0.0.
REC.
3030
96
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und r vertain con-
are
men who are not criminals. It is oppressive, it is not justice. it may be quarter deck justics or ungi nak s'jan, but it is vol just. What is the l result of all this? 1,790 persons are imprisoned i 1893 for non-payment of fines; while the totul number of persons convicted who we e admitted that year amounted to 3,726. Another reason way I ask that imprisonment should be abolished is the importance that the law has attached to personal liberty and the protection with wb.eh in every cass it has begged it. There are other matters which tas law bus seen it to protect in order to prevent greater evils. The [law has decrced the sanctity of a mans Bone?
it can only be entered ditions and with ortain formalities, though criminals it may be known that there are inside. Confidential communications also aro protected, although that protection may some- times shut out the truth. So here I maintai it would often be far better to allow petty offmuces to gu anpunished than to fill up year gaol with men who are not criminals, but who are likely to become so if you make them fami- | har with the inside of the prison walls. There is a maxim as old as the reign of Elizabeth which may very well find its application here. De minimis non curat lex And on appeal the
said there Courts have
some injuries of so small and little consideration in the law that no action will lie for them. The end of punishment is to deter men from offend- ing, but it can never follow from thence that it is lawful to deter them at any rate and by auy teans, since there may be ablawful methods of enforoing obedience to the justest laws. It is manifest that where the evil to be prevented is not adequate to the violence of the proven- rator that thinks seriously can never justify such a law to the dictates of conscience and humanity. Punishments of unreasonable s-verity, especially when indiscriminataly in- flated, bave less effect in preventing crimes and ja nouding the manners of a people than such as! are more mariful in general if properly inter mixed with due distinctions of severity. Great and indiscriminate severity in the law no doubt defeats itself, bat tsuperste, discrimi- anting, calculated usverity is within limits effective. It is the sentiment of an ingeni ious writer who seems to bave wall studied the springs of bawau action that crimes are more effectually prevented by the certainty than by the severity of punishment. A second raid took place in Wing Lok treat, not because ; of the lightness of the panishment of the men concerned in the first case, but because they were aut punished at all. Allow me to sum up ny contentions as briefly as possible. First, I
tive a
say.
say Magna Charta and other oharters have provided that no excessive fios shall be in- Alicted; that this has been held to mean that no man shall be fined a sum which he is not able to pay that the appointing of juries or sworn officers to assess these fines were precau- tions taken that ths fine should be a reasonable one, and that it should be proportioned not only to the gravity or otherwise of the office but also to the quality and ability of the offender; that in most cass a pecuniary penalty is the only on that the legislature has ordered, and that therefore it is oppressive and illegal by indirect means to substituto imprison- imout with hard labour in the case of trivial offences; that in these matters small fines which a mau can reasonably be supposed to pay only should be inflicted. In many cases the fact of having been arrested or summoned before a magistata and the loss of time thereby occasioned with a warning is a sufficient punishment. If it is still thought necessary to detain a man in order to recover the due, then civil imprison. went is all that you can impose upon him. And, lastly, if all my arguments fail way I still
make Onu r-quest, and that is, if Imprisonment for non-payment of fines be persisted in. do not class these unfortunate men whose only offence sometimes has been too great eagerness in their calling or some neglect or omission, do not glass them with, do not treat eo as, convicts, do not make criminals of them; let there b some mercy shown to them by separating them from thos, with whom oon- tact and association can only do harm. Lastly. remember and put in practice the principle laid down in Caunto's laws as the basis on which paaishment should be administered, and that principle old as it isus good: "Though any one sin and deeply forede himself, let the correction be regulated so that it be becoming before God and tolerable before the world."
Au interesting discassion ensued in which Mr. J. J. Franois, Q C., Mr. E. Robinson, and the Hon. W. M. Goodman spoke in the order named.
H & EXCELLENCY proposed a rote of thanks to His Honour the Acting Chief Justion for bis able paper and made allusion to the fact that this was probably the last time that Mr. Ackroyd. who would soon be leaving the colony, would appear before the Odd Volumes.
is Hosove proposed a vote of thanks to the Governor for presiding and expressed his per- sonal thanks to His Excelleney for the honour he had done uim in taking the chair on this oc- eisiun.
The meeting then terminated.
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