The Wanganui Chronicle. WEDNESDAY, MAY 4, 1949 THE MAGISTRATE RETIRES

Wanganui Chronicle, 4 May 1949, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. WEDNESDAY, MAY 4, 1949 THE MAGISTRATE RETIRES

WAVING completed two decades as the presiding magistrate in the Wanganui Court, Mr. J. H. Salmond lias retired and brought to a close a career of which any lawyer would be entitled to regard as gratifying. A natural dignity, combined with a gentleness unusual in these go-getter days, would have made him an outstanding personality in any held of endeavour. But these qualities were of very great value to him as a Judge in a court of first instance where is to be seen and heard human nature in the raw. Not only did such human traits facilitate, the work of the court but they inspired a confidence in its efficiency which was helpful to a high degree. A natural preference for the temperate word was discernible in his Arbitration Court days, where he officiated as Registrar before he went to the Magistrate’s Court bench. The natural aptitude for the law expected of anyone who in New Zealand bears the name of Salmond was present in him notwithstanding his not being a son of the Sir John of that ilk, His sound knowledge of principles was, however, rounded off by a wide reading of history in the more general sense, all of which erudition was of value to him in his daily work because it. was allied to the faculty to evaluate testimony with-insight and to summarise his conclusions with precision. The results of his labours have consequently been highly gratifying to himself for his judgments were seldom appealed against; to those lawyers who practised in his court because of his high standard of efficiency; to the public which rightly entertained a high measure of confidence in his decisions. Mr. Salmond lent no assistance to levity in court, nor was he prepared to tolerate that institution carrying a fictional reputation as a place of entertainment through the writing of inappropriately colourful reports. In this he served sound journalism as well as the law. In his retreat from cares to what is hoped will be a blessed retirement, Mr. Salmond takes with him the well-wishing of the administrative officers of the law, the esteem of his fellow lawyers, and the thanks of the public for the efficiency with which he conducted his court and the humaneness with which he always tempered justice with mercy. COMMUNISTS ADOPT PRUSSIAN TECHNIQUE WHEN the Prussians sought to subdue the Free City of Frankfort they surrounded it with an army and then sat down and waited for time to work for them. After a siege of a few weeks the city had to capitulate and to save it from being sacked the House of Rothschild paid a huge ransom in silver marks. Having come to the Whangpoo River, that narrow stream which separates the City of Shanghai from the mainland, the Communist forces have posted a guard and then gone further south. Thus is the largest city of the Orient isolated from the mainland. The Communists evidently intend to adopt the Prussian technique for it would be impossible to maintain a supply line for a population numbering three and a-half million people by seaway alone, without taking into consideration the probability of a Fifth Column operating within the eity. It would appear that resistance to the Communist move against Shanghai, when it does come, will be difficult to counter. The move will be more in the nature of placing a string round the throat of this big city and throttling it. It will not be a costly operation for the Communists and it promises to preserve the city intact provided public order can be maintained during the period of transition. The properties classes in Shanghai will be booked for extinction, but what will be the lot of the millions of people who are below the subsistence line remains to be seen. A POLICE OFFICER’S POSITION A POLICE officer having been convicted in the Magistrate’s Court of having assaulted a man from whom the constable was seeking a signed statement, a newspaper is calling for the resignation of the officer concerned. The Commissioner of Police is taking the appropriate line that as the officer has rights of appeal that have not yet been exhausted, dismissal docs not come up for consideration. Little contemplation is required to sec what an extraordinary situation would arise if the officer concerned were to be dismissed nov and was to win his appeals. Every man has the right to exhaust, his legal protections before being finally judged and the Government must be the first to uphold that right.