A CROWDED PROFESSION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 161, 25 November 1912, Page 4

A CROWDED PROFESSION.

A piece of plain speaking which has caused much offence to educated Englishwomen—many of whom have been worked by the suffrage movement into a state of extreme susceptibility (writes a London correspondent) was indulged in at the annual meeting of the Law Society in opposition to a motion that sex should not be a bar to entrance to the legal profession. A leading member of the society who helped to defeat the proposal declared that women were not fit to be lawyers, because "the averse woman had not yet learned to be honest." Some protests were raised against this assertion, but it was evident from the tone of other speeches made on the question that consideration of chivalry did not trouble the majority of the members; their profession has long been overcrowded, and they wish to avoid competition from women and also association with them in legal business. The proposer of the motion found it useless to point to tho practice in the United States, where there were about 20,000 female attorneys, and many women act as notaries and patent agents. The poverty among a large section of the English solicitors, through lack of work, was referred to by the president of the society (Mr. C. P. Samson), who said it was mainly due to delays of the law and to its extravagant expense. Litigants were frightened off by "ridiculous" bills of costs and "enormous" fees charged by leading banisters. Mr. Samson's remarks as to eosls are widely supported, but he is reminded that only a few counsel—the "star" men, as they are called—are able to charge enormous fees. The more noted barristers are overwhelmed with cases; they naturally, therefore, put a fancy value on their services. For example, one well-known K.C. demanded in a recent insurance action a fee of £2OOO and a refresher of £IOO per day while the case lasted. He could have asked more; he was regarded by the litigant as indispensable. His terms were accepted as a matter of course.