LAWYERS AS MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT.

Temuka Leader, Volume I, Issue 79, 18 September 1878, Page 2

LAWYERS AS MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT.

“ A Stranger in the gallery ” writes thus to the £ New Zealand Times ’ : It may very fairly be questioned whether the tone of debate cultivated in a Court y of Law is really so valuable a training ' as might at first sight appear. The skill to make the worse appear the better cause is one perhaps rather to be dreaded than desired, Who can always resist the temptation such a power at times gives him to argue against his own convictions in favor of his party 'or his place ? A character for sincerity and truth once lost can never be regained ; a lawyer comes into the House heavily weighted with his profession as an advocate and a partisan by training to disavow, before he can hope to command attention as an independent, impartial thinker. Mr Barton, Mr Rees, Mr Stout, and the Native Minister have all the argumentative, not to say disputatious, manner of the Bar. Ability no man would deny them, and the House would indeed suffer severely if some of these trained orators were excluded fiom its benches. Nevertheless the writer is inclined to believe that each and all of the great minds of those referred to have been a little bit warped by legal controversy, It is against a lawyer’s instincts to admit that a position is impregnable, and if the statement made appears to be indisputable in its oringinal form, a slight twist is given to it, and the whole argument is apparently demolished. Mr Rees is responsible for this digression,, and perhaps most deserves criticism for a controversial style. "He disputes rather than debates, and has the misfortune to convey the impression that he is trying to talk his opponents clown, and to bully them into submission. On the other hand, he appears to be a front rank man, giving careful attention to all that passes, and one whom one would wish rather to see enlisted on the right side than on the wrong, whichever that might be in the eye of the chooser.