“Puff” on the Commission.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 465, 10 June 1890, Page 2

“Puff” on the Commission.

“ Puff," in tbe Wellington Evening Press, makes a stinging satire on the Na ive Land Commission Judge Edwards has opened his Commission in Gisborne 1 I see I Put on all hia war paint and came out In the full blown dignity of Judge's tngs and required the Bar to do the same I What rot! What’s the use of starting that game! Ita symbolical I The Court it is true by the Act of Parliament was intended to be aa free as possible from forms and quibbles, and lair jargon, and lawexpenses, and law precedents, a Court in which swift equity and right were to be dealt out; the Commissioners were not to be bound by any legal rules of evidence or precedents, and could appoint counsel or agent to appear for any native 1 Then what his Judge Edwards done? Just exactly the contrary of the whole spirit of the Act; and his horsehair wig and bomhazeen and paraphernalia are a type of it. He's begun by tying everything up in red tape by a set of hard and fast rules, and then appeals to his rules to compel the suitors to incur enormous expenses and waste of time, and refuses to let any Maori agent appear in court for a native, but insists on counsel appearing I That's a bad beginning ;it seems to me that the commission is going tn last well into the year 2000 at that rate 1 You'll hear plenty of it in Korerorium if they don't make a change ; there’s fine rage and gnashing of teeth in Gisborne, I can tell you 1