TRIAL BY JURY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12087, 4 October 1902, Page 4

TRIAL BY JURY.

The feeling aroused in New South Wales by the action of the AttorneyGeneral in the Friedman case compares remarkably with the lethargy with which New Zealand received the action of the Cabinet in the Moore case. In New South Wales the recommendations of the Attor-ney-General move the gubernatorial prerogative of pardon, and the Government, ior his action, was placed on trial. We do not suppose that every member of the Sydney Opposition thought that a serious breach of our constitutional methods had been committed when Friedman was promptly pardoned on the judge's advice, in the face of the jury verdict of guilty, nor that the Labour party went against the Government solely on a question of principle. The last thing which a* thoughtful citizen would wish is that the prerogative of unconditional pardon should be abolished, and the judge's conviction that an innocent man had been condemned is clearly entitled to weight. Such judicial advice once saved British Law from hanging a man wrongfully convicted of ft murder, afterwards confessed to by the notorious Peace, and it is the strongest principle of our Law that a hundred guilty should escape rather than one innocent suffer. But the stand made in New South Wales and the narrow escape of the Government shows that public opinion strongly condemned any undue haste or lack of careful consideration in case of interference with the ordinary course of law. We cannot say that the same public opinion was shown in New Zealand recently, but the effect of out . administrative methods has been to make public opinion "an almost ' unknown quantity.