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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 77

Premier Coerces Police and Magistrate, and Lets them Know at What Level He Desires them to Administer their Duties at. — The Lawliss Scandal. — Justice Tampered with Successfully

Premier Coerces Police and Magistrate, and Lets them Know at What Level He Desires them to Administer their Duties at.

The Lawliss Scandal.

Justice Tampered with Successfully.

No greater crime could be committed by the executive of a democracy than to tamper with the course of justice. It is a boast of Englishmen that all men stand equal before the law, despite the inequalities which abound in other directions.

When aristocracies worked the State as a close "preserve," interferences with justice were not of rare occurrence. Under democratic rule; it is of the most vital moment to the most obscure citizen that justice should be blind to the social or political distinctions of those who appeal to her.

One premeditated, deliberate interference with justice would, if the people were alive to their highest interests, guarantee the expulsion of the offender from any place of trust.

The history of what is known as the Lawliss case has never been fully stated. Fragmentary discussions have occurred in Parliament. I have arranged the documentary evidence so that it forms a complete narrative.

The refusal of the Premier to give evidence before the Royal Commission in 1898 was, doubtless, due to his dread of the bare truth being elicited about this and similar incidents.

Unless the very theory of regulation in connection with our licensing laws is to be abandoned, the laws regarding the "fitness" of character of licensees should be strictly enforced. Colonel Hume's telegram, quoted further on, was practically an instruction to Inspector Emerson to withdraw his opposition to, and facilitate the issue of the license, and his expression of the hope that Lawliss should not be hounded down, was equal to an instruction to suspend the operation of a statute law. Vide Section 12 of the Alcoholic Liquor Sales Control Act, 1895.)