Age and ability

Sir John Denniston, who, after twenty-nine years of conscientious service on the Supreme Court bench, has retired within the last few days, amid graceful acknowledgments from the Bar of the "high sense of justice and clear perception of the principles of law" that have marked the discharge by him of his judicial duties, does not subscribe to the view of Dr Osler that when a man has attained the age of forty he has outlived his capacity for usefulness.

A "procrustean provision", Sir John Denniston says, exercising his regained freedom to express his opinions upon the merits of the legislation of the country, which has since 1903 required the retirement of any judge when his years shall have numbered 72, "must deprive the dominion prematurely of many years of service which it will greatly miss." It is, in fact, inevitable that this will be the case. The idea that the mental alertness and the physical energy of an individual are declining when he has reached the time of life, which has been fixed in New Zealand as that at which a judge shall retire from the bench, is convincingly contradicted by history. The fact that at Home, in Australia, and also in New Zealand there have been isolated cases of judges "lagging superfluous on the stage" does not negative the general soundness of the conviction that the best work of a member of the Bench is done when his judgement is ripened and his experience matured. Adherence to the principle that judges shall retire to an arbitrarily-fixed age may tend, moreover, to deprive the Bench of the services of the lawyers who are best qualified to occupy seats upon it. Mr Herdman, who succeeds Sir John Denniston, goes to the Bench at the unusually early age of 49, but the most successful practitioners are not to be tempted to abandon the active pursuit of their profession when they may reasonably reckon upon having many years of profitable practice before them, and the temptation is certainly not strengthened by the knowledge that their tenure of a seat on the Bench must end on their attainment of the age of 72, when their mental powers may still be wholly unimpaired.

Number confusion

A number of complaints are being made in regard to the method adopted by the City Corporation in placing numbers on houses, and judging by the result of inquiries it would appear that there is solid ground for the complaints. At present in many streets houses carry their old numbers, and also the new numbers which additional residences in the street have necessitated. As a consequence postal officials and telegraph boys have a difficulty in locating the addresses of the messages entrusted to their care. At the present time a great many of the houses in the streets in the city have been renumbered. Where such numbering is necessary a plan is made up by the City Council officials giving all details. Immediately the plan is completed written notice is supplied to each householder giving the number of his residence, and a great number of people thereupon take advantage of the corporation’s offer to supply numbers and put them on, at a charge of 9d for the first figure and 6d for each additional figure. Unfortunately some residents adopt a "wait and see" policy, and leave up their old numbers, to the confusion and inconvenience of everyone. The corporation also adopts a blame-worthy attitude, as under its by-laws it can require a householder to affix the correct number on his house. — ODT, 6.2.1918.

 

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