i.—3

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE.

Thursday, 26th August, 1875. Mr. Betce in the Chair. Mr. E. T. Beissenben in attendance. 1. The Chairman.'] This is a Committee which has been appointed by the House of Representatives to inquire into the alleged illegal issue of miners' rights at Ohinemuri, and we wish to take your evidence on the subject on oath r—l decline to be sworn. 2. Mr. Moorhouse.] On the part of my client I request to be heard. 3. The Chairman.] I must put that question to the Committee. [The resolutions that had previously been passed, to the effect that evidence should be taken on oath, and that counsel might be present to advise Mr. Brissenden, were read.] 4. Mr. Brissenden.] Before I am sworn, I have a few remarks to make. I am here not as a witness but as an accused party ; in fact, I am a prisoner. 5. The Chairman.] That is not so. You appear simply as a witness, and nothing else. 6. Mr. Brissenden.] I understand that the papers in reference to the Eoyal Commission have been laid on the table, and in them lam distinctly accused of a fraud. There is no Court in Great Britain that will compel an accused party to give evidence against himself, and on these grounds I absolutely refuse to be sworn. 7. The Chairman.] I can only repeat that there is no accusation against you, and that you are only here as a witness. [Mr. Brissenden still refused to be sworn, and the room was cleared in order that the Committee might deliberate. Subsequently Mr. Brissenden was recalled, and Mr. Moorhouse was permitted to speak in support of Mr. Brissenden's objection to be sworn.] 8. Mr. Moorhouse, counsel for Mr. Brissenden, said he felt it his duty, as counsel for Mr. Brissenden, to state his impression that his client stood, in relation to the Committee, in the same position as a prisoner stood, in to the tribunal which was to judge him. From what he had heard outside, and had seen in the reports of the Parliamentary debates, and in the public Press, he had no doubt that the Koyal Commission, which had sat to inquire into the alleged illegal issue of miners' rights, had reported adversely of his client, and in a way which strongly reflected on his personal character. That Commission had suggested, by implication to the Government, that it was the duty of the Crown to institute a criminal prosecution against his client for an illegal and unlawful act. It might be said that the Committee was not a Court having power to punish, but that was contrary to all constitutional law. A Parliamentary Committee was the supreme Court of the colony, and had power to deal directly with a man's property or his life. For the purposes of his argument, therefore, the Committee was a Court of Justice. It was not known to English law that a man could be arraigned before a Judge, and by him questioned with a view to his own prosecution; and no man in peril could be asked to say one word in crimination of himself; it was impossible for a juryman to question an accused person under such circumstances. Under these circumstances, and under the law as he was acquainted with it, lie most respectfully submitted that the Committee would be travelling entirely out of its road, and setting a most dangerous precedent, subversive of law, and entirely antagonistic to that judgment which governed our Courts, if, under the circumstances, his client we/c interrogated. His client had no objection to make a statement, and was quite willing to offer some documentary evidence to the Committee on the subject. In a late number of Hansard he found that one honorable member of the House of Eepresentatives had made use of the words " Inquiry into the unlawful issue of miners' rights." Those words implied an offence against the law, which might or might not be prosecuted. He had seen a copy of the Commissioner's report, but it did not state in precise terms what the illegality was ; but he had a right to infer from that report that the Commissioner suggested that a larceny had been committed by his client, and larceny was an offence for which a man might be indicted. He also submitted that if anything in his client's evidence rendered him liable to a prosecution, any member of the Committee, or, in fact, anybody who heard the evidence, could bear witness against him in a Court of law. It might, perhaps, be urged that if his client gave evidence under compulsion, and upon the assurance of the Chairman that he must do so, it would amount to an indemnity, but it would do nothing of the kind. Some persons with whom he (Mr. Moorhouse) had conversed on this subject were under the impression that Parliament could indemnify a man against the consequences of any evidence he might give; but there was nothing in the scheme of our law —and he defied any person to produce any English Statute, or a Statute of this colony—which had the effect of enabling the Committee to give any indemnity or assurance whatever. He had taken pains to get at the bottom of the law on the subject, and he would read a leading case bearing on the question from " Starkey's Nisi Prius Cases." This was an indictment against the defendant, who was a Magistrate in the County of Middlesex, for having improperly granted licenses for public-houses which were his own property. In the course of the evidence for the prosecution, it was proposed to prove what had been said by the defendant in the course of this examination by a I—l. 3.