SALAMAN’S CONVICTION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 440, 4 December 1930, Page 5

SALAMAN’S CONVICTION

Sir, I read your leader in this morning ’s Chronicle with great interest, but disagreed entirely with your statement “That popular assemblies are not competent to sit in judgment upon the decisions of our courts and judges.” Surely there are many occasions where crti‘cism has been most necessary and useful. Just yesterday 1 happened to read Lord Llalda .e’s account of the great Free Church of Scotland case, which was tried in 19U0. There the decision of the House of Lords, the Supreme judicial tribunal of the Empire,

•‘caused such intense irritation in the public mind,” that a special Act of Parliament reversed the decision by means of a statute. Lord Haldane says: “I feel now, and I felt then, that the decision was a wrong one, and the popular instinct was right.” So much for infallibility of courts of justice. The instinct of most Britons is to seek the redress of any injustice in a constitutional manner. Lynching is one of the “things that simply are not done.’’ What a good thing this is so, otherwise even the doctors might be in danger!

We all know, that although doctors contemptuously speak of them as “quacks,” herbalists do effect cures in many cases; and naturally, this being the case, is it any wonder that people wish to take advantage of their skill when they have gone to doctors without being cured. This puts the herbalist in an awkward position. The doc tor can quietly bury his failures, the herbalist cannot. They come out into the limelight. Would you consider it better for a person to be killed in the odour of orthodoxy by the medical profession, than to be •cured by a layman? A friend of my own, who suffered from cataract, consulted a herbalist, greatly to the disgust of her brother, a doctor. “If the woman is such a d—d fool she deserves what she’ll get.’’ She got cured! Was that not better than waiting until she got blind, and then having a disfiguring operation? But, of course, it was only “quackery!’’ I am. etc.. “HERETIC.”

(The fact that a herbalist was credited with a cure for cataract docs not touch the argument as to whether a popular assembly is competent to judge of the merits or demerits of a criminal conviction in the courts. It may bo said in passing, however, that cataract is not a disorder like diabetes. A simple operation cures cataract. Why, then, it was necessary for the lady referred to by “Heretic” to consult a herbalist is not clear. The reference to Jhe Church of Scotland ,case also does not provide an analogy. There, the question was one not whether a certain charge was proved as it was in Salaman’s ease, but whether the application of perfectly understood legal principles worked out satisfactorily.

When money is contributed to a trust fund for a specified purpose thu general purpose of that trust must be kept in view. Trustees cannot, and ought not to be able to, change the purposes of the trust. This appears to be the main consideration which weighed with the majority of tho House of Lords; and although Lord Haldane holds a contrary view the Chronicle, with due deference, believes that the House of Lords decided aright. It applied the law as it then stood. That the result was unsatisfactory and also inequitable there can be no argument, but the Law Lords, sitting as such, are not legislators but lawyers; and, as lawyers, they are required to apply the law as it stands. To alter the law is the function of the Legislature.

In Salanian’s case it has yet to be shown that the law under which ho was convicted needs alteration. The Chronicle is of opinion that it does not require strengthening, but if the public is of opinion that the law is wrong then public opinion, acting through the Legislature, is entitled to make itself felt. But that does not justify laymen who did not hear the evidence tendered, who did not see the witnesses giving their evidence and thereby be enabled to judge of the varying degrees of credibility to bo accorded to each of them, sitting in judgment on the court presided over by that brilliant lawyer, Sir Michael Myers. The movement to get Salaman released from prison has already enlisted in its support.testimony that has not been submitted to the tests that must be applied before that testimony can be regarded as satisfactory evidence. That a public meeting is influenced by unexamined testimony (as were the meetings in New Plymouth and Woodville) is the best evidence in the world of democracy’s incapacity to criticise or to interfere with the administration of justice.—Editor, “Chron-