*
THE WORKER*
BRISBANE,
APRIL 13, 1895.
Keir
Hardie
Just
fancy Keir Hardie, he who was laughed and jeered at not so very long
ago in the House of Commons, ousting common-sense John Burns out of
his position as leader of the masses at home. Says one of our papers;
“Mr Keir Hardie, who now rules the labour interest of Great
Britain, has been described as having opened the year “by a
declaration of war against the Liberals,” hurled at these with the
force of three hundred branches of the Independent Labour Party. His
declaration seals the fate of the Liberals, who, owing to the failing
health of their new chief, will shortly have to appeal to the
country. By so doing he will make the House of Lords stronger than it
has ever been in its history, for victory in the coming appeal will
mean (such is our constitutional system) that they did right to
resist the Commons on the grave question of Home Rule. Now, whether
the Independent labour Party wants to and or mend the House of lords
is going to be the strong hold of resistance to the new ideas, the
citadel of refuge for all who fear and abhor the Socialistic
doctrines which are giving shape to the demands of the masses; and
the Liberals are attacking the privileges of the Lords. At such a
moment it is nothing short of folly to throw over the Liberal
alliances.” In my opinion it remains to be seen whether the I.L.P.
Have reckoned without their House of Lords. The men who are behind
the Socialistic movement at home and what they are about. Let us wait
and see.
Tom L. Mills. New Zealand.
*
* *
Subserviency
of Judges.
It
is said that judges are perpetually appointed in order to secure
their impartiality and independence. It is said that their
impartiality and independence are secured by their complete
absolution from political influence and control. Let us examine the
debased fallacy that underlies these vaunted maxims. Although the
independence of judges is loudly proclaimed such a proclamation is
logically and self-evidently an elaborate falsehood. Let us take for
illustration the conditions under which Queensland judges are
appointed, and let us see to what extent they are, as judges,
exempted from the corruptive power of political venality. Either by
the State Parliament, through its Ministry, or by the officiating
governor, a public judge is appointed. If the appointment is the
prerogative of Her Majesty's representative in his capacity as
governor, he would not presume to exercise it except through the
tendered counsel of his responsible ministers. Many governors are
incapable of discerning the required qualifications of a public
judge, and therefore recourse to the counsel of ministers is
necessary and indispensable. But who are the ministers but the
influential statesmen of the time? Who are the statesmen but those
who depend for the retention of their high-salaried offices on the
political power they can exercise?
Clearly
and distinctly, however paradoxica as it may appear, a judge's
appointment, and also a judge's promotion, depend solely on the
ingratiated favour he has made with the ruling statesmen of the time;
and consequently a judge who will act with unchanging independence
and unintimidated integrity, and fearlessly give judgement against
ministers and ministerial appendages, and thus refuse to advance
their politics judicially---that judge will be systematically
excluded from official promotion; and any judge, however actually
(but not technically provable) immoral, however corrupt and
scandalous in his partiality, would certainly be promoted by a
corrupt government, or on the recommendatory counsel of a corrupt
government, in preference to the most virtuous and integral judge who
had courage sufficient to give judgement with fearless impartiality.
The most enlightened countries have been humiliated by their corrupt,
dishonourable, and profligate judges; they have also been humiliated
by parliaments equally corrupt, equally profligate, and does it not
follow as an axiomatic sequence that the existence of an immoral and
unprincipled appointing power (wherever it may be) would be
sufficient reason to apprehend the introduction and establishment of
a correspondingly immoral, unscrupulous, and unprincipled justiciary.
Clearly the time has come for a legislative revision of the judicial
system – for the appointment of judges by those whom they are to
serve administratively and to whom they should be responsible for the
unimpeachable discharge of their judicial functions.
M., Gympie.
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