The Gazette 1946-49

sanction for our autonomy as a body, we are entitled to demand the loyalty and co-operation of the whole body. Surely our annual subscription is not pro hibitive and the facilities, including the Library, available to members repay this nominal sum over and over again. What I have said as to membership of this Society applies equally to the Local Bar Associations. Wherever they have been established they have proved their value to their members. They can deal with many things which are not in our sphere. They can deal promptly with local and temporary grievances. They can also fight against any anti social or unprofessional acts or outlook in their districts. I urge our members in any area where there is no Local Bar Association to set about the establishment of such a body and in any area in which the Bar Association exists, but is not suffi ciently active, to strive to bring it at once into the fullest activity. Your Council has sent some of my colleagues and myself on a deputation to the Revenue Commis sioners to urge the repeal of certain of the new stamp duties, which we feel are militating against the interests of our clients and the profession, and also to ask that the proceeds of the heavy taxation en apprentices and solicitors which has no parallel in the case of other vocational bodies, be handed over to us for professional education and the provision of legal text-books. Such books are now often unprocurable in editions which suit our Law and, without assistance in the form of a subsidy, no Irish publisher can be found who under existing circumstances will take the risk of publication. The growing divergence between our Laws and those of the neighbouring countries renders the provision of such books, of Irish provenance, more and more necessary. We were received with courtesy. All the facets of the subjects I have mentioned were exhaustively discussed and we must only hope that our representations will eventually prove fruitful. Incidentally on the stamp duty issue we have been especially exerting ourselves in the interests of the general public, and in this we are doing something I would wish this Society to do in an increasing measure. We can do more to justify our position as a profession and to earn and obtain the recogni tion and support of the public for our claims if we follow the good example of our sister institutions elsewhere, by initiating reforms in the laws wherever this can be done without implicating our Society, made up as it is of persons holding different views, in anything which could be called party politics. In this connection perhaps I may be permitted, before a wider audience, to repeat something I said to successful candidates at our last Final Examination. I think our younger members, especially in the 3

It will not be imputed to me as invidious if I refer especially to two of these deceased members. Thomas H. R. Craig was one of the oldest members of our profession. He had retired from active practice for some years. He was a Vice-President in 1931-32. If I mistake not he was a founder member of the Dublin Solicitors' Bar Association, then the City and County of Dublin County Court Bar Association. For many years he was its Honorary Secretary and a model of what an Honorary Secretary should be. He was distinguished by his public spirit and devotion to the interests of the profession and always ready to do battle to secure its dignity and its rights. He was also my predecessor as Honorary Secretary of the Faculty of Notaries public here. I have the happiest recollections of the help and guidance he afforded me and all his juniors in practice in Dublin. How shall I speak in fitting terms of our recent ex-President, Scan B. 6 hAmaill, who was struck down so suddenly while we were holding our last Council Meeting ? His ability and his energy as a practitioner, not only in his office but also as a dis tinguished and formidable advocate in the public Courts were only equalled by his services to this Society on its Council. We shall not soon forget his devotion to duty when he attended, I believe without a single exception, every Council and every Committee meeting during his Presidential term of office, neither his precarious health, or the threat of sudden death dogging his footsteps, nor the difficulties of transport, could keep him from fulfilling the obligations of the office to which we had elected him. At times hasty in his temper, he never bore any man malice, and all of us saw and admired the way in which he performed the duties of President with impartiality, with dignity and with patience. Over and above all this he shewed an example to the profession as a good citizen in his services to our National Culture, to the Red Cross Society and to the establishment and building up of important industries in his own county. His place will not easily be filled and in him, as in Tom Craig, I personally mourn an old friend. Out of 1,382 solicitors practising in the Twenty- Six Counties, 1,084 are members of our Society. Like, I think, all my predecessors I must express disappointment at the fact that we are still short of 100 per cent, organisation of the profession. The remedy, as my voice can only reach those who are present, or at most those who receive and read our GAZETTE, is an intensive drive by all our members to recruit every active solicitor as a full participant in our corporate activities. A sense of professional pride ought to urge anyone who has the qualification to pull his weight in the team. Above all now, when we are endeavouring to obtain legislative