PUBLIC SAFETY AND PUBLIC JUSTICE.

Observer, Volume 7, Issue 348, 8 August 1885, Page 7

PUBLIC SAFETY AND PUBLIC JUSTICE.

When our Government took active steps to provide for the defence of our port, they could hardly hope to please everybody. They clearly displeased one person, who has taken steps to get redress for her grievance. The ease begun in the Supreme Court on Monday last affords a good illustration of the genius of British law, and its jealous care of private rights. The Government of New Zealand wished to erect a battery to defend this port. They had a suitable reserve of their own on a bold head-land, and there they proceeded to erect the battery and to place great guns. In time.? gone by, however, they had alienated the adjoining land close to this battery. The owner had built a house, and lives in it. Great guns and house property are proved to be bad neighbours, and in this case-it is_ likely that firing the guns would break the windows and deafen the inhabitants of the house. The law has provided a remedy for such a state of things, and Mrs Kissling sued the agent of the Government for damages, and for a discontinuance of the nuisance complained of. In any other than 'an Anglo-Saxon country, this would have been impossible. As a matter of course, such a cause of complaint would be laughed to scorn in most parts of the world. Not so here. The danger of an adverse verdict, and a decree of injunction by the Supreme Court was so great, that a Bill was prepared, brought into Parliament, and passed, all to prevent the success of Mrs Kissling's law suit. This at first sight seems very hard. The right which the common law of the realm had given was taken away after an action was begun to assert the right. Yet, this also is in strict accordance with the fundamental principles of our law. The safety of the people has always been regarded as the first principle of our law, and when this has required legislative interference, no hesitation has ever been shown in dealing promptly with the matter. In Mrs Kissling's case, therefore, the interference of the legislative is justified by undoubted precedents. It is to be hoped, however, that in protecting public interests, no private wrong has been done. If it is found that the land alienated by Government is practically rendered useless by the battery, the Government should take the property back at a valuation. It is no answer to say that the reserve was always intended for a battery, because in that case it is clear that land enough should have been reserved adjacent to prevent injury to others by firing the guns. We have not seen the Act as yet, any more than the Judge of the Supreme Court, so we can only hope that the great haste with which it was prepared and passed, has not led to its being unjust in its provisions. The public safety is indeed the first consideration, but public justice and fair dealing is a not a less important element in a sound system of legislation.

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