The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1914. INTEGRITY GUARANTEE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 191, 11 February 1914, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1914. INTEGRITY GUARANTEE.

A case that was reported the other iby. in which a lawyer pleaded guilty io embezzling a large sum of money belli:! >ing tn a client, raises afresh the qiie-i;,.;i ot the advisablencss of a guarantee' fund being established to secure the public against losses through similar lapses in the future. It se>ems uneloubM that the investing public recpiirc some; such protection. .Many people whoso ine!omo is derived from investments am not capable of managing these' for themselves, and they have perforce to sock the services of some professional man— I banker, lawyer or financial agent. The legal practitioner enjoys a high reputation for probity, based upon Old World experience under old-time; conditions; but in new countries under modern conditions this is a very illusive thing in which to place trust. There have been repealed instances in New Zealand in which lawyers of the highest reputation, entrusted implicitly with large sums of money, have lost or stolen the wealth and left scores of people, mourning. An integrity guarantee wou'd therefore seem to be urgently needed. It has been suggested that if each legal practitioner in the Dominion were to pay ,€lO a year to a guarantee fund, the £IO,OOO or so that would bo at once provided would, by investment and yearly increment, give an \ample fund from which to fully compensate clients for all loss by defalcation, and perhaps also for loss by negligence. Lawyers might well agree to this payment, as it would simply amount to an addition to

their license fee, and their fee would still not be half that of an auctioneer. The Government might well be asked to institute and take charge of such a guarantee fund, for lawyers arc in an important sense public officials. It may be objected that the establishment of the suggested fund would lower tho | status of the legal profession, placing its members in the same category .as bank- clerks, civil servants, book-keepers, cashiers and others who are under integrity guarantee. That may he a misfortune, but lawyers will only have themselves to blame. If they had kept true to the traditions of their honorable profession no demand for guaranteeing- their integrity would have arisen. By the failure of many lawyers, the profession Ims been degraded, and there is a need to do something towards its rehabilitation. There is much. scopA for casuistry and hair-splitting on tho j question of whether a guarantee system would improve or further degrade the status of lawyers. Our impression is that it would lend to greater laxity, or at least to a .weakened sense of responsibility. But that consideration need not complicate the question we arc discussing, whicj, is not the status of the lawyer,' but the interests of those who entrust him with their money. In the public interest professional men who receive money to invest for others ought to be under guarantee of some | sort. They are not subject to any independent examination into how they conduct the business of investment. I Again and again it has been proved that | nothing is easier than for the,n( to squander thousands of pounds of priueiple, all the while paying interest to their clients and assuring them that afl ' is well. Guarantee would not put a stop to this; but the extra fee of £lO would ensure some protection to the. public. We aro of opinion that tho time has come when something should be- done to reduce the facilities for embezzlement, or, failing that, to guarantee the public against loss occasioned by the dishonesty of lawyers.