Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit MONDAYM, AUGUST 21, 1893. VICTORIAN JUSTICE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XIV, Issue 3057, 21 August 1893, Page 2

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit MONDAYM, AUGUST 21, 1893. VICTORIAN JUSTICE.

Throughout the whole unsavory history of the Davies-Milledge cases, there has been a strong suspicion that the Victorian Government were fully determined that the accused should not he brought to trial. -In a previous article we pointed out that this suspicion existed in tha public mind, and gave the history of the affair pretby fully up to the point; at which the accused were committed l>y a plucky justice of the peace who, deserted on the bench by his confreres who favored dropping the case altogether, sat out the hearing, refusing to be i lflaenced by the position of the accused, or the possibility of other 3in equally high position being involved, seeing only in the matter the faithful administration of justice as the duty that devolved on him, and that without fear or favor. jince then the history of the case has only intensified the suspicion we have referred to, aad now we re id that the Australian Natives' Association have called upon the Victoriaii Government to bring the two men to trial in order "to assure the public that the administration of justice is not affected by the position or the influence of the alleged offenders." The Government did m ike some appearance of respecting the public desire, by ordering an investigation by a grand jury, but that investigation proved abortive just after a true bill had been found, a discovery that one of the jurymen was an alien nullf fying the whole proceedings. This, in itself, was singular ; for it is not a very usual thing to have aliens upon the Grand Jury list, and it did not say much for the machinery of justice in Victoria that such an unqualified person should have been allowed to take his seat undiscovered and unchallenged upon a case of so great importance. Still, such accidents do happen, and while willing to look upon this one as merely an accident we cannot help being suspicious of it in the Hs;ht of subsequent events. One would hay^a thought that, in so grave a case as thafc I which had just miscarried owing to an accident of this nature, the Victorian Government would have instituted fresh proceedings, and in the interests of public justice and their own reputation as well as the commercial morality of the colony summoned the Gase afresh. But no such thing was done, Instead, the Government announced their intention of letting the case stand as the illegally constituted Grand Jury had left it. It was this declared intention en the part of the Government that cal;«d forth the remonstrance and de raaiiid of the Australian Natives' Asuoeiation-^-the .«• Young Australia " of the "V ictotian colony. Jt i$ not % us, nor for any one buta court of justice^ to pronounce on the guilt or innocence pi the alleged offenders, who may, for ,pught fep known, ba perfectly innocent of the charge h*4 against them, .'but that court of justice should ccr f £ajnly sit and hear the charges, so tha,t ■ the gjfUb or innocenoe of the men inVolved should be established beyond a doubt. At present th*y occupy th# 1 equivocal position at having been committed for trial, a grand jury hag found that trial justified, yet by the loophole vf £ technicality they escape the ordeal 'of that tt-iaJ, and their guilt is not [ established—neither £ky? )nnocence.

It is the latter fact that chafes public feeling, and tho refusal of Government | to go further in the matter tends to i confirm the strong suspicion in the public mind that not only are the men guilty but Government know it, and know more than it is safe to risk coming out in a public trial. The case, however, is not done with, and a private prosecution is to be instituted. This will clear matters perhaps for the accused in the public miDcl, but the fact will remain that Government shirked their very plain duty in the case, for reasons not given, but which public suspicion cannot be prevented from supplying, and by their conduct left the purity of the administration of justice in Victoria open to grave doubt.