T. KENNEDY M‘DONALD’S CASE.

Evening Star, Issue 14572, 22 May 1911, Page 5

T. KENNEDY M‘DONALD’S CASE.

PLAIN SPEAKING.

(Special to the Star.] WELLINGTON, May 22.

Returning to the decision of the Court discharging tho defendant from custody on tho ground that his state of health rendered it possible that tho effect of imprisonment might produce mental shock or worry, and so have serious results on the prisoner, it must strike everyone that this decision opens tho door to some very interesting possibilities. It would seem that tho old cry of one law for tbo rich and another for tho poor is to bo supplemented by tho cry of one law for tho healthv and another for tho unhealthy. A trustee, for instance, who is unhealthy, and who can get half a dozen doctors to certify that tbo shock of imprisonment might have most serious effects on his health, can, under this decision, practise all the tricks of roguery witliin his knowledge, and so far as the civil law is concerned, escape the punitive means which the law provides for compelling repayment of the misappropriated funds. . . . Wo would add a further suggestion. Beneficiaries proposing to seek civil redress against the misappropriation of trust funds by their trustee will save themselves heavy expense by first having tho defendant trustee medically examined. It is certainly preferable to spend a little money at tho outset in that direction than to find, after years of worrying and costly litigation, that a court precedent provides a comfortable shelter for tlie defaulting, but unhealthy, trustee, and leaves his victims the empty consolation of a barren judgment. The disclosures made in tho action against tho defendant Macdonald have been of a nature that call for further investigar tion. It is quite plain that the allegations put forward cannot be loft where they are. ’The Chief Justice, in the course of his judgment, made a passing reference to the possibilities of proceedings of another kind being instituted, and it is the business of the Justice Department, not tho business of private individuals, to seo that proper inquiry is made in that direction. The suspicion must not bo permitted to exist in tho public mind that a member of the Legislature, possessing powerful friends, is any more immune from the consequences of his actions than the humblest member of tho community.— ‘ Dominon.’