A LAWYER WHO VOYAGED IN POLITICS

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 139, 9 December 1929, Page 10

A LAWYER WHO VOYAGED IN POLITICS

Tlie late Sir John Findlay was one of the most learned members of the legal profession, a classical scholar, and profoundly versed in legal lore. Though a brilliant platform man as well as a keen debater, he somehow could not get into gear with the modern democratic voting machine. His subtle mind worked in channels aloof from those of the mass, which failed to carry into the polling booths an adequate appreciation of his really brainy speeches; and the result wat> that the political career which he sought to add to his assured position in law was only partly achieved, and then only through the medium of the Legislative Council. Before Mr. Seddon died Sir John (then Dr.) Findlay failed lo win a Wellington City seat as Government candidate: but Mr. Seddon's successor, Sir Joseph Ward, was so convinced of the brilliant barrister's value to Liberalism that a call to the Legislative Council came in 1906, ushering in five years of brilliant leadership of the Upper Chamber. On the eve of the 1911 General Election Sir John resigned to again chase fugitive popular opinion, but both he and Liberalism were defeated at the polls; and although for a while later he kept warm the seat in the House (Hawkes Bay) vacated by the death of Mr. M'Nab (another of notable mentality) in 1917, this reign in the popular Chamber was brief.' With it, Sir John Findlay said goodbye to active political representation. But his influence in politics during the Ward regime (1906-11), culminating in the Imperial Conference proceedings of 1911, was very intimate and important; and if his wealth of ideas and richness of language did not bear all the anticipated fruit, the result may have been due to influences beyond his control, just like the failure of Mr. M'Nab's Land Bill.

His appointment by Sir Joseph Ward to the Legislative Council in 1906 gave rise to several sly hits. "It is true," said the late Hon. T. W. IHislop, "that be has never been in the popular Chamber, but that is not his fault." "Retained for the Defence" was the heading with which the "Evening Post" hit off the barrister's new political brief. The late Sir John figured in many notable lawsuits, and one of the most notable was largely political, being a libel action (Findlay for plaintiff) brought by a son of the late Right Hon. R. J. Seddon against the late T. E. Taylor, then a Christchurch M.P., who conducted his own defence. For about thirteen days, in the Cathedral City, two of the brainiest and quickest-thinking men of their time, Taylor and ' Findlay, fought a battle of wits in which the layman was by no means vanquished, and ultimately he escaped a verdict. Much water has since then flowed under the Avon bridges. The postwar world is somehow different, and it was to pre-war New Zealand that Sir John Findlay gave his best. From the standpoint of pure intellect, he leaves behind him a memory second

to none, but his shafts were for the discerning and not for- the general. Many a politician with one-tenth of his mental equipment has blundered through and won. And with this conundrum is wrapped up a good deal of the future of democracy and its elaborate system of solving problems' by .counting heads.