The Gazette 1912-13

DECEMBER, 1912]

The Gazette of the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland.

accounts were only made up to the end of ! last April, and it would not mean any ; additional trouble whatever. The bye-laws j provided that the annual meeting was to be | held on the 26th November, and that notice ! of motion must be sent in fourteen days before that. The voting papers by which the Council were to be elected were to be sent out not later than the 14th November. But the report—he did not know under what bye-law —did not reach the members until four or five clays before the meeting. Now, the object of the Council, he presumed, was to represent the general body of the Solicitors throughout the country (hear, hear). They ought to be ! a democratic Society, and the Council ought : to be elected on democratic lines. Every member of the Society ought to have an opportunity of having his say as regarded the election of the Council. They had only to take the figures that had been returned there that day to show how small an interest members in the country took in the election of the members of the Council. The members received three hundred odd votes. Could they say that the Council was elected by the general body of the profession throughout the country ? He believed that if the report was sent out in plenty of time for the general members of the profession throughout the country to read and it study it, and if the Council in the report stated that all or so many members of the Council as from time to time desired to do so would present them selves for re-election, or that there would be- so many vacancies owing to old members not seeking re-election, country Solicitors would take a far greater interest in the working of the Society, with the result that they would have every country member of the profession joining. He did not suppose there was a friendly society or a company who would dare to send out to their members nomination papers for their Governing Body for the ensuing year without in the first instance sending out a statement of accounts and report of the work done during the previous year. MR. JAMES BRADY seconded the motion. He thought Mr. Craig's observations deserved consideration, as they had good, sound commonsense behind them. There could be no doubt that when gentlemen were seeking re-election, before any persons had

any call to elect them, they ought to have knowledge of the work performed by them during the preceding twelve months. He felt convinced that the members of the Society present, as well as those who were absent, would see the force of Mr. Craig's motion, and that it would be carried unanimously by the meeting that day. He was delighted to hear the observations of the President, whose term of office had been of the greatest possible benefit to the profession throughout Ireland, and his retention on the Council .would continue to have a good effect. The outgoing Council were more or less modest with regard to their efforts in the past year. There were very few things brought before the Council in which they did not take effective steps. He would ask the members of the profession throughout the country to take to heart the request made by the President, and to join the Society and make it a really representa tive body (hear, hear). That was the body to which they should belong. That was the only effective association that could do any good for the profession throughout Ireland. He had protested, and would continue to protest, against gentlemen growling who would not pay a miserable sovereign which would give them an opportunity of being represented there. The local bodies—and he was Vice-President of one of them—might be useful for arranging the procedure of County Courts, but they could not take such effective action as an incorporated body such as the Society was. Out of sixteen or seventeen hundred on the roll of Solicitors in Ireland only a miserable five hundred belonged to that great Society. He could not understand why the majority hesitated to assist the Council in looking after their affairs by paying /la year and becoming members. MR. JAMES HENRY said he endorsed what Mr. Brady had just said. But his figures were not quite accurate. The members of the profession on the roll were 1,590. and lie was glad to say that in the present year there were 813 members on the roll of the Society. That was more than half the members of the profession were members of the Society. But he was not at all satisfied with that, and he did not think they in Dublin ought to be satisfied with it (hear, hear). There was no doubt that the Solicitors in Dublin got more benefit from the Society than Solicitors

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