“The Thing Measured."

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 852, 28 August 1933, Page 6

“The Thing Measured."

Dear Sir,—As one who has suffered much by the arbitrary raising of exchange, in defiance of the wishes of the majority of the people, and certainly of the banks. I entirely agree that the Southland Board has no moral obligation to penalise its ratepayers—for the benefit of the farmers of New Zealand—by paying its interest in London in sterling. I conceive the matter to be one of strict legal obligation, and if the courts uphold the Power Board's action, as I believe they will, that decision must bs based ultimately on equity. May I be permitted to quote a passage from the admirable Dr Johnscm on this subject:— Every just law is dictated by reason; and the practice of every legal court is regulated by equity. It is the quality of reason to be invariable and constant; and of equity, to give to one man what, in the same case, is 'given to another. The advantage which humanity derives from law is this: that the law gives every man a rule of action, and prescribes a mode of conduct which shall entitle him to the support and protection of society. That the law may be a rule of action, it is necessary that it be known; it is necessary that it be permanent and stable. The law is the measure of civil right; but if the measure be changeable, the extent of the thing measured can never be settled. To permit a law to be modified at discretion is to leave the community without law. It is to withdraw the direction of that public wisdom by which the deficiencies of private understanding are to be supplied. “If the measure be changeable ”—what could apply with such force to the action of the Government in unsettling the extent of every value and liability in the country in its arbitrary manipulation of exchange, and how necessary it becomes that the courts should give a firm ruling in favour of the one measure, the measure agreed on both by the Power Board and those who have lent the money. I draw particular attention, too. to the phrase. “ give one man what, in the same case, is given to another.” Can it be doubted that if the circumstances were reversed in the matter of the Power Board. that here was a case in which the farmer was to pay an increased rate—for which he had not bargained—for the benefit of the townsman, the courts would not justifiably protect him from the consequences of gross Government maladministration.—l am, etc., PORTIA.