SUNDAY AND THE LAW

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22712, 26 October 1935, Page 12

SUNDAY AND THE LAW

There will be some admiration not untinged with apprehension at the Sabbatarian zeal of the Marlborough police, as instanced in two cases that came before the magistrate at. Blenheim this week. Two of the offenders against the civil commandments regulating Sunday pursuits had sold newspapers; the other, with more originality, had driven a motor grader on the day of rest. It may be argued that very few people have the desire to spend their Sundays buying newspapers or driving about on graders. The magistrate before whom the cases were brought admitted, however, to having himself been a party —an innocent party, of course—to the breach of law in the first of these cases, and there are some who will consider that a law is lacking in urgent authority when one of the learned men charged with administering it can offend against it. It is somewhat pathetic to think that in consequence of these prosecutions magistrates throughout the land may feel constrained to cower miserably at home during the week-ends, fearful to move lest they offend against some neglected law. Indeed, even this might not save them. It is not so long ago that a common informer in Manchester proceeded against certain eminent citizens for failing in their church attendance, as was required of them under a long-forgotten but unrepealed law. If the police of New Zealand really set their minds to administering shocks to the public, they may yet discover more heinous and obscure Sunday crimes than those of driving graders and selling newspapers, under which they can proceed against persons who have imagined they were spending the Sabbath guiltlessly. It is to be hoped that the police researches into Sabbatical offences will not, however, be too prolific of prosecutions. Already the laws relating to Sunday trading and Sunday observance are tricky enough. Some people may find it hard to understand, for instance, why it is wicked to buy an ice cream and carry it from a shop for consumption elsewhere, while the same cooling confection may be eaten on the premises without offence; or why railwaymen and motormen may be employed operating Sunday excursion trains and buses, but a county council workman may not deliver a grader to his employers on that same day. The opinion of Mr Bumble upon the occasionally inexplicable provisions of the law has received somewhat frequent expression since he made hii memorable observation, and on the whole people may be disposed to accept the evidence of the recent Blenheim prosecutions as less shocking than the sergeant of police expected.

THE MORTGAGE CORPORATION There is a good deal of truth in Mr Downie Stewart’s generalisation expressed during Thursday’s discussion in the House of Representatives concerning the Mortgage Corporation Bill that the Corporation has ample authority enabling expenditure on its part in respect of which it will be expected to carry none of the risk of loss. The original Act, of course, provided that the difference between the aggregate amount of the mortgages transferred to the Corporation and the nominal value of the securities was to constitute the Corporation’s contingent liability to the Crown. Any capital losses suffered by the Corporation in respect of such mortgages are to be written off against this contingent liability, this meaning, in effect, that the mortgages are guaranteed by the State. The amendments which gave rise to Mr Stewart’s anxious questionings appear to extend the State’s coverage to provide for losses in respect of interest on securities transferred to the Corporation, to protect the Corporation in respect of expenditure deemed necessary by the board of directors to safeguard securities, and to extend the protection enjoyed by the Corporation in respect of mortgages transferred under the main Act to cover mortgages given in substitution for those so transferred. These amendments, as the Minister of Finance indicated in replying to Mr Stewart, may be regarded as a logical enlargement of the principal Act and may be essential for the removal of difficulties which have become apparent since the Corporation began to function. There are no grounds for assuming that the board will “make a mess of its business,” and it seems reasonable to expect that judgment should be suspended until such time as the board’s capacity to make a loss or a profit on its transactions is discovered, the fact being borne in mind that such profit as it may show, after paying administrative expenses and dividends on capital, will accrue to the State. Mr Stewart’s advice to the Minister to guard against the possibility of the Corporation “building up a system of law for itself ” is, however, timely. Mr Stewart recalled the difficulties that arose through the granting of very wide privileges to the Public Trustee and the objections repeatedly raised by the legal profession to the existence of these privileges. In the circumstances there may be some satisfaction in noting Mr Coates’s admission that the point is “ important ” and that it will be carefully watched.