The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published Every Tuesday, Thursday, AND Saturday Morning. Tuesday, June 24, 1890. THE COMMISSION: IS IT A FAILURE, OR WHAT IS IT?

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 471, 24 June 1890, Page 2

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

Tuesday, June 24, 1890. THE COMMISSION: IS IT A FAILURE, OR WHAT IS IT?

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

In the Tokomaru case Mr Commissioner Edwards, in his remarks at the conclusion of the proceedings on the 17th inst., is reported to have said, “ they thought they ought to give them a certificate, it was the very class of case which was intended to be met by the legislation. They would not give judgment then, but deliver a written judgment in a short time, and then they would grant a certificate to Mr Arthur, it to be in the hands of the clerk for a period in order that the other parties might have time to move for a prohibition if they thought desirable in the Supreme Court, when the matter would be definitely decided.” Nothing can be clearer than these words—they mean that it is useless for the Commission to make decisions, for be those decisions what they may, the matters will have to be brought ultimately before the Court of Appeal or, in the the words of the Commissioner, “ the highest court in the land,” from which we all know an appeal to the Privy Council in England lies. Well may the learned Commissioner conclude his above quoted remarks by saying that he does not “ think it matters much what counsel has to say about it, because the position is one Which cannot be accepted to conclude the case.” We cannot have better authority for the state of the law than that of the learned gentleman whom it took the Government seven long months to select, and who has had more than three months since his appointment to ponder over the meaning of the statute. Now we ask what earthly use is the Commission ifthis be true ? What object could Parliament have had in requiring such a Commission ? What object could the Government have had in appointing this gentleman a judge of the Supreme Court and Commissioner at a salary of nearly /J 2500 a year? We would say clearly it is a useless office, but for the fact that there is another man in our midst. The man who set this whole ball a rolling by showing us that many important titles upon this coast have drifted into hopeless entanglement, and can only be got out of that entanglement by releasing such cases from the trammels of the Native Code, is now carrying through the Poututu case, the most entangled of them all, in a manner satisfactory to the community, and that too under this very Native Code and a special enactment which does not release the case from any of the trammels of the Code. Again we ask, why has the Parliament created a Commission, wigged and gowned, to hear counsel, wigged and gowned, and to compel the litigants to empty their purses in fees upon its table, if, as we are now told, it be true that it matters little what the wigged and gowned counsel may say to the wigged and gowned Court, because “ the position is one which cannot be accepted to conclude the case,” and because it is “the interest of the applicant himself, and the interest of every other person who has been concerned in an honest transaction, to have the matter decided once and for all in the highest court of the land” ? Can we believe our eyes that this is the state of the law? The Commissioner tells us, a little above the place from which we have last quoted from his judgment, “ that it may be owing to some blunder on the part of the Parliamentary draughtsman that the Commission Court can’t issue a perfect title,” but if the draughtsman made such a blunder, surely the Attorney-General, whom we are told is the ablest lawyer in the country, and surely the law officers of the Crown would have found out these defects before now, and would have let the public know it before litigants are asked to pay their money and take part in such a farce. But is this the true state of the law ? We don’t profess to be lawyers, but our contemporary, in a long article which reads as if it had been written by one man, and revised by another, throws a lot of light on this business, to anyone who can read a little between the lines. Here are his words : “ The Commission believes, but is not absolutely certain, that it has power under Section 27 of the Act to issue a certificate of title to Mr Arthur, and has intimated its intention to do so. A layman would read the clause last mentioned till he was dazed, and not find a defect. To the unprofessional mind the clause covers the whole ground in the Tokomaru case. . . . There is now

some fear that the Supreme Court may let the whole wind out of the bag. . . . It may be asked why was the hearing of the Tokomaru case taken if the Court was doubtful of its powers to give a full and final decision. (Echo answers why ?) . . . . Even should the Supreme Court issue a prohibition, Mr Arthur would be nearer the complete title he deserves, than if the Commission deferred the hearing until its powers were based on a secured basis—(Won’t. Mr Arthur wish he had kept his money in his pocket when he reads that sentence?) The Tokomaru case is the pioneer case that will test the Act, and prove whether its principle section is meaningless.” Thus has spoken our contemporary. If Diogenes were to go out with his lantern, and search about for the reason and object of appointing this Commission, and if he had stumbled across the judgment we have quoted from, and the leading article we have quoted from, we think he would blow out his candle and say let this go with the honest man I looked for two thousand years ago and never could find.

Will the Government explain its object in appointing this Commission ? We doubt very much that it ever will ; the fortunate Commissioners are perhaps the only ones who can see a clear reason for their appointments.