control of prisons demanded the appointment of someone with more qualifications than that of having served his time as a clerk. "We will expect the Prime Minister to honour his promise when ho returns to New Zealand," said the speaker, amidst applause. He submitted that the position of Controller-General of Prisons should have been given to one of the magistrates, or others who had had experience in the Dominion. On two or three occasions recently it had been the practice to take men out of the Public Service Commissioner's office and to place them in higher positions over the heads of others who had better qualifications. It was against democracy and the interests of the Public Service that the Public Service Commissioner should be made a Caesar. He could take men into his office and elevate them as he. chosej and similarly he could raise their salaries. Mr. Dallard's appointment had not yet been confirmed, and he submitted that the Government should call for applications with a view to appointing a man with proper qualifications in his stead. Otherwise the Government's majority would disappear at the next General Election. (Applause.) ' RELEASES FEOM PRISON. Beferring to the Baume case, and the releases also of M'Kay, and Selwyn Baker, Mr. Elliott said there had been most partial administration of the law in respect to these men. Mr. Elliott detailed the circumstances of each case, and said that any man convicted of the offence committed by M'Kay and Baker never should be allowed their liberty again. If M'Kay and Baker were released, why were not others released who had done the same, and lesser things? If Mr. Massey had been alive these men never would have been released. (Applause.) The Government was faced with a great scandal if it did not satisfactorily explain its action. Beferring to tho case of Baume, Mr. Elliott said that he was allowed to retain his civilian clothes in prison, and enjoyed other privileges which were not extended to others. "Indeed, I don't know that he did not have a better time in than out," he remark-, cd. Baume might have rich relations and influential relations, but there were young men in prison to-day who had neither influence nor wealth, and who never did anything like what Baume did. They were there still. "Is there any justice in it?" the speaker asked, amidst a chorus of "Noes." The Minister of Justice, when asked about Buame's release, -had declared that he was not well informed. (Laughter.) In conclusion, ■ after declaring the leleases of the three men to be a crying shame and a scandal, Mr. Elliott put to the meeting a motion expressing dissatisfaction with Mr. Dallard's appointment, and demanding the appointment of a Commission to inquire into the facts of the Baume, M'Kay, and Baker cases, the proceedings to be open to the Press. The motion was declared carried. NEITHER FISH NOR FLESH. The latter portion of the meeting was given to an address by the Rev. John Enright (formerly Father Andrew, of the Passionist Fathers) upon "Where Does Anglo - Catholicism Lead!" and "Pages From My Life's Story," in which he related the story of his conversion to Protestantism. Anglo-Catholicism, he said, was heading directly for Homo, and the conversion of tho WIIOI3 of Protestantism in Great Britain to Roman Catholicism. The movement, he was sorry to say, was spreading to Australia and New Zealand. Those who were' dissatisfied with the Book of Common Prayer and their thirty-nine

articles of Protestantism should go one step further and pass directly to the Roman Catholic Church. Defaulting Anglo-Catholics would help towards disintegration cf the strength of the nationj and before it was too late hr appealed to these who felt drawn to Anglo-Catholicism to conic back. They should be cither good staunch Roman Catholics or thorough good Protestants; they should not be neither flesh nor fish.