Review of Reviews. 2/8/06. 



LAW AND ORDER, 



The Lax Administration of the Victorian Chief Secretary's Department — Favoured 

 Law-breakers — All Men Not Equal — A Question of Good Government. 



PROLOGUE, WHICH APPLIES TO ALL 00UNTEIE9. 

 I/4W- 



Civilisation rests upon good laws, but not entirely. 

 Strict administration is an e(]ual necessity. The two 

 lie side by side. Lax administration can make the 

 most perfect laws ever passed seem a screaming 

 farce. But for a country to enjoy the fullest liberty, 

 gcod laws are primarily necessarj-. They are always 

 the basis of right living, whether personal or social, 

 the foundation of good, the standards that action 

 is measured by. Some conservative individuals, fear- 

 ful of losing some financial or personal benefit, 

 sometimes talk moaningly and warningly of legis- 

 lating in advance of the people. But law must ever 

 precede order, indeed is as necessary to it as is a 

 pair of well-laid rails to the safe passage of a traia 

 Law must ever anticipate the necessities of a people. 

 In one sense the colonies cannot complain of hav- 

 ing too little law. Indeed, there is too much of a 

 kind. In too many instances laws are not direct and 

 pointed enough, too much provision having been 

 made for the law-breakers to get through loopholes. 

 But that will be remedied as time goes on. The 

 fact remains that we have with us the great fabric - 

 of law, created to preserve the people's rights. At 

 great expense and at much trouble it has been raised. 

 States have uncomplainingly paid the salaries of 

 Parliamentary representatives (sometimes having 

 been satisfied with verj- little in return), and the re- 

 presentatives have legislated to the best of their 

 ability (which has sometimes not been of the choicest 

 order) to produce the laws. Yet, such as it is, there 

 it is, in the interests of the people, reared for an 

 express purpose. 



How great it is, how important it is, how precious 

 it is, we fail to grasp, because of its immensity. In 

 a thousand and one different ways that never occur 

 to us till someone intrudes himself unduly upon us, 

 safeguards have been built round our liberties and 

 our rights. Both in regard to person and property 

 we are shielded, theoretically, at any rate. Thus it 

 is that we move freely and with safety through all 

 the complicated ways of modern civilisation. Pos- 

 sibly it is one of the greatest tributes to its magnifi- 

 cence, its perfection, to say that we generally bliss- 

 fully ignore its existence until we need its help. For 

 years an individual may drift dowTi the stream of 

 circumstances, carefully guarded, although unappre- 

 ciated by him, by all the power of the law. From 

 a hundred dangers he is kept by a vast organisation 

 that never sleeps ; but one day he becomes cognisant 

 of its existence. Somebody crosses his track, in- 

 vades his rights, and he turns unconsciously to the 

 itistitution that is the embodiment of Law, and finds 



it, in these States at any rate, comprehensive enough 

 to supply almost every legal need. 



How precious a heritage this is we hardly realise. 

 It is the lampart built to keep away from peaceable, 

 peace-loving citizens the aggressive rush of the law- 

 less. Necessarily it must L>e in the main a series of 

 authoritative negations — " Thou shalt nots " — which, 

 howe\er, by the way, help to build up a fabric of 

 character which is responsive to a series of authori- 

 tative affirmative " Thou shalts." 



.\nd the tendency of modern civilisation, rightly, 

 is to extend this fabric, strengthen its foundations, 

 add to its size. In the interests of the individual 

 himself, man is becoming more and more restricted, 

 in order that he may have greater liberty. The area 

 of " Thou shalt nots " is extending, that the area of 

 " Thou shalts " may increase in greater proportions. 

 For the suppression of one vice generally leads to 

 the cultivation of more than one virtue. 



So important, therefore, is the preservation of our 

 great fabric of Law. 



—AND ORDER. 



But the observance of Law is as great a necessity 

 as the making of the law. Order is like Love, it is 

 the perfect fulfilment of law. Indeed (to digress 

 for a moment) in a very real sense the condition of 

 Love is simplv the perfect fulfilment of all the laws 

 under which our beings move — harmony with the 

 best things. Order is the natural sequence of Law-. 

 To put it in a more colloquial fashion, laws are made 

 to be carried out. Unless they are observed, disorder 

 reigns. Theoretical Iv, ever)- man ought to be inte- 

 rested in keeping every law-, for on law his own 

 safety and well-being primarily depend. And here 

 comes in the force of the statement that Law and 

 Order are of equal importance. LaAV may more par- 

 ticularly represent the mental advance of a nation; 

 the observance of Law, which is Order, very truly 

 represents the ethical advance, or otherwise. The 

 nation with the most desirable type of humanity 

 will be a law--abiding one. 



There is, however, in every community a certain 

 section — the lawless, the law-breaking — which re- 

 gards law as an intolerable burden. The very fact 

 that a law exists w-ill have weight with the greater 

 part of the community, but there is always a defiant, 

 unruly section to be reckoned with. Some kind of 

 force is therefore necessary to keep back the lawless 

 flood which, sinister and evil, is alwavs waiting to 

 overflow- the rampart and ruin the fertile plains of 

 Order. Recognising the necessity for the enforce- 

 ment of Law, civilised peoples have therefore dele- 

 gated to Governments the authority to have Order 

 observed, and they have also given them the power 



