THB WAHD-CHRISTIE CASE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6648, 12 September 1889, Page 3

THB WAHD-CHRISTIE CASE.

— <> Australian Opinion. The following article from the Melbourne Evening Standard shows that thia celebrated case is making some stir in Aus- j tralia. The Argus is not the only journal which expresses itself on the matter. The j Standard says : — " Attention is directed i f i-om time to time, in the public Press, to | the imbroglio between the Ministry in , New Zealand and Judge Ward. It has j all arisen from the Judge having ordered j the imprisonment of a somewhat popular j debtor for fraudulent insolvency. For \ this he was at once called to order by the Government, end it came out that the Judge was indebted in a certain sum to the Company which w&o creditor in tho case, the debt being covered by a mortgage of ' valuable real property. But very little, on ' the other hand, has been made of the fact — on this side the water, at least — that the Minister of tho Crown who called the Judge to order is the solicitor of the imprisoned bankrupt. Indeed, in the I New Zealand correspondence on the subject this fact has been studiously but very unfairly kept iu the background, although. New Zealand from end to end has been ringing with the scandal. " It ha3 been the subject of keen and fierce discussion in the House of Representatives in that Colony, and but for the fact that a vote on it involved the fate of the Ministry — a contingency which, at this particular time, political parties in the Assembly do not deßire — the scandalous attempt to overawe tho Judge would have been signally punished. "A juster and. more honourable Judge than Mr Ward, or.a man of more sterling honour, it is commonly considered has never occupied a seat on the Bench in that .Colony;. and though, pevhaps, it may be improper for a Judge to owe money to any man, even if secured in the ordinary way, it is not an atom in enormity compared to the conduct of a Ministry that sought to coerce and buily a Judge because one o£ t i its principal Ministers is the solicitor cmI ployed by the prisoner sent to gaol by the ' Judge in Insolvency. It should be added i that Judge Ward has turned on hia ' tormentors, and, in giving the Government | particular fits, he has had the hearty i sympathy of tens of thousands of the best of the people."