The Christchurch Star. PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. Gloucester Street and Cathedral Square CHRISTCHURCH NEW ZEALAND. London Representatives: R. B. BRETT & SON NEW BRIDGE HOUSE. 30/34 NEW BRIDGE STREET LONDON. E.C.A. MONDAY, JUNE 25, 1934. THE BAYLY MURDER TRIAL.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20340, 25 June 1934, Page 6

The Christchurch Star. PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. Gloucester Street and Cathedral Square CHRISTCHURCH NEW ZEALAND. London Representatives: R. B. BRETT & SON NEW BRIDGE HOUSE. 30 /34 NEW BRIDGE STREET LONDON. E.C.A. MONDAY, JUNE 25, 1934. THE BAYLY MURDER TRIAL.

O® HIGH A VALUE is placed on the protection of human life in British communities that the public conscience is thrown into a state of very great sensitivity by any murder trial that is not merely sordid. It is a state of sensitivity that is stimulated, in part, by a love of sensationalism, but fundamentally it is wholesome, because it marshals public opinion in the cause not only of the prisoner but of public safety. The Bayly case illustrates this truth, for it would be idle to deny that, on the evidence, public opinion would have felt a distinct uneasiness in the event of an acquittal. Reassurance in the public mind has been made possible by the adequacy of the published reports of the case, but there are one or two considerations apart from the evidence that should be taken to heart. The Crown is pledged, if it acts at all, to give every scrap of evidence that it has, for to give less would be to fall short of a duty to the public if not to the prisoner. This case was protracted by the zeal of the police, great as was, but by the ingenuityof the murderer in the wide diffusion or whittling down of the evidences of his guilt. He underrated, however, the new technique of crime detection, which brings to bear on the investigations a searchlight of scientific penetration that has become a permanent and terrifying deterrent to the commission of such crimes. For the rest, the trial was conducted with that unhurried impartiality that holds back nothing that might assist the prisoner. The defence, in its very tenuity, was admirable as another evidence of that pursuit of justice for its own sake that actuates the members of the Bar. The whole case, indeed, must go on record as a model of justice not untempered witli mercy, for the very greatest consideration was given to the prisoner and his counsel at every stage of the trial.

GERMANY’S COLONIES. | \R SCHACHT’S declaration that only with the return of the German colonies can Germany find a solution of her international indebtedness directs attention once more to her colonising ability, and what benefits she actually got from her colonial empire at its height. A writer in the Sydney “ Bulletin ” summarises her pre-war position thus:— Between 1884 and 1314 she obtained, at considerable expense and at the ride of European wars, territories which, though large in extent, failed miserably to attract the younger sons of German families. Just before Armageddon the number of Germans in German colonies was 23,952, not a twentieth of her annual increase, and iust about equal to the number which had emigrated to America in the two years 1912-13. Her trade with her colonies was little more than 2 per cent of her total trade. The notion that the Fatherland needed these colonies to insure a supply of raw materials w?s pure illusion. The vast bulk of such supplies came from Australia, the Argentine, Malaya and other lands over which she had no political control. In observing how Germany is shifting the blame for the repudiation of her most solemn promises on to the Allies, it is impossible not to link her economic excuses with the political aggrandisement which is the present temper of the German people. Three years ago Dr Schacht quoted a French Deputy as saying, “ The time is not far distant when continents will resort to reprisals against one another by forbidding the export of raw materials,” and that warning is bearing fruit. Significantly enough, a country without raw materials cannot wage an offensive war.