THE WEEK, THE WORLD, AND WELLINGTON.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9153, 28 July 1908, Page 7

THE WEEK, THE WORLD, AND WELLINGTON.

(By Frank Morton.)

Barbutees and Solicitors.—A Useful Amendment.—The Virtue or Making Law Difficult.—Mu H<>gben and this Pennies fob Canada.

The Attorney-General introduced •"in the LegislatiVe Council recently :-a measure that is likely to become law without any very serious opposition. 'The Law Practitioners Amendment Act proposes to abolish the existing right given to passed solicitors who are managing clerks of five years' standing to claim admission as barristers without passing the usual examinations. It is pointed out that this means of gaining access to the higher ranks of the profession of law by the back door has been gravely abused. Slothful and negligent students who have managed to scamble ■ through their solicitors' examination have been content to make no further endeavour to qualify themselves for .Jhe-higher walk, but have simply ■ taken employment in an office and waited for their five years to crawl by; then they could go to the judge and claim admission as a right. As :a result of this system, some men becane barristers who were not, on • anv fair estimate of their scholar-

ships and general attainments, by lUiny means creditable to the higher walk of law. Th? good men among ■the barristers were naturally grieved by this discrediting of the 'p ofession they consciously adorned. I And so in the fulness of time this Rill is introduced to have the preposterous anomaly removed. And a veyeood thing too. I have known ii.any lawyers, and suffered many; and in my judgment the more difficil; you make it for a man to became a lawyer of any sort, the better , fcr the coming race. There are far tco many lawyers now. Competition has arisen which subjects the men of the average "to insidious and dangerous temptations The temptation to take any dirty work that otters a fee, 'or the promise of a fee, is about the 'Cjmmonest of them all;, and daily many men of law are tempted to their eternal undoing. ' A penny isn't much, but athcu-, sand pennies make a sum that I could cross the street on a rainy day to pick up. The other day, two of my youngsters came to me in the .lunch hour and demanded pennies. The first duly of any honest father ;in this material age being to piovide pennies for his offspring, I made to utmur. Then, as my hand went into my pocket, I heard some whispered, talk about Abraha-n. 1 asked what Abraham had to do with the matter, greatly fearing that somebody had been trifling with the Bible in Schools. Th-jysaid it was all right; the pennies were for the Plains of .Abraham. I decided that I was confronted with the mystery of some new sweetmeat, and the coins passed without further protest. Next day, however, came illuminations I .learned that the children had been ordered to l.ring each a pnnny to go towards a fund to purchase the Plains of Abraham for the everlasting use of the childien of Canada. Well, I would never dream of objecting to giving twopence towards the purchasing of a playtund for children anywhere; it was manner of the thing that marie me mid. I found that' the schoo 1 committee knew nothing about it. A ukase had gone ijbrth from Mr Hog>ben thit on a certain day each child in the State schools should give one penny to a fund designed to infuse new life into some patriotic movement in Canada. I was incensed, because! see no justification at all for Mr Hogbe'n's action. Who is Mr Ilogben, that he should put his official hand into my traasers pocket to please his private, whimsy 7 Why should I be indirectly caused to exult •at the overthrow of the French in Canada, when I am not at all sure that I am not sorry *:hat the French were ever overthrown in Canada at all? This "ordering of children to j brin * pennies to school to please Mr Hcgben is not in any way to my liking. Why should I be made the victim of his vicarious charity? Thare are at these schools the chil- ■ dren of many poor folk to whom , •<every penny is a matter of some worth. Why should they pay? And why, if they do not pay, should their youngsters be exposed to the scorn" j and petty spite of the youngsters whose parents do pay? It seems to :,rae that Mr Hogben needs to be restrained by his Minister. There is a great deal of talk again ■ about the duty of the State to provide,medical inspection in schools. On the face of, it this seems to be a 1 .humane and reasonable suggestion; ■ but it's difficult to see where the system of State-coddling is to stop, and .-ifc-is not easy to determine whether the amount that such inspection wmgld inevitably cost the Covernmight not be better spent. There are very ff w elum-children in in any of our schools, and in the great majority of •'them there are none. Thanks to the number of benefit societies, most children in New Zealand have adequate medical care in their homes. I'm inclined to the belief that in schools dental inspection would be of more immediate and lasting good than general medical inspection could, ever be. Our people have still an unhappy habit of neglecting their children's teeth, and the care of the teeth is a duty that cannot be too early inculcated in the young. Aa we close the schools during the prevalence of epidemics, the risks that constant medical inspection would remove are comparatively few an 1 trifliig. Still, one never ki:owt\ Personally, I should like to sec the children taught political economy, starting tentatively with the youngest.