THE N.Z. HERALD ON JUDGE GILLIES.

West Coast Times, Issue 4259, 12 March 1883, Page 2

THE N.Z. HERALD ON JUDGE GILLIES.

not signed. As to their being ' cowardly, * the application of such, an epithet is simply absurd. We are quite sure that the writer of each of these articles would be quite ready to say to Mr Gillies' face all that he has written. Mr Gillies' words and their meaning were too clear for any possibility of misconstruction, and surely members of the legal profession are not so stupid as to have a 'malevolent misconstruction ' which the words could not fairly bear, forced upon them by the newspapers. We repeat that all the leading newspapers in New Zealand wrote on the subject, and all in the same tone and argument, and it is not possible to think that every newspaper is animated by 'malignant' feelings towards Justice Gillies. None of the articles that we have seen have borne traces of being inspired by such a sentiment, and for ourselves we emphatically disclaim it. A word as to * standard of honor, ' which Mr Gillies thinks 'it becomes peculiarly the duty of judges to endeavour to main- ' tain. " Because 'in a colony like this we have not yet a highly educated and cultivated public opinion developed as in the Home country. ' We doubt whether ' the standard of honor ' is so degraded here in comparison, with the Home country as Mr Gillies supposes, but whatever the judges, with Mr Gillies at their head, may do in the future towards raising it by the loftiness o£ their public and private characters, we do not think they nave done anything very conspicuous in the past, " '

The Herald, referring to Judge Gillies's letter to Mr James Russell as chairman of the meeting of members of the legal profession, says: — "The position taken up by Mr Gillies has been questioned both by the Bar and the Press. The newspapers which have written on the subject have been as calm, and fair, and judicial, and respectful as it was possible to be. They have said not one whit more than have the lawyers, and yet Mr Gillies, for some reason which we cannot imagine, makes a marked distinction in motives which he conceives to actuate members of the Bar and writers in the public Press. We do not know whether Mr Gillies will continue the controversy he has so rashly commenced, but if he does, perhaps he will explain why .he makes such a distinction. Personal feelings might actuate some of the members of the Bar, but the majority of writers in the Press know nothing of Mr Gillies beyond seeing his name in the papers as a Judge of the Supreme Court at Auckland. Referring to what be most xmiustly called the 'malignant representation of my conduct : as a Judge,' Justice Gillies says : 'I disdain to reply, knowing well how little thinking men are influenced by such cowardly attacks from behind the hedge of journalistic anonymity. ' Now, the articles complained of appeared as leading articles, which are always anonymous, Mi' Gillies cannot imagine that when articles are written about him they must ! be signed, and that he has the right to I denouncethemas'cowardly/whentheyare