REMOVAL OF MR, BEETHAM.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2748, 13 January 1882, Page 2

REMOVAL OF MR, BEETHAM.

VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. Mr Richmond Beetham, who has been Resident Magistrate at Timaru for about three years and a-half, and who has now been transferred to Christchurch, sat on the Timaru Bench for the last time to-, day. There was a full attendance of the local Bar, and at the conclusion of the only case, Mr J. W. White, Crown Prosecutor for the district, addressed Mr Beetham as follows :—Understanding that this is the last occasion oh which you will preside at this Court, the members of the Bur in South Canterbury feel it to be their duty to address to you a few farewell words. It was with feelings of most unfeigned regret that we learned Your Worship is to leave us. During the three years and a half that you have presided in this Court, dispensing even-handed justice with impartiality and courtesy, you have gained the respect and good-will of the public at large and the Bar practising before you. We feel most unfeigned regret at the prospect of your being no longer with us after to-day, but that feeling is tinged with pleasure that you have been selected to perform similar duties in a larger and more important sphere than this. We feel that it is a compliment to this drstupt that the Government have selected our Magistrate to preside over the Court in an important city like Christchurch, and we sincerely trust that in the future you may look back upon the years you may spend there with as much pleasure as wo believe you will remember the time you have spent among us. I am sorry I do not more ably express the feelings of the Bar. on this occasion, but feelings are not to be measured by the number of words uttered, nor by the words themselves. Mr Beetham replied : I can only say, gentlemen, that I reciprocate the feelings of regret which you hove been kind enough to express at my retiring from the Timaru Bench, When it really comes home to mo that I am about to

leave-you I find that my regret really goes much deeper than I had any idea it would do. It is a very great wrench indeed to sever my connection with Timaru and the gentlemen who have' acted with me in the dispensation of justice during the last three anl a half years. It has been a . source. ,o£„„the greatest gratification to me that the relations between Bar and Bench-have always been of the most cordial kind. It must of course frequently - occur, in the heat of argument and from the differences of opinion that must necessarily arise between members of the Bar and the Bench upon cases before it, that argument will vrax hot, but I am happy to say I cannot recall a single instance wherein Counsel practising before mo in' ■ this Court have exceeded that license which may reasonably be allowed to gentlemen who have serious responsibilities cast upon them by their duty to their clients. Wo.haveall recognised purresponsibilities ami that it was ouf, duty to maintain that decent order and those cordial relations between Bar and Bench which 1 must exist if justice is to be administered, and if the Courts are to command that respect which they ought to do. I feel strongly the truth of my friend Mr White's remark that feelings are not to be measured by words : I feel unable' to express all I feel on this occasion. I must add, however, that during my tenancy of this Bench I have always received the most ready assistance from the Bench of Justices in this town,! whenever my duties called me elsewhere, or whenever I desired a slight relaxation from duty, and on those occasions the, Bar have always done everything, in their power to arrange their work (o as not to interfere witli anything of this kind. Lhavealsoto acknowledge the able assistance that has been rendered me ; by the officers of the Court, and by the Inspector of and his officers, in the discharge of my duties. I am happy to say that during-the whole of the twenty years I have been, a Resident Magistrate, with ,one ,very trifling exception, I havejnever had the slightest difference with my subordinate officers, or with those acting with me. I have never .once ■ found it necessary, during the progress of a case in any Court over which I have presided, to stop or adjourn the preceedings on account of beat engendered by argument or anything of that kind. I: sincerely trust that my • rela* tlons -with the; Bar in the Court to which I am called’will be as happy as our relations have been. I thank you very heartily for the feelings of kindness which have prompted' you to give us this opportunity of taking leave of of each. other..

; His Worship then left the Bench.