The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday Morning. Tuesday, September 17, 1889. LAWYERS IN PARLIAMENT.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 352, 17 September 1889, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday Morning.

Tuesday, September 17, 1889. LAWYERS IN PARLIAMENT.

Be just and fear not J Let all the ends thou aim’at at be thy country’s, Thy God's, and truth's.

Mr T. W. Hislop who was lately the Colonial Secretary, may be a clever lawyer, but he has proved himself a shockingly bad administrator. There seems to be only one way for a lawyer to make a good statesman, and that is to abandon his profession altogether. Unless he does that a lawyer generally fails as an administrator, because he has not the perspicuity necessary to dissever the advocate from the Minister. Sir Robert Stout was a man of transcendent abilities in some things, but it is as much to his legal training as to anything else that his failure was due. As Colonial Secretary, although he may not have a brilliant record, Mr Hislop did not make the blunders of his colleagues, the Minister of Education, or the Native Minister. It is no doubt owing to the fact that the traditions of his profession did not clash with his position as a Minister that he was so successful. When, however, the WardHislop affair brought his legal proclivities into play, we at once see the result, and another name is added to the already long list of lawyer failures. A splendid example of the absurdity of which a lawyer is capable is seen in the solemn spectacle of the late Colonial Secretary, (who, with the ipborn instinct .of the lawyer, resigned both his m inisterial position and his seat, “ as a protest" against decisions ofj the two House?) standing before his constituents, and there, lawyer-like, quoting from legal tombs 1 and past precedents to

prove that those who differ from him are all wrong and that he alone —still lawyer-like—is all right. The whole matter involves no principle of any importance, and was at the most the outcome of misjudgment and want of tact on Mr Hislop’s part, and it is difficult to see how any other member than a lawyer would have deemed it necessary to appeal to his constituency under the circumstances. The history of the Ward-Hislop affair is a simple record of a lack of tact and discrimination, which could not possibly have occurred had Mr Hislop not been a lawyer. Christie was convicted by District Judge Ward of fradulent bankruptcy. A petition was drawn up and numerously signed, praying the Government to release Christie, on grounds which the petitioners had a perfect right to set up. Neither in this, nor in a letter from Christie’s counsel which accompanied it, was any charge made against the presiding Judge. Mr Hislop happened to be in Oamaru at the time, and putting himself in communication with the Premier (who was acting for the Minister of Justice), he forwarded the petition to Judge Ward direct for his report, instead of sending it formally to Wellington and having it returned. In all that Mr Hisiop did up to this time he acted judiciously, and his conduct in ignoring red-tapeism, for the prisoner’s benefit, is to be recommended. In forwarding the petition to Judge Ward, however, he committed a grave error. His firm had acted for Christie, and in his letter to the Judge he asked him to answer a question as to his financial position with the Company which prosecuted Christie, in a manner which plainly inferred that Judge Ward had allowed his judgment to be swayed by such considerations. There is no doubt that if the free corpse of justice were tampered with by Judges allowing themselves to be influenced by their creditors, it would be a lamentable thing, but in this case there appears to have been no reason for suspecting it, beyond the suspicion of the defeated lawyer, who sees in the victories of an opponent some occult influence at work. Judge Ward did not preserve a temperance in his language, and for that he is to blame, but facing, as he did, almost certain ruin, should Mr Hislop prove that he had been influenced as was suggested, we cannot wonder that his language did not preserve a coolness which would be more in keeping with his position of Judge. With regard to the question of a Minister’s authority over a District Court Judge we do not at present deal, although it is very evident that a Minister can put a Judge to considerable annoyance. The Committ.'es of the two Houses have reported that Judge Ward had not acted inconsistent with his position as a Judge, in Christie’s case. We do not, however, expect that Mr Hislop's failure as an administrator will deter other lawyers from trying their hands as ministers if they get the chance.