Untitled

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4151, 10 July 1874, Page 2

It is probable that some good will come out of the indiscretion—to give it the mildest possible name—of the person who furnished the Otago Daily Times with tho telegrams which purported to be copies of messages from Judge Ward to the Premier in re Judge Chapman in the case of Macassey v. Bell. On the motion of Mr. Gillies, yesterday, the Lower House of Assembly ordered tho production of all the correspondence on the subject in possession of the Government to be laid before Parliament. Tho Premier intimated that the order of the House would be complied with within a few days, but, in doing so, expressed a hope that the scandal might be allowed to die out, and that the House would not insist that the papers should be included in the usual appendix to the report of the proceedings of Parliament. In this hope he was joined by Mr. Fox, who reminded the House that the two judges alluded to —Judge Chapman and Judge Ward—did not sit in the same Court, and only met at rare intervals, on occasions on which any personal unpleasantnesses between them was not likely to affect tho administration of public justice. He thought the subject should be fully inquired into, but put before the House the view that the representations made by tho one judge as to the possible partiality of the other, was theleast important feature of the case. The real object of the inquiry, he held, should be how tho contents of the telegrams became public. Ho instanced the well-remembered case in which the substance of a telegram addressed to himself while he was Minister, sent to him from Wellington to Otago, had been forwarded to and published by the same newspaper—the Otago Daily limes. In this later instance the same journal was involved. He expressed his belief that the betrayal of trust in tho firstmentioned case could have been clearly brought home under examination on oath in tho Supreme Court; and his conviction was that, in the later instance, the secresy of the department had been betrayed, and that in first obtaining improperly possession of the Ward telegrams, and then using them, a criminal act had been committed, which the House should endeavor to trace home to the guilty party or parties. Exception to this view of the relative importance of the two subjects involved in the matter was taken by Mr. Gillies, of Auckland, and Mr. Gillies, of Otago. They held that the gravamen of the matter lay in the assertion of one judge that another judge was not likely to try fairly a case brought before him, for reasons which involved family and business considerations. The first of these, if true, would imply bias as likely to exist in the mind of the accused judge ; and the second certainly goes close up to a charge of corruption. Insinuations by one judge against another they held to involve considerations so largely affecting the purity of the administration of justice, that until the matter was thoroughly probed the public could feel but little confidence in, at least, the Supreme Court of Otago. We agree with them. It may be desirable, for tho reputation of the Courts of tho Colony abroad, that as little may be made public as possible as to any inquiry that may be made in this affair. It cannot but be injurious when it is known that ono of the Judges of the Supreme Court of the Colony entertained suspicions so strong on the subject of the integrity of a brother Judge that he communicated with the head of the Government on the subject, stated reasons for his belief, and recommended that another Judge should be sent te hear an important civil action. But it will be still more injurious if a charge of this kind, made in this way, is not fully inquired into. It is possible there may be found to be nothing in it. It is possible that the communoiation made to tho Premier was made hastily, in a moment of anger, and without due consideration. And that view of tho case is not inconsistent with the fact that the accusing Judge has since behaved somewhat strangely. He first denied the authenticity of the telegrams imputed to him. They were denounced on his own authority as “impudent forgeries.” Then they were repudiated only to the extent of being inaccurate, though materially so. Now we have it on the highest authority that they were not< forgeries, for tho Premier did receive telegrams signed by tho Judge to whom the published telegrams were attributed. We also have it, on the same authority, that they could not be gross or impudent fabrications, because the published telegrams imputed to Judge Ward, and those which tho Premier received, so closely assimilate to each other that tho nature of the real telegrams must have been fully known to tho editor of tho journal which published them. Such is Mr, Yogel’s description of tho correspondence, and in a few days Parliament will bo in a position to judge for itself. While the first object must bo to clear tho administration of justice in tho Supremo Court of Otago from tho suspicion now attached to it, and to ascertain tho grounds for, and the motives of, the charge made by Judge Ward against Judge Chapman—and what must follow will depend upon tho nature of tho evidence which may bo obtained —wo by no means underrate the importance of that secondary object which tho hon. member has placed first. It is necessary in the interests of tho public, that communications passing through the Telegraph Department should be absolutely secure from violation. Tho instance referred to by Mr. Fox was a very gross ono ; but it has not been proved to have been attributable

to the Telegraph Department. It is impossible that in the Ward telegrams, not merely the substance, but apparently nearly the whole body and form of the telegrams, should have found their way into hands for which they were not intended, without breach of trust or confidence somewhere. The case wouldhave been bad enough if those messages had been fromone private person to another; but it is most seriously aggravated when we know that the messages which were apparently duplicated—one set passing into foreign hands—were addressed by a Judge of one of the high Courts of the Colony to the Premier, and related to matters of the very greatest gravity. It may be a coincidence and nothing more, and yet it is a remarkable fact that the same journal was involved in tho last as in tho first instance alluded to yesterday by Mr. Fox, and that in both cases the information was transmitted from Wellington. There must be something in this more than such a possibility as a message being read by an experienced or amateur operator outside a wall of brick or wood, or accidentally overheard by a visitor to the telegraph office, or left in a duplicate form on a blottingsheet in a telegraph office. We may be absolutely sure that Judge Ward did not commit either of these last inadvertencies ; and wo shall be hard to be persuaded that there are telegraphists outside the office smart enough to read off a message outside tho walls of the office, as was done in Bombay during the great cotton frauds of fifteen or sixteen years ago. The whole subject is so important as regards the purity of the Courts, and so mysterious as to the manner in which telegraphic secrets have been betrayed, that most probably Mr. Gillies or Mr. Fox, or some other hon. member, will, when the papers are before the House, move for a select committee to inquire most fully and closely into the whole matter.