THE SCOTT-RITCHIE CASE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1107, 19 May 1893, Page 21

THE SCOTT-RITCHIE CASE.

The notorious Scott-Ritchie case just decided reminds us of the old saying once so greatly in vogue with breakers of the land laws, that it is the easiest thing in the world to drive a coach and four through an Act of Parliament. There have been four actions at law, and, curiously enough, the costs, damages, rents, and fines amount in the aggregate to something like four thousand pounds sterling. There is a glamour of ' fairy four' about the proceedings which the manager of the National Mortgage Company is not likely to forget in a hurry. He tried to drive his coach and four through the land laws, and he did not succeed ; and he has a bad bargain round his neck which he will have to complete to the bitter end to the great loss of his company. Thank Heaven the punishment tits the crime. It is a crime once very rife in this country. A crime the outcome of the meanest selfishness and the most tyrannical contempt for the right of men and women to a share of the public lands. It is a crime like the crimes of the v-impires, the bloodsuckers, the ' sweaters ' whose prosperity strikes its roots into the degradation of human destitution. It is a crime hitherto regarded as [no worse than the formality of breaking the provisions of a statute. It is a crime which even now has its apologists in almost every newspaper in New Zealand, and on almost every public platform. Thank Heaven, we repeat, that it is a crime which has been proved to carry with it just the very punishment most likely to gall the debased minds of sordid wretches. It is a punishment of pecuniary loss long continued. The sufferer sees his ' filthy lucre' flowing away steadily from him, and so feels that after all it is a crime to steal the property of the people. In the fact that it has required four expensive law suits to establish this position we have a strong tribut s to the power of money. From the moment in which that most luminous judgment of Mr Justice Williams showed the true position there never was any possibility of doubt. Even the critics and cavillers in the press and on public platforms were either silenced or turned into friends of the Minister, whose strong hand had forced the guilty to account. But money protected tho 'bad eminence' of its ill-gotten position with more expenditure. We hope the Minister will use his victory without mercy or com-

punction. We hope he will remember that the appeal made to the law against justice was a grave aggravation of the original offence. We hope he will exact the very last fraction of punishment the law allows him. Lastly, we hope that his search for other offenders, which is still proceeding, may be as successful as that which triumphed the other day in the Appeal Court over moneybags and the hired athletes of the law.