Serious Miscarriage of Justice.

Review of Larkin Case.

The circumstances, as coldly re counted in the foregoing Parliamentary debate, can bring only one conviction to the mind of any reasonable man conversant with native labour con ditions in New Guinea namely, that the sentence imposed on Mr. Larkin was savage, brutal, and unjustified.

We have had many communications relating to the Larkin case; but pre ferred to leave the subject alone until we could learn all the facts. Presum ably, all the relevant details were stated in Parliament; and, with all due respect to the politicians, we say that they provide an unanswerable case for a revision of the sentence. Here are the facts: Larkin was a man of good family, and an educated man, with an excel lent war record as an airman. He was an average, respectable, law-abiding citizen.

Larkin’s job was the management of

a plantation, of which the most im portant duty was to maintain discipline among a class of natives who are always potentially dangerous.

Any man acquainted with New Guinea knows there is only one way to control these primitive natives — namely, by sharp, summary justice, promptly administered.

Larkin was savagely attacked by a “flash” native, and there is only one thing to do in such circumstances — namely, establish immediate authority over the “coon.”

Larkin did not deal with the native in a passionate, revengeful manner.

He calmly and deliberately arranged to have him flogged, and thoroughly flogged. That was Larkin’s honest conception of his duty—and not many white men who know New Guinea will say that he did wrong.

The native died —apparently from septic poisoning, owing to his broken skin coming in contact with dirt.

There is not much doubt that the flogging was too severe —that Larkin, in administering the prompt punish ment the case clearly called for, com mitted a serious error of judgment, by over-flogging.

To call this a case of murder is, on the circumstances as presented, one of the most ridiculous misconstructions of a term we have ever seen—about as ridiculous as Judge Wanliss’s “masterly” summing up. There can be no murder without deliberate in tent —and if Larkin had wished to kill the native, he could have done it much more conveniently in a dozen other ways. He could have shot the native immediately he made the assault, and quite fairly have pleaded justification.

It was possibly a case of man slaughter; and, in that connection, Larkin might have been punished for the excessive beating he gave the native. But to bring it in as murder, and impose ten years’ hard labour, is nothing more or less than a monstrous perversion of justice.

This necessarily brings up the whole question of the capacity of Judge Wanliss to deal with such cases; and, in that connection, a great deal may be said. It is sufficient, at this stage, merely to cite the verdicts and punish ments recorded by this court in cases where natives have murdered white men (as described by Mr. Green), and compare them with the Larkin case, to show there is reason for lack of confidence in the judgment of this Judge.

Something should be done to have the case of Larkin reconsidered and reviewed. To allow a man of Larkin’s type and record to remain ten years in a convict prison, on the solitary finding of one man (he is on the point of retirement, and the operations of his Court have been bitterly criticised in the Territory) is unthinkable.

The appeal from Judge Wanliss’s Court direct to the Federal Parliament, while apparently the only course open to Mr. Green, was actually defeated before it was made. The matter came up on the adjournment, while members were itching to get away, after a busy day, and they were content to accept the Minister’s statement, which was naturally in favour of established bureaucracy. The debate, such as it was, showed no reasoned consideration of the facts.

An agitation for the review of the sentence on Larkin should call also

for a close investigation of the whole system of administering justice in the Territory, which is in a very unsatis factory condition. Such an inquiry should embrace the police as well as the justice department. It should at tempt, also, the settlement of one of the Territory’s greatest problems— namely, the right of responsible Euro peans to administer corporal punish ment to delinquent natives. The present system is worse than a farce — it is a danger, because it tends to bring ridicule upon the whole ad ministration.

In the belief that there has been a grave miscarriage of justice, The Pacific Islands Monthly will do all it can to assist those who are working for a reconsideration of the Larkin case.