MR HUGH SHORTHAND AND THE ENGLISH MURDER CASE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 661, 24 October 1884, Page 4 (Supplement)

MR HUGH SHORTHAND AND THE ENGLISH MURDER CASE.

TO THE EDITOR OF TIIE !NE\V ZEALAND MAIL. g tKj I appeal to you confidently for a full hearing, and a fair judgment. Recently, as you will know, sir, by I was charged and acquitted of murder in England. How, the circumstances of such charge -and acquittal were such as to make every honest and fair person disgusted, ashamed, and indignant. On my part, they gave immediate life to a most vehement protest, and to the institution of initiatory steps, for criminal and civil proceedings. But outside this, it is for you, sir, it seems, to say with me in no small measure whether or not a New Zealand citizen has been outrageously deprived of the rights, privileges, and principles of international law. If this°is not so, theD, air, a New Zealand citizen may be illegally and falsely hunted, charged, arrested, gagged, and. imprisoned, and such treatment as would with punity be awarded to a foreigner, may with impunity be awarded to a colonial. Now, sir, the precise circumstances of my ill-treatment were that I was charged and arrested for murder without an arrest and search warrant, and committed to prison, for three weeks and three days without a tittle of evidence beiog brought against me, and then formally discharged as completely innocent. Throughout I was disallowed any power of speech 3 Such, sir, was my treatment at. the hands of the English local and metropolitan Government authority combined. Such was the conduct of the English Treasury Royal. I would now remark briefly on my. case from a criminal and international law-point of view First from a criminal law-point of view. It is "clearly laid down by the highest criminal law authorities, that an arrest for murder is illegal without a warrant of arre3t, unle33 such murder has been seen committed b 3 the person arrested. That imprisonment without evidence of crime is illegal. That the prisoner shall he allowed power of speech. These positions are even supported by general as well as by particular legal dicta. Thus it is laid down by the highest constitutional law writers. There s a presumption of inuocence in favor of all persons. If guilt and innocence are equal, even the law, strictly impartial, leans towards a construction of innocence. Innocence, is to be Assumed until guilt is proved. The prisoner is to be heard.

Now, from an international lawpointof view. It is hardly necessary to go to the great international law authorities.. We are dealing with an elementary principle of international law. A stranger in a strange land is entitled to be fairly and legally tried by the laws of the land iu which he is dwelling. On this point I need say no more, further than to intimate that I trust to be able to give a practical form to this principle of international right, by representing my case for national remonstrance and reparation, if such there can be, at the bar of the New Zealand House of Representatives, simultaneous to raising the same point by proxy in the English House of Commons. I shall not, in conclusion, indulge my outraged feelings in any figure of rhetoric, but I shall at present content myself by earnestly asking you, sir :—Shall it be truly said that there is no colonial aegis against illegal treatment such as described in a distant land, and is colonial courage and independence to ■be trampled into the very mire with contempt and insolence by English tyranny, cowardice, and injustice, such as is assuredly the vilest and lewdest prostitution of every instinct., as well as of every form of legal and moral faith, sense, and temper ? It is for you, sir, as well as for me, to say, and in no slight measure, with your acknowledged zeal and ability. I shall therefore trust implicitly to your just judgment and disposition ; and, thanking you for vour space, I am, &c., Hugh Shortland. ' Wellington, October 16.