THE NELSON EXAMINER. Wednesday, December 9, 1857.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XVI, Issue XVI, 9 December 1857, Page 2

THE NELSON EXAMINER. Wednesday, December 9, 1857.

Journals become more neces«arj»» men become more equal and individualism more to be feared. It would be to underrate their importance to suppose that the; serre only to secureliberty: thej maintain civilization. Dk TocaoiviLH, Of Democracy in America, vol. Y.,p.230.

It has been quaintly said, that the great object of the English constitution, with all its intricate arrangements, and complicated machinery, including royalty with the splendours of a court, the Houses of Parliament, the army, the navy, and all the civil dignitaries, is simply to put twelve men into a jury-box. The saying would never have obtained currency if it had not contained within it a great truth ; for it has in it much more than appears at first sight. It implies freedom as opposed to slavery ; liberty as distinguished both from anarchy and despotism. It means, that as the great motive which induces and indeed compels men to combine into organized bodies, is to secure for themselves protection for life and security for property against lawless violence and brute force, so those associations and communities best deserve to be called civilized and well governed that provide this protection and security in the most certain and expeditious manner; and that where justice is administered most impartially, certainly, and quickly, where it is least influenced by power, by prejudice, by passion, or party feeling, there the ends of government are most surely attained, and the people best deserve the title of free : and such is England through her trial by jury. For what is anarchy but the uncontrolled dominion of brute force, compressed within the grasp of one man, and wielded at his will ; and what is constitutional freedom, but the rio-ht to do all save what injures another ; and of what is such injury, society constitutes itself the judge.

The mark, then, the distinguishing characteristic of all free governments is the supremacy of Law ; that rule which says that no one, however strong, however wealthy, however powerful, shall interfere with his neighbour's liberty or encroach upon his equal right to enjoy all that God has given to man in common ; which endeavours, by an infinite variety of provisions, penalties, and restraints, to force men's actions into an outward conformity with the plain and simple, yet great and wonderfully comprehensive precept, " Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you."

To secure this, we have armies to keep off all interference from without ; we have governors and legislators to make, apply, and adapt these laws to suit the ever-varying conditions of society; we have gaols to shut up the wrong-doers, and judges to lay down and explain the law, while twelve impartial men of good repute determine between truth and falsehood.

And now, judged by this rule, what is our present position and state in New Zealand? We have no hesitation in saying that it is most disgraceful, most discreditable to the care, the forethought, and the ability of all those authorities who are placed over us to attend to this very thing. We have England's troops, and her ships, and her name, to keep off foreign foes, and put down internal disturbance : but whom have we to administer the laws ; to do justice between man and man ; to give to every accused person a fair and impartial hearing, and preside over the deliberations, enlighten the judgments, and direct the consciences of the jury which is to determine his fate, which is to place him among his fellows once again a man, free and independent, or, by its verdict, deprive him of his rights, consign him to an ignominious death, or to perhaps a lifelong deprivation of all that gives that life worth and value ?

What are our governors doing? In the violent party struggles and conflicts to determine who shall have power, have they altogether forgotten for what ends that power is given them ? Or what is the chief Governor himself doing? Relieved from the greater portion of his duties, and placed above the turbid atmosphere of political warfare, the certain, regular, impartial, and dignified administration of justice should be his peculiar «are; and yet nothing less certain or more irregular can well be imagined, or apparently treated with more negligence and unconcern.

People at a distance will hardly believe that, until the other day, when Mr. Justice Stephen was congratulated on again being able to resume his seat on the bench, there was not a •single Judge throughout the whole of New Zealand able to administer the law : and this from no sudden casualty, no unforeseen dispensation of Providence.

The intention of the excellent Judge Martin to retire from his post was bruited about long before he left these shores : the declining health and increasing complaints of a second, and the confirmed valetudinarianism of a third, were matters of notoriety ; so much so, that in one at least of these cases the appointment should, from the first, have been looked upon as a mere temporary expedient, pending more permanent and satisfactory arrangements. And yet, with the exception that there is a rumour afloat that one gentleman of standing and character is likely to come out from England some time or other, we heat of nothing being done to meet this great, this pressing necessity.

