SOBRIETY OF WORKING MEN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5655, 28 August 1896, Page 6 (Supplement)

SOBRIETY OF WORKING MEN.

A very remarkable incident, bearing alike on the sobriety of the Victorian working -runn and on the position of a Supreme Court Judge in relation to Parliament, came under the notice of the Victorian Legislative Assembly recently. Mr Justice Williams, during the hearing of a divorce suit, gave it as his opinion that a man who merely got drunk on Saturday night and remained drunk over Sunday was not an "habitual" drunkard. A somewhat similar case came before the court on August 10. During its progress one of the counsel engaged quoted the Judge's previous decision, and then — according to the report of the Melbourne Argus — his Honor interjected: "I would have to divorce two-thirds of the labour

population if I classed such men as habitual drunkards." The statement was a most sweeping one, but. apparently passed without comment at the time. When, however, the Legislative Assemblymet next day, a member rose in his place and, regardless of an admonition from the Speaker that he was out of order, said he wished to call attention to a paragraph in the Argus of that morning. He quoted the paragraph in question, and, amidst encouraging cheers, proceeded to state that it was a "libel on 'the colony," and added that " the judge was a driveller, nothing more or less." *At Eichmond," he told the House, "on a Monday morning we have, perhaps, two brought up for drunkenness out of a population of 30,000, and a country like this deserves credit that there is so little drunkenness. I represent a big constituency, in which there is a large population of labouring men, and I know from my experience on the Bench that this is a libel on them." He concluded by asking the Premier to state from his place in Parliament that he did not believe such a statement — that two-thirds of the working men of the country were drunken men and never sober on Sunday — to be correct. The opinion of the House was emphatically with the honourable member, and Mr Turner agreed without hesitation to take the matter up. He promised to "communicate with the judge, and see if he really did say what was attributed to him."

On the following day, Mr Turner read in the Assembly the substance of a letter which he had received in reply. Mr Justice "Williams commenced by stating that he did not consider himself under any obligation to explain in Parliament any remarks he might make on the judicial Bench. As a matter of courtesy, however, he made an explanation to the Premier, the substance of which was that he had not been fully reported, that he had been very much worried by counsel at the time, and that he used the words " might have " instead of "would have" in the opinion quoted. With a good deal of candour, he admitted that it was a most unfortunate statement to make, as he saw that it bore a meaning he never intended to be attached to it.- Such an imputation, he said, was not in his mind, and was wholly undeserved, and he was " deeply grieved at the unfortunate expression." The matter ended here as far as proceedings in Parliament were concerned, though the Judge's explanation was regarded in some quarters as not quite satisfactory. The Argus stated that its reporter had preserved his notes taken on the occasion, and that Mr Justice Williams's words were precisely those ascribed to him. In any case the judge's retractation was a very complete one, and must have gone a long way to redeem him from the odium attaching to his utterance of what was described with truth as a libel on the colony. The points of general interest in the affair are that public opinion will not permit any exaggerated condemnation of the drinking habits of the community, and that Parliament, in Victoria at any rate, is not disposed to let every remark of the judicial Bench pass unchallenged. In this case it would have been possible for the Judge to Lave refused to give the explanation asked for, and it would not have been easy to coerce him into submission. The satisfactory features of the case were the promptness witli which Mr Justice Williams bowed to the informal will of Parliament and the readiness -with which the latter vindicated the character of the Victorian working man from an unjustiJiable aspersion.