H—2l.

Mr. Atkinson: And, furthermore, your Honour, they tendered the money and took the receipt with Judge Ward's report in their mind, and the conclusion throughout that the man was still guilty. My friend does not dispute that; and, if he does not, this or some further concession I may make may obviate the postponement of the Commissioners' report until Mr. McNab's return to the colony. The question is whether this receipt is an honourable release. Ido not contend that there was anything dishonourable in anybody taking that release from Meikle at the time it was given. It was drafted and the necessary precaution taken for the protection of the public purse, and under the circumstances, with the judicial opinion which Ministers had as to Meikle's guilt, it would have been a violation of their duty if they had acted in any other way. But I intend to rest the whole of my case upon this: if an entire alteration is made in the entire foundation and the basis on which the Government succeeded in getting that receipt by a moral reversal of the verdict of 1887, is the whole matter thereby set at large again for a court of honour to reconsider? It is certainly not a question to be approached in a pettifogging, huckstering, or litigious spirit, and I am sure neither my friend nor your Honours will so approach it. In 1887 Meikle was convicted —and properly, in the opinion of the Judge who tried the case. He was paid £500 for bringing a perjurer to justice—a perjurer whom the Crown may, oddly enough, at the proceedings here, contend to have been wrongfully convicted. A very curious position which cannot have been in the mind of the Government when that transaction was settled was that if Meikle was a sheep-stealer he was also a perjurer. He had sworn in the prosecution of Lambert that he was innocent of the stealing of the sheep for which he was convicted in 1887. So that is certainly a very singular position. If that fact had been in the minds of the Government, I should be justified in putting the position this way: that in 1807 they had. paid .£5OO to a convicted sheep-stealer and an unconvicted but proved perjurer for running another perjurer to justice. It is a very remarkable situation, and it is quite"clear that the element if my client's responsibility for perjury as well as sheep-stealing at the time cannot have been in the mind of the Government, or the steps which they took could hardly have been taken. However, a sheep-stealer and a perjurer received £500 for running another perjurer to justice. His claim was not a legal claim. He signs a full receipt; he protests his innocence : the years go past; he proves his innocence. Has the position changed or not? Dr. Findlay: You just made a little slip in regard to the second receipt. It expressly says ifc is paid, and Meikle acknowledges to receive it "in discharge of all claims and demands, or alleged claims and demands, which I now have or at any time heretofore have had against Her Majesty the Queen or the Government of New Zealand upon or in respect of the prosecution of myself for sheepstealing." So that the payment was obviously on the assumption that his conviction for sheepstealing was erroneous, otherwise the Crown was not going to pay him a large sum for defending an action of which he was guilty. Mr. Atkinson: However, I have read the whole texts of the receipts. I must say, in defence of my friend's clients, that their whole attitude was based upon and justified by having the conviction that-the man was guilty, or probably guilty. If, Meikle's innocence being in doubt, and more than in doubt —the doubt inclining to the adverse side —the colony under circumstances of that kind pays this money and gets a receipt, is it not bound to pay more if his innocence is established? It is difficult to find precedents and difficult to find a parallel. With reference to your Honours' statement this morning with reference to the finality of these matters, I made such an answer as I could on the spur of the moment. There could be no legal bar. Mr. Justice Edwards: I only made the suggestion to Mr. Atkinson; I did not make a pronouncement. It seems to me to be essential for the public peace that there should be some means for getting to finality. Mr. Atkinson: Until we have a constitution like what they have got in the United States it is difficult to see what limits can be imposed except the sense of the colony with regard to any particular case. A man may come to me with some imaginary claim of a charitable or moral character, and I may give him half a crown and take a full receipt; but, nevertheless, nothing can prevent me from giving him another half-crown on the same account the next day if I still have money enough and anf still free. So with the colony; it is only the intervention of some superior power that could absolutely prevent it from scattering its cash in a similar way. Of course, the risk of establishing precedents has to be carefully watched, but I submit that no definite rule can be laid down except that each case must be carefully weighed on its own merits. If, for instance, a Judge of the Supreme Court Bench served without a salary for some time and the law provided no remedy assuming a man in that position who was not impecunious, who knew exactly what he was doing, and who was perfectly familiar with business to have petitioned Parliament and then to have signed a full receipt for what was never a legal claim, no doubt everybody would say there must be some finality to those proceedings, and such a receipt would be generally recognised as an absolute moral discharge. Yet even in such a case as this I submit that it might be proper to reopen the matter after the receipt had been given, on one condition —viz., that it should be proved that the entire basis on which the full receipt was signed was erroneous. If in such a case —in the case of an absolutely clear-headed and competent suppliant—the principle admits of an exception, then, of course, a fortiori it must be applied in such a case as the present. Mr. Justice Edwards: Was there not a precedent, as far as parliamentary practice is concerned, in some'claim of Sir Julius Vogel's? He got a sum and afterwards petitioned again for more. Mr. Justice Cooper: He got some more. Dr. Findlay: He repeated that a number of times but got no more. His Honour: That could be looked up as a parliamentary precedent. Of course, it does not require argument to show that if a man is wrongly convicted and suffers seven years' penal servitude the sum of £500 is not adequate compensation. With that knowledge—assuming he was wrongfully convicted—did he not discharge the colony from every moral obligation ? That is the pc.nt you have to meet. Mr. Atkinson: Yes.

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