How many months have elapsed since the proper period for holding a session of the Supreme Court, how many more are likely to pass over our heads before it will yet take place, we are almost afraid to say or to conjecture ; but we know that our little Gaol is full to repletion, and that no less than 1 7 persons are awaiting their trials, some for offences of the gratest character, and of a nature in Nelson hitherto unknown. If guilty, society calls loudly for their punishment, that others may be the more effectually deterred from crime by the example of their fate; if innocent, that they may be at once relieved from the moral stigma now resting on them, and from the personal contamination and debasing influences of daily and hourly association with guilt. Compared with this view of the question, the practical denial of justice in all civil cases seems but a minor grievance ; but the hope of impunity held out to roguery and dishonesty of all kinds, in all cases which required the interposition of the Supreme Court before they can be grappled with, the interruption to mercantile transactions, and the positive deadlock in some cases, as in taking out probate of wills, I for instance, are matters of no such trifling importance to us, however little they may seem to those whose duty it is, and in whose power it lies, to remove these crying grievances.

If this were a single instance, or the second or third occasion only, on which we have had just ground for dissatisfaction, or expressed our sense of the injury to our own interests and to the cause of Constitutional Government which is thus inflicted, we could feel a little more patient; but it is not so. Time after time the same neglect, the same complaints, until at last we have become so accustomed to our regimen of poco-curante-ism, that nothing would surprise us more, or find us more unprepared, than the arrival of a Judge on the

day appointed, or his entering upon his duties at the proper lime previously fixed upon for their performance. Thus we have heard that a Judge was once kept away from his duties because there was no vessel provided for him, another time becausa it was too small for him, a third time because (we are almost ashamed to write it) there was a dispute between him and the Government which should pay for his passage ; and this, when men's fortunes, characters, and very lives were trembling in the balance and waiting his decision.

Out upon it. We can afford to laugh at our little men apeing the airs of great ones, who give themselves no airs at all ; we can amuse ourselves with our village politics, and would-be politicians, staggering under the unwonted burden of senatorial honours and responsibilities, and labouring in vain with thoughts too big for utterance ; but this is no laughing matter, life and property are as valuable to their possessors here as at home, and reputation ought to be so ; and we cannot consent to see a matter which forms the very heart of our body politic, on the due performance of whose functions depend its health, vigour, and its very existence, thus carelessly handled and ignorantly or thoughtlessly neglected without serious complaint and indignant remonstrance.

Our news from India, carried down to the late date of October 7th, is, on the whole, satisfactory. The tidings of the storming of Delhi is confirmed, although attended with great loss of life. Nana Sahib, whose name has obtained a fearful and appalling notoriety, through the deeds of fiendish cruelty he directed and joined in, has been taken prisoner, and fallen a victim to the irrepressible rage of the soldiery, whilst the court martial was deliberating on his fate. Lucknow has been relieved, and its gallant defenders released from their perilous position; and this before the succours, fast pouring in from England, had time to arrive at the scene of action. They were, however, wanted, for symptoms of disaffection had begun to show themselves in the armies of Bombay and Madras; another attempt at insurrection had occurred in the Punjab, and a large force of mutineers still kept the field in Oude. But fresh troops were arriving almost daily in Calcutta, and the returning and resistless wave of British supremacy will steadily advance up the broad valley of the Ganges, sweeping before it all the loose and disjointed elements of the late outbreak, and restoring order, peace, and security, where robbery, outrage, and murder have been so lately reigning paramount.

Let us hope, too, that something more than this may be done ; that the empire we have regained by force of arms may be better governed for the future j that the condition of the miserable ryots, the sadly-oppressed serfs who cultivate the soil and pay three-fourths of their earnings for permission to exist upon the remainder, may be inquired into and ameliorated; that the use of torture to extract revenue, only lately found out, and which shows how much evil may still remain undiscovered, may be thoroughly abolished ; and that India, reconquered by our arms, may be | retained by the only tenure it can or ought permanently to be held by— strict justice, and a sense of all the duties which we owe to those many millions whom Providence has so strangely and wonderfully entrusted to our rule and governance.