PROCEEDINGS IN THE COURT OE APPEAL.

D,—No. 28

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regarded their authority as co-ordinate with your own. Upon every subject that has ever been brought under consultation with us, we have always sought your advice, and received your opinions with deference. We shall continue to do the same, but while conceding to you that entire independence which is the right of every Judge, freely and ever so shrewdly, to criticise those opinions of his fellows that maj r come under his judicial cognizance, the Judges still could not but protest earnestly though (I trust) respectfully, and in the only way that seemed open to them, against the attitude which you had assumed towards them. I have, &c, His Honor Mr. Justice Ward. Geoege Alpeed Aenet, Chief Justice.

Enclosure 4 in No. 1. Mr. Justice Waed to Chief Justice Sir G. A. Aeney. Sir, — Supreme Court, Dunedin, 17th March, 1870. I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the Ist February, referring to our correspondence on the subject of tho convict Smythies. It calls for few remarks from me, as you avoid answering most of the arguments contained in my letter of the 18th December last, on the plea that you have not had time to consult with the other Judges on the subject. I shall endeavour to answer, as briefly as possible, the few points you have now raised. With respect to your complaint touching the words used by me in reference to the judicial memorandum authorizing Smythies' admission, I have merely to remark that inasmuch as you, in an official letter to that individual, prospectively termed the determination of the Judges in his case " the judgment of the full Court on the merits " thereof, it does not lie in your mouth to complain of its being termed " a solemn decision of the Judges." But you state that " the facts and the law affecting the admission of Smythies were not involved in the case; and, further, that had they been so involved they might have been reviewed without irony or censure on the Judges." In the first place, I have to remark that in my opinion the facts and the law above mentioned were involved in the case; that a review of them was inevitable; and that nothing that I have heard from you has in the slightest degree altered my views on the subject. Secondly, even assuming your contention with regard to irony and censure to be correct (to which assumption I by no means incline), you must permit me to observe that, in the opening letter of this correspondence, you assumed the right to censure, both with and without irony, my action in a case which, according to your own statement, was never under your judicial cognizance. I am unable to perceive by what right you claim immunity for yourself from that which you dispense so freely to another. I turn now to your statement that the remark in your first letter, to the effect that the AttorneyGeneral and the whole of the Dunedin Bar acquiesced in Smythies' admission, " was substantially true." In reply to this, I have to observe that the great majority of the Bar of Dunedin declare it to be without a vestige of foundation as far as they are concerned. The two speakers on the occasion were Mr. James Smith and Mr. Cook. The following extract from a letter written to me on this subject by Mr. Smith shows what was the meaning of the words then used by him, and I may observe that all the accounts I have received from others of the Bar agree with his: — " In conclusion, I beg to state most emphatically that nothing was further from my intention than to signify my acquiescence in the motion. My object was to elicit from their honors an intimation that their foregone conclusion was open to reconsideration at the instance of the Bar, and, failing such an intimation, to let it be clearly understood that all responsibility in the matter would rest with them." The greater part of the remainder of your letter is devoted to an account of your intercourse with Smythies, which you, in substance, affirm to have been purely official; and to an explanation that the Dunedin Bar " acted under a misconception of the nature and spirit of the preliminary inquiry by the Judges into the claim of the candidate to be admitted." Three specimens of your so-called official communications with Smythies' are now before me. The first is a letter (of which a copy is herewith enclosed) published by Smythies in the Otago Daily Times of 12th May, 1866, commencing "Dear Mr. Smythies," assuring him that you have "every disposition to assist him," and ending " yours faithfully." The other two are those forwarded with my last letter ; the first couched in official form, certainly, but instructing Smythies how to " obtain the judgment of the full Court on the merits of his case," without the Bar having a chance of being heard against him. The last (dated 10th November, 1865) commences, " Dear Mr. Smythies ;" announces the resolution of tho Judges in his case ; expresses a hope that it will meet his wishes ; and ends by wishing him " all tho success that he can desire in his profession." These are strangely-worded communications coming from a Chief Justice to a convict; but something more than strange, when the relative situation of the parties at the time, as Judge and suitor, is taken into consideration. In England, and in every other British Colony, the strictest impartiality is maintained by the Judges during the proceedings preceding a questionable admission between the applicant and his probable opponents ; and when an application for admission which is likely to be opposed is made, the whole proceedings are conducted with the utmost publicity, and every document on which the applicant bases his claim is open to inspection and scrutiny by members of the legal profession. In New Zealand the Chief Justice assures the convict applicant that he has " every disposition to assist him;" instructs him how to proceed; brings the matter privately before the Judges in conference, instead of in open Court—as would be directed by English practice ; obtains a resolution from the Bench stating that, after the perusal of certain documents, the Judges are of opinion, not that the convict may be "allowed to apply for admission," as you term it in your letter of 15th November last, but that he may be admitted; and ends his share in the business by writing to his protege a letter of congratulation. And although the resolution directs that the admission shall take place in open Court, yet this appearance of affording the Bar an opportunity for opposition is shown to be a mere pretence by the course specially directed by the Chief Justice, who orders all the documents on which the Judges based