Wairarapa Standard Published Tri-weekly, Price 1d. FRIDAY, JANUARY 2, 1885. “The Great Unpaid.”

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XVIII, Issue 1655, 2 January 1885, Page 2

Wairarapa Standard Published Tri-weekly, Price Id. FRIDAY, JANUARY 2, 1885. “The Great Unpaid.”

Liberal Governments in this colony have always after their accession to power, lost no time in creating a new hatch of Justices of the Peace. We hardly know whether the present Ministry may be designated as a liberal one. Certainly, Sir Julius Vogel is a conservative, but then on the other hand, Mr Stout has always been regarded as a Liberal of the Liberals, while Mr Batlance’s views on many questions are of a decidedly radical character. But anyhow, the present Government appear to have come to the conclusion that the interests of the people at large would be promoted by investing a lot of new men to the number of about oue hundred, to the magic title of “ J.P.” The first lot gazetted consisted of 77 names. The lot for the Wellington Provincial District, counts up to 20, aud for the most part, there is little to be objected to in the selection made. Still one or two of the new J.P’s will make rather queer occupants of the Bench. For instance. Mr David Amderson is hardly the right sort of man to make a J.P. Mr Anderson is an old soldier and ex grocer, who has amassed' much wealth. But lie is noted as being one ot the most obstinate men in the world, and certainly possesses little of that broad and liberal tone which shows well in a Magistrate. Another new J.P., Mr J. Cattell, is an ex-publican, and albeit a very decent fellow, will not prove a very brilliant law giver. A third—Mr A. McDonald—is a pieman in Manners street, and very good pies he makes. We make a point of consuming half a dozen of Mr McDonald’s twopenny pies eyery time we visit the .Empire City. Still, a man who is a first rate pieman may probably turn out a very indifferent “ beak.” How is it that these persons come to be made J.P.’s ? Well, the old soldier and ex grocer, Mr David Anderson, is the father-in-law of Mr Ballance, the Native Minister; Mr Cattell, the ex-publican, is the bosom friend of one of the Ministry, and is an admirableelectioueering agent besides; while “ the pieman ” is a leading Tinman Catholic, and the protege of Mr Buckley, the Colonial Secretary. To such causes as these is due the elevation of some very queer fellows indeed to her Majesty’s Commission of the Peace. By the way, a terrible row was lately made because a Dunedin “ pieman ” had been made a Rabbit Inspector. The “ pieman ” are however now rising in the social scale, seeing that one of them has been made a “JP.” Still, assuming that a pieman was a fairly able anJ educated man, lie might just as fittingly be made a J.P. as anyone else As it happens, however, Mr McDonald, the Wellington pieman, does not come up to the mark either as to education or ability. A day or two ago a few additional J.P s for the Wellington Provincial District were gazetted. Of course the Mayors ot Masterton and Greytown are made J.P’s in virtue of their Mayoralties Of the whole lot of places presented with additional J.P’s, the Wairarapa district is left out in the cold. Per haps the Government thought that there were already plenty of J.P’s in the Wairarapa, and that more were not needed. We daresay we could have stood the creation of a few new

ones up this way. Certainly, Wanganui and the West Coast have got far more J.P.’s, proportionately, than the Wairarapa. We often wonder in those days o£ culture that some kind of educational test is not exacted, in the case of men proposed to be appointed to the commission of the Peace. It is surely not too much to expect “that before a man is made a J.P. he should pass an examination in spelling, reading, writing and arithmetic. He might also be asked to give written answers to a series of questions framed with the object of testing his general intelligence. Nay, some very slight elementary knowledge of law and practice should also be required at his hands—the sort of information which any man of average intelligence either ought to have or could get up in a fortnight’s study. If such intelligence and educational tests were insisted upon, before men were appointed J.P.’s, and all the already existing J.P.’s who failed to pass the examination were struck off the roll, then a great improvement would be effected, and less crass ignorance and dense stupidity would be found amongst the members of the commission of the Peace than at present exists there. There are certainly a fair number of able and educated gentlemen on the roll of justices, but there are others there, so stupid, ignorant and illiterate, that it is not surprising they should, in the performence of duties and functions which they do not in the least comprehend, sometimes the intelligent onlooker ex claims: “ Man, proud man, dressed in a little brief authority ; Most ignorant of what he’s most assured ; Plays such fantastic tricks before High Heaven As make the angels weep.