The Evening Mail. SATURDAY, JULY 6, 1878.

Oamaru Mail, Volume III, Issue 719, 6 July 1878, Page 2

The Evening Mail. SATURDAY, JULY 6, 1878.

The New Zealand Jurist, in an article on the "VYhitaker-Joneb libel case, sterns to think that Mr. Hislop has compromised his position as a member "of Parliament in consequence of the action he took in the preliminary stages of the case. It does not base its opinion upon the broad principle that members of Parliament, who are also lawyers, Bhould not receive fees for conducting cases in which the Parliament of which they are members is interested —as has some of the Opposition journals, with a thoughtlessness born of bitter political jealousy. Its opinion is the reaulfc .of a misinterpretetiou of a statement which occurred in an article which appeared in the jOamaru Mail of the 31st May last. The paragraph referred to is as follows :— (i Js ot only did Mr. Hislop vote against it with Mr. Rees, but, as we stated in a previous article, he waaj thoroughly opposed to it. . . , As the accused's solicitor and friend, he, during the, .period that the subject was being debated iq. the House—not then being bo well versed in the trumrtiona re/erred to jn tije article

which was alleged to be libellous—daily impressed upon his mind the desirableness of coming to an amicable settlement of the matter, and, from the time that the House ordered the accused' 3 prosecution in the Supreme Court to the time that he (the accused) left Wellington, he would have been glad to see the proceedings in the Supreme Court quashed." In commenting upon the foregoing, the Jurist says:—"lt appears, therefore, that Mr. Hislop was solicitor for the accused at the time when the latter was summoned to the bar of the House ; and that he acted as his solicitor during the period that the subject was being discussed in the House, and daily advised his client. Viewing the circumstances in which the prisoner was placed, Mr. Hislop moved a resolution, which was carried, to the effect that, in case of his acquittal, or the jury disagreeing, the expenses of the suit, as between attorney and client, were to be paid by the country." We hasten to explain what was meant to be conveyed by the sentence quoted by the Jurist, " As the accused's solicitor and friend," &c. Whilst we confess that it does probably admit of the interpretation adopted by the Jurist, we had no intention of conveying the meaning which has been put upon it by that paper. It would have, perhapa, been more corrupt to have omitted that portion of the sentence which says that Mr. Hislop was the accused's solicitor at the time that the matter was being debated in the House, and we would have clone so had it occurred to us that our meaning would have been misunderstood. From the time that Mr. Jones arrived in Wellington t_P t]ia H n ie thftt the House relegated the matter to the Supreme Court, there was no necessity for the employment of a solicitor in connection therewith, and the idea of doing so was not even thought of until the House washed its hands of the affair, when it was publicly announced, and every member made aware that Mr. Hislop was acting for Mr. Jones. In faot, although Mr. Jqnks had viewed Mr, Hislop as his solicitor in conneotton with his business, Mr. Hislop could not have been aware of the circumstance, as Mr. Jones had never had occasion to engage him in connection with any matter until after the House had ordered the prosecution. J t was then, fur the first time, that Mr. Jonrs. .seeing that Mr. Hislop was a resi rl ;rit in the same town, and preqent in Wellington, engaged him to arrange for, and conduct, his defence. Even up to the present time, Mr. Hislop, or his firm, lias not been engaged professionally by Mr. Jones in any matter other than that arising out of the libel prosecution. The fact, therefore, is that, whatever might have been' Mr. Bislop's motive in championing Mr. Jones in the House, and subsequently moving that, in case of acquittal, or the jury disagreeing, the exexpenses should be paid by the country, there is not one tittle of evidence to lead, anyone to the (suspicion that lie did so in any other capacity than as a member of the House. Of course, the whole article in the Jurist is based upon the interpretation of our statement that Mr. Hislop was the accused's solicitor at the time of the debate on his case in parliament, We have, however, explained, and our explanation has deprived the article which, on our statement, had laid the train for another breach of privilege, of any potency it might otherwise have possessed. For, tlie Jurist states, (i It is quite clear that taking or demanding payment for services rendered out of Parliament is a totally different thing" from demanding payment for services rendered in Parliament. This is only reasonable. If lawyers, who were also M.H.H.'s, were precluded from participating in oases because those cases were either intimately or remotely connected with the action of the Parliament to which they belonged, they would, unless willing to make a great pecuniary sacrifice, be necessitated to retire from Parliament, and the people would lose many of their most able and honorable representative!?. Parliamentary discipline will, we trust, never reach such a pitch of absurdity as to impose upon the legal members of our House of Representatives such restrictions. We hope —and we are sure that we are not singular in doing so—that political animosities will not give birth to a lengthy and unprofitable debate upon the question which his beep raised by the Jurist under a misapprehension of our meaning.