The Wanganui Herald. [PUBLISHED DAILY.] MONDAY, AUGUST 21, 1905. JURIES AND EXCEPTED PERSONS.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11642, 21 August 1905, Page 4

The Wanganui Herald. [PUBLISHED DAILY.] MONDAY, AUGUST 21, 1905. JURIES AND EXCEPTED PERSONS.

"are constantly struck by the regularity with which the same names jippear and reappear. This has often suggested to us that the exemptions are too many and the recruiting field is too narrow. Under the old Juries Act, passed twenty-five year 3 ago, the jury list was compiled from the names of residents within a radius of twonty miles of the Courthouse, but, by the amending Act of 1898, this was cut down to a radius of ten miles, thus reducing the available area by some t threequarters of its' original size. This change - alone ~was great enough, but its effect was further increased by additions .to the list of exemptions. We can see no good reason either for cutting down the area or for adding to the exemptions. On the contrary, we think we should gain by enlarging, the areas and cutting down the exemptions. By extending the area to a . radius of thirty miles we should, at q bound, increase the number of jurymen six-fold, and remove a burden from the shoulders of many whose names appear with what their owners doubtless find an exasperating frequency. It would, of course, cost more to bring men thirty' miles than ten, andf the amount payable < should be increased accordingly. As to the exemptions, there are four classes which could not only safely be removed, but which,, for many reasons, ought to be removed. These are members of both Houses of Parliament, schoolmasters and inspectors, Government employees, and, possibly, clergymen. Members of the Legislature should be exempt during the session, but we see no reason why the exemption Bhould extend beyond that. The three other classes ought to serve both in their own 'interests and in the interests of the pijblic. In^the case of civil servants, especially, there, are many reasons for bringing them out of their offices and widening their knowledge of men and things. They are not, we are well aware, excused in their own interests, ■ but in the supposed interest of the public. Instead, however, of the public having an interest in their exemption, they have a strong interest the other way. So far as the civil servants themselves are concerned we are sure they have no desire to shirk the responsibility, and we are equally sure that anything ' that would take them out of the narrow groove into which their position is, apt to thrust and hold them, and help them to escape, even for a little while, the grandmotherly solicitude with which the State threatens to Bap their spirit of independence, would be for the lasting good both of themselves and the public? So far as teachers and inspectors are concerned, there is, again, more reason for their inclusion than for their. exemption. Their experience is narrowed by laws that remove them from the ranks of ordinary citizens, and their work is narrowing enough as it is. The teacher's daily experience is already, and of necessity, sufficiently confined without hedging him round by statute with cramping disabilities that regard him as, or at least tend to make of him, a being apart. We demand of our teachers that they should teach in the (schools 1 %£e value and the details of the jury system, and yet wo unreasonably shut them out from the very experience that 1 would equip them for the task v The prohibition, for such in this case it ought to be termed, is apparently dictated by the fear lest a country school should be closed for a day whilst its teacher is away. But the educational value of a school depends much less upon whether it ia open 350 or 360 times in a year, than upon the quality, the breadth, and^ the experience of the man who conducts, it. Sphools -are like navies — perhaps because -navies are also schols. Their value does not consist in the ".fact that they exist and are occupied. They are priceless or worthless according to the spirits that guide them. The Russian 1 ships at Tsushiinawere in appearance and number at least equal to their opponents., but those who fought them had learned from teachers who taught from theory — which is often 1 but a euphemistic spelling of ignorance.

It would be interesting to know on what principle the Legislature has acted in exempting certain trades and professions from serving on. juries. The more men that can shield themsolves under the statutory exemptions, the fewer there are to choose from and the more frequently the non-exempt are called upon to give their services. We are not proposing to oifer any objections to the liability most men are under to serve the State in this manner. On the other hand, we think the service, like an act of kindness, benefits both giver and receiver.- The State needs the help of the citizen in the administration of justice, and the citizen by giving this help gains a knowledge which he could reach in no other way. , He learns some thing of life from the other side 4 and comes face to face in " the presence of conditions that are new to him. He may be a man in comfortable circumstances who has read in his daily paper of temptations and difficulties which are the common lot of men less fortunately placed than himself, but he has had ■no personal experience, and " he lias fallen into the habit of mind of regarding such things as out of his sphere, as of another world, almost. His interest in them is not a real, living interest, and differs, possibly, little, if anything, .from his interest in "the unknown - races of Central Asia. Two or three- days in the jury-box during a criminal session will focus on his mental retina in clear and vivid outline truths which before ho had seen "through a glass darkly." More than this, if this is his first call he will learn a valuable lesson on the administration of justice itself. Up to this moment it is very likely he has never been in a court of justice in business hours. His ideas of the procedure have come to him in random, vagrant manner; unsought and probably unnoticed. They are based on nothing real, and are as deceptive as the dreams of Alnasbhar, or the" imaginings of a school misa who writes a romance of the Court of the fourteenth Louis. His three days' experience as a common juroi will erase many errors from his mind, and teach him something of what' every citizer ought to know, and which no citizen can 'learn without being better for the knowledge. In reading over the jury, panel when the Supreme Court sits ai? Wanganui we