Deceiving Parliament

Southland Times, Issue 12769, 30 November 1893, Page 4

Deceiving Parliament

[Evening Poet]. It will be remembered that during the recent sitting of the Court of Appeal, the Judges were divided as to the appeal in the Sydenham licensing case. They were unanimous in upholding the. validity of the decision of the Court below that the licenses were bad as the law stood at the time the judgment was given, but they were divided as to the effect of clause 21 of the Alcoholic Liquor Sale Control Act of last session, Justices Richmond and Conolly. holding that the clause was retrospective in_ operation, and validated the licenses which Mr Justice Denniston had declared to be improperly issued. The circumstances are very peculiar. The Borough of Sydenham; after much fighting over the licensing question, was divided into wards, and each ward became a licensing district. sth*e new coinmittses, witheat waiting for local option polls to be taken, granted certain licenses;' Mr Justice Deanistea decided that the certificates so issued were invalid. Nevertheless, the licenitiß continued selling, although one was fined for doing so, and the case was taken to the Court, of Appeal. There clause 21 of the Act of last session suddenly cropped up, and it was argued that it validated the licenses and upset the appeal by its retrospective action. This extraordinary contention caused inquiry, and the result has been the exposure of a most nefarious proceeding on the part of the Premier. He stands convicted of having smuggled through Parliament an apparently harmless, innocentlooking amendment, the intended effect of which was to override the law, and, by retrospective effect, bar the discretion of the Court of Appeal in a case then pending before it. We are not surprised to find The Prohibitionist denouncing this as “ the most disgraceful piece of legislative dishonesty ” ever known in the colony. The ■ facts are indisputable. The bill, consisting of _2O clauses, passed through Committee on 25th August, and Sir Robert Stout left Wellington the same evening, under the expressed belief, for which he had good grounds, that any further amendment would be of a merely verbal character. That was the understanding between himself and the Premier. On Monday, 28th August, a Supplementary Order Paper contained anew clause, 21, and several other amendments. The object of the new clause was not explained. It looked a very harmless one, referring to a change of electoral boundaries after it became law. No one supposed it to have any retrospective action. It was added to the bill without discussion on Tuesday, 29th August. It is now evident that this clause was framed expressly to upset,the appeal in the Sydenham licensing cases without letting the House know what it was doing. The Premier, in fact, deceived the House most grossly, by inducing it to pass as a formal matter a clause which he knew was intended to have retrospective effect in validating licenses the invalidity of which had been affirmed by a Judge of the Supreme Court, against whose decision an appeal was pending. In a strong and able article on this matter, the Dnnedin Star asks the following pertinent and pregnant questions : — Who drew clause 21 of the Act ? Was the clause drawn by the Law Draughtsman ? If so, what were his instructions? Is the clause in the shape it was in when first drafted by the Law Draughtsman ? If altered, why was it altered? Was it shown to anyone? Was a Minister of the Crown told that it was doubtful if it would validate the Sydenham licenses ? Did'any Minister of the Crown say—if so, name him—that the Ministry could not risk putting the clause more plainly ? Like our contemporary, we have little sympathy with the extreme Prohibitionist Party, and think that its action in Sydenham has been most unjust and improper, but the questions at issue in the present phase of the matter are of more importance than Prohibition. The Star well puts them :— Was the Legislature deceived ? Was a fraud attempted to be committed on the Legislature ? If so, by whom ? There are strange rumours afloat as to the influences brought to bear on the Premier to induce him to smuggle clause 21 into the bill. Mr Reeves has been questioned on the subject in Christchurch, but professes the most sublime ignorance regarding it. The whole responsibility seems to rest on the Premier’s shoulders, and it behoves him to, if he can, clear himself. If, as the facts would seem to indicate but too clearly, he has been guilty of the conduct imputed to him, the case affords another proof of his unfitness for the position he occupies, of his political unworthiness, and of the danger to the country of having so unscrupulous a politician at the head of the Government and as Leader of the House of Representatives.