NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2393, 24 February 1915, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY

The protest of the Lower Hutt Council against the plan to filch a piece of the Hutt Paris'as a site for <!, district high school will find wide endorsement. The council is heartily to be congratulated-upon its attitude, which is an example to those weak-kneed local bodies who see in their reserves only vacant pieces of ground to be entrenched upon withouji compunction whenever cheap land is wanted for this, that, and the other purpose. In this particular case not onlv is the proposal to place a high scnool on 'the Hutt Park thoroughly unsound in principle, but the'site itself is a most unsuitable one, with no other recommendation than its cheapness. If the various local bodies concerned would co-operate not to destroy the Hutt Park, but to assist in making it worthy of the .district the people whom they represent would have (something to thank them for.

The attitude of ths Wellington District Law Society towards the proposed lawyers' guarantee fund is peculiar. Cases of misappropriation of trust moneys by solicitors havo had to be chronicled by the Press with deplorable frequency during the past few years. _ It was obvious'that tho strong disciplinary powers over the profession with which the law societies have been endowed by Act of Parliament were ineffective, and in 1913 an amending Act was passed further extending those powers and making provision for tno ■ annual audit of solicitors' trust accounts. In many quarters it was thought that these measures did not go far enough. The Auckland Law Society, for instance, adopted what seems only a reasonable and just proposal : that a fund to make good defalcations by solicitors should bo established by collecting from all practitioners an additional fee of one guinea per annum. _ This would mean that if the discipline of a law society over its members was ineffective and dishonest lawyers were allowed to flourish, tho society would | make good the losses suffered by the victims. This is not the view that commended itself to the Council of the Wellington Law Society. To that body the fund would bo "an unfair tax upon honest solicitors, whose good namo is an asset, by guaranteeing the stability of unworthy members of the profession who but for such fund would not command confidence." Clients, it was further urged by the Council, would not take the same care to inquire into the character ol' the solicitor they were about to deal with as 'they otherwise would do. Responsibility lor waifltaining tba integrity, of tJHo

profession is thus repudiated, the public are left to protect themselves as best they can, and the existence of legal sharks is to be- tolerated in order that a reputation for ordinary common honesty may be a valuable asset to a legal firm. It is difficult to believe that this cynical attitude represents, the considere'd view of the members of the .legal profession in Wellington.

The improvement of the railway between Wellington and Paekakariki, 'advocated by Dr. Newman in our issue of yesterday, is not a work that will be undertaken to-day or to-morrow. There are more urgent pieces of railway building that have to take precedence, but. with the growth of traffic on the line from Palmerston a time will come—and that may be before many years are past—v/hen the prospective saving in haulage cost will make a deviation a profitable undertaking. As Me. Hilby pointed out in his report last ydar, this portion of the Main Trunk line is already very heavily taxed and the existing means of getting traffic in and out of Wellington leaves much to be desired. The survey, which De. Newman last year urged should be made, has been undertaken, and has shown that an approximately level route can be obtained by a tunnel through the hills from Ngahauranga in the direction oi Tawa Flat, arid by following the sea coast from Plimmerton to Paekakariki. A wide variety of routes has been suggested from time to time, and it is well that there should be a thorough examination of the ground- De. Newman is not able, yet to state what the cost of his suggested route is estimated at, but/if it provides a better line at a less expenditure than the other -proposals _ it will mean that the deviation will become a practicable proposal at an earlier date, and a permanent saying can thenceforward He effer^'d.

Apropos o'f railway matters,' it is worth noting that an agitation for railway extension is under way m Southland—a province already fairly gridironed with lines. By their predominance in point of population in bygone days, and the pertinacity of tneir representatives, the southern districts of New Zealand have been far more liberally supplied with railway communication than fchose'i of the north. The Communication Committee of the Southland League, we are now told, has concluded a tour 'of the routes of proposed lines in its district, and has apparently returned much impressed with the need for further construction. Excellent as is the worE done by the various district leagues, one is tempted sometimes to regret that their members are not occasionally invited to extend their tours further abroad. After a tour 'of Southland, for instance, a trip, say, through the Ohura and adjacent fertile portions- of Northern Taranaki, now innocent of. railway lines, ind almost so of reads, should be decidedly instructive. Some day a Minister of Public Works with a touch of genius will send the chairmen of the district railway leagues on a,-joint tour over the projected lines throughout the Dominion—and then ask for their viewsas to the order of construction.