The Gazette 1914-15

20

The Gazette of the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland.

[JUNE, 1914

in all, and of these eighteen are held by barristers receiving salaries amounting to £15,000 a year, and only one is held by a solicitor receiving a salary of £800 a year. The thing is little short of a scandal, and I feel sure that I voice the feeling of the whole profession when J say there exists amongst us grave dissatisfaction at the manner in which legal patronage in Ireland is now exercised. We have no voice whatever, collectively or individually in the bestowal of any legal appointment, and the con sequence appears to be that our just claim to a fair share of such appointments is ignored to an increasing extent year by year. With the assistance of my friend, Mr. Quirke, I have taken from the Parliamentary estimates and elsewhere, some figures in connection with this subject, and certainly they are most instructive. The salaries paid in respect of legal offices, to which members of the Bar alone are eligible, amount at the present time to £140,000 per annum, and the salaries paid in respect to legal offices, to which solicitors alone are eligible, amount to a little over £50,000, something more than one-third of the former figure. In addition there are a large number of other salaried offices all of a legal nature, including positions in the offices of the High Court, the Chief Clerkships, the Registrarships, and so forth, many of which are held by laymen, and I make out roughly, in respect of these additional offices, over £55,000 a year is paid to the members of the Bar, and about £2,500 a year is paid to solicitors. In round figures, members of the Bar are in receipt of salaries amounting to at least £200,000 a year, and members of our profession, salaries amounting to about £53,000 a year. Contrast these figures with the fact that last year there were only 438 barristers subscribing to the Bar Library and paying no professional tax whatever, while 1,562 solicitors took out certificates and paid His Majesty's Exchequer in the shape of annual certificate duty a sum of £10,500 for the privilege of practising their profession. What the remedy for this state of affairs may be it is difficult to state, but this I know, that it is humiliating to a degree to go on year after year protesting and supplicating without any apparent effect. Our first step appears to be to get the profession to take a livelier interest in this grave matter, and with this object in

view the Council have in course of prepara tion a report on the whole subject, giving facts and figures, and this report we propose to print and circulate amongst the members of the Society. There are not wanting signs that the whole High Court system in Ireland before long will be in the melting pot, and when such time approaches we solicitors, into whose hands the legal work of the country is passing more and more, must be ready to assert and maintain our claim to a larger share of the legal appointments in this country. (Applause). The Secretary submitted letters from twelve country members who were unable to be present, and who expressed approval of the motion of which Mr. Rooney had given notice. MR. ROONEY moved the resolution, of which he had given notice, viz. :—" To amend Bye-law 3 by omitting from the words ' for members taking out a country certifi cate ' down to '£!,' and to make the consequential alterations in Bye-law 32 by omitting the words from ' save ' down to ' members,' and in Bye-law 33 by omitting the words ' one pound.' Before introducing his subject Mr. Rooney offered the congratulations of the Society to Mr. Synnott on his election as President, and said how much they all appreciated his generosity in the particularly happy social function with which he had inaugurated his year of office, in the Golfing Tournament, to be held on the 21st inst. Before proceeding with his motion he would like to dispel some erroneous views that had been circulated in reference to it. It had been suggested by certain members, that this was the continu ation of some deep-laid plan which was sup posed to have been hatched in November last, to attack the Council and turn out the older members. He certainly had nothing to do with any such plan, if it ever existed, and he would like to state emphatically that he did not intend to make any attack, good, bad or indifferent, upon the Council or any of its members. His object was that the Council should be put in a position to represent the entire profession in Ireland. Until the Society did this, the reforms referred to by the President could not possibly be carried out. The meaning of the motion was that a solicitor taking out a country certificate