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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4830, 14 September 1876, Page 2

Begardino the appointment of an AttorneyGeneral, the " New Zealand Jurißt" Bays ; " The appointment of an Attorney-General, with a seat in the Cabinet, will be welcomed by the profession. The state of things which haß existed so long with respect to this office has been eminently unsatisfactory. Apart from the very grave objections to it from a constitutional point of view, the existence of an At-torney-General as a mere head of a depart-

ment in the Civil Service!has left,the profession without a head, and without a representative. .Its interests have consequently suffered j for it cannot he 'supposed that the 'lncorporated Law Society' can form any substitute for the natural leader of the Bar. That unfortunate body renders us aware of its existence only by an occasional exhibition of impotence; and for any practical services it renders the profession, ft might as well resolve itself at once into a Bociety for the protection of animals, or any other society of a harmless and vaguely benevolent nature. The legal profession in other countries is usually supposed to be powerful, not only in protecting itself, but in exercising its influence on legislation and the administration of public affairs. But in New Zealand, it neither protects itself, nor does it exercise the slightest influence in any conceivable direction. It suffers itself to be stripped of its acknowledged rightß without a murmur; it allows the highest legal appointments to be made without the slightest reference, and often in direct opposition, to its views; it is powerless to obtain the most paltry concession from the-Government of the day; and its voice is heard only when some question of a purely local or personal character turns up for discussion. There are reasons for this state of things, no doubt; but there can be no cure for it so long as the profession is unrepresented in the House and in the Government. We have a right to suppose that, with an Attor-ney-General as a political officer, the interests of the profession will hot be altogether ignored in the future ; and as there are now nine or ten members of the profession in the House, thei-B is at least a prospect of the legal profession ' comibg to the front.' Nearly all the members of congress are said to be lawyers; let us hope to see the day when the leading members in the body politic of New Zealand will be lawyers also." Herbert Spencer says somewhere, that constituencies should never send lawyers to represent them; and judging by the experience of the present session of Parliament, we can only say that the business of the country would have been done very much better if the lawyers had not come to the front. It is a nut for the " Jurist", to crack how it is that the first session of the Parliament most rich in lawyers has been the longest and the most barren and unsatisfactory session yet known of in New Zealand. We are inclined to say with one of Shakspere's characters " let's kill all the lawyers."

The Nelson City Council own the local gas works. How they manage them it may be useful for Wellington people to learn at the present juncture. In a speech at a meeting of the City Council lately Councillor Gray, speaking of the gas works, is reported as having said:—"He had thought that the gas works were very nearly self-supporting, but in his former calculations he had entirely overlooked two very important items, the fact of a portion of the city surveyor's and town clerk's assistant's salaries being charged to the gas works. He found now, in going fully into the subject, that they were paying £795 in salaries and wages in this department. There were four salaried officers for these, which were of the dimensions of a little village gas works. . There was £IOO per annum to the town clerk, £l2 Bs. to the assistant, £IOO to the city surveyor, £2OB to the manager, £312 to the laborers, and £63 to the collector. If the gas works could pay with that drain upon them he was very much surprised. And then with all this management they could not keep up the supply of coal. To make gas with wet coal he found that there was a loss of 1000 feet of gas for every ton, and although there were two managers, he found that on the previous day there were but three tons of coals on the works, notwithstanding that he had spoken at every meeting of the desirability of keeping a supply on hand, and that other members of the gas committee had done the same. He was ashamed to say that although he had sat there so long he had but just found out that it had cost the Council £795 in wages and salaries to make £2IOO worth of gas, and now, notwithstanding that Councillor Wilkins and he had long ago ordered that not less than 70 tons of coals should be kept on the works so that none but dry coals should be used, and that great expense had been gone to in providing a place to store the coals, and with all the management, there were but three tons of coal upon the premises, and wet coals had to be used.