TOWN EDITION. The Daily Telegraph FRIDAY, AUGUST 19, 1881.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3164, 19 August 1881, Page 2

TOWN EDITION. The Daily Telegraph FRIDAY, AUGUST 19, 1881.

Thb continued efforts that are being made to widen the doors leading into the legal profession are due, it is said, to the desire to secure the admission to the bar of certain gentlemen as a reward for political services. There has been no wish expressed to improve the standing of the profession. To the minds of many the profession in this colony is already low enough, but it is not so low that it admits all-comers upon its rolls. It ie to secure this end ; it is to degrade the profession to the status of a trade, to follow which requires no special knowledge or training, so that Tom, Dick, aod

Harry, can call themselves solicitors,.to which the efforts of Sir George G-rey are directed. Last session, in order "to help alamo dog over a style," a bill was introduced to enable articled clerks who might be members of the General Assembly to include the time spent in Parliament in that expended in office work. Now, a superficial observer would say that a man elected by the people to assist in tnakiug the laws is surety eligible to expound the laws he has helped to make. But a glance through the list of the members of the House of Representatives will effectually dissipate any such idea. And when it is considered that the jumbled up mass of confusion kuown as our statutes is the production of the united wisdom of our legislators we may rest satisfied that the last man to make a lawyer should be a member of Parliament. That little bill did not ; and so this session another one was introduced having the same object in view, but opening the door to the Bar still wider. The Law Practitioner's Bill proposed to do away with the necessity of articles ; and to allow anyone who could pass a simple examination to enter the profesion. This bill has also been thrown out,'and now, as a last venture, Sir George Grey has given notice to introduce a bill to authorise any one to practice law in the Courts when duly authorised by any party to a suit. There is but one fate in store for such a bill as that; it will be thrown out without very much consideration. We have laws in this colony to protect the people against the imposition of quacks in law and medicine; and the Legislature has busied itself this session in hedging around the public lest the unwary might lose a few shilliogs to the professional gambler. Why then should a law be passed for the creation of a class that would prey upon the people to a much worse extent than the professed bookmaker P Once allow free trade in law, and every plausible speaking scoundrel whose education enables him to take in simple-minded folks would become a quack lawyer. It would not even lead to the division of the profession as in America into three grades, where the lowest class is called, as a correspondent of the New Zealand Times telle us, " the shister (oot an inelegant expression in America, synonymous with petti-fogger in England), a genus who never expects to be a barrister in the xvhole course of his life, though cheap and useful in his sphere; and the attorney, who generally appears in the District Courts, and who will not descend to the shister element, because some day or other he may ascend to barrister. He is well grounded in office work, and educated, therefore a future is ahead for him, and he finds work for the barrister. Then comes the barrister—a gentleman who is thoroughly educated, has University degrees, well read in Roman law, statutory law, consulted only on emergencies, a good pleader, and a bright scholar." In the place of these well-defined grades, Sir George Grey would have a crowd of half-starving socalled lawyers, amongst whom it would be difficult to discern the cunning scoundrel from the able and honest legal adviser until after a bitter experience had been bought.