The Gazette 1972

and happen to foresee the problems which will arise. Moreover especially from the legal point of view, the institution appears to portend a very special function. This is due to the dual nature of legal personality, with all its subsequent rights and liabilities, which is granted by the legislator as much to the professional company as to its members acting individually in their professional dealings. Such a somewhat ambiguous and complex situation might possibly involve serious problems, if the Associa- tion has to submit, independently from its associates, though in fact through their own activities, to all obligations imposed on the profession, in particular to all its liabilities and penalties. Thus the association can be brought to trial and forced to dissolve itself on account of the misconduct of a single unfair partner. Therefore, the most serious care must be taken by the founders with regard to the choice of associates if they want to avoid later, many drastic problems which give rise to difficulties in hampering the essential spirit

of co-operation which is the basis of the relationship duly established as much amongst the partners them- selves as amongst their clients. Let us hope that the freedom granted by the law to the founders as regards the drafting in a proper manner of the articles of association as well as of the memorandum, may often prevent the above mentioned difficulties. Besides, it must be pointed out that ad- herence to this legal status is entirely optional and that the law recognises all forms of professional associa- tions previously existing such as joint offices (Cabinets Groupes) and Barristers Associations (Associations d'Avocats) which are deprived of corporate status. In conclusion, it seems that the Civil Professional Association represents a successful effort to encourage team work in legal matters as well as ease of accession to a modern type of law practice, favoured actually by the prospect of the recent reform of the lawyers pro- fession in France and which will probably expand in the future in the Common Market.

North: Let's have Concrete Proposals —S.A.D.S.I. Inaugural

The responsibility of ensuring that this island would not become a shambles rested not on the people of the North but on the politicians of the Republic, British Labour M.P., Mr. Kevin McNamara (Kingston and Hull) told the inaugural meeting of the Solicitors' Debating Society of Ireland in Dublin last night. Mr. MacNamara, who was speaking to the motion, "That the memory of the dead is an obstacle to the progress of Ireland" (carried), said that the real sufferers in the North were not the minority, much as they had endured, but the Unionist working class majority who had been stripped and left naked of their position and status and told that they must share them. Stripped of everything they believed in because their leaders had let them down, they had turned to the U.D.A., the Vanguard and Loyalist Workers Associa- tion. Referring to the proposed Referendum on Article 44 of the Constitution in the Republic Mr. MacNamara commented : "Big cheese—smashing—a good liberal gesture', but the Government in the Republic had to put forward terms and conditions to the frightened people in the North before there could be any question of a united Ireland. The people in the North would have to be assured that they would be able to retain their dignity. They in England had got to do what they could to ensure that there was something for the people of the North within a united Ireland but, above all, the Republic must cease burying its head in the sand and making pious gestures but come forward with concrete proposals. This would achieve more than any Green Paper or an additional battalion of British troops in the North. A realistic statement from the Republic would do more for a united Ireland than all the dead who had gone before—both Orange and Green.

Mr. William Deeds, Conservative M.P. for Kent, said that England had survived two world wars because it had a sound constitutional Left in the British Labour Party. In Northern Ireland there had been no serious consti- tutional Opposition over the last 50 years and the subversive elements had been able to cause violent revolution. Without a constitutional Left an unconsti- tutional Left was apt to develop and that was precisely what had happened in the North. Mr. Bob Cooper, Northern Ireland Alliance Party, said that in Wolfe Tone they had the glorification of a blood sacrifice. There was nothing beautiful in the violent deaths of young people being blown to pieces but there was something beautiful in people living for their country in reconciliation. James Connolly had thrown away all he had worked for because of a sectional interest. They should re- member that Tone fought for the unification of Protes- tant, Catholic and Dissenter and that Connolly fought for the unification of the Protestant and Catholic work- ing classes. Mr. James W. O'Donovan, president, Incorporated Law Society, who presided, said that for the past 50 years, the people in the Republic, as far as our separated brethren in the North were concerned, had been blind, deaf and dumb. It was about time we did some con- crete thinking south of the Border. One student complained that the Society had failed to protest against internment and Special Courts in the North and had not given its moral support to the minority in the North by raising its voice against the Compton Report. Mr. Henry Kelly, The Irish Times correspondent in Belfast, also spoke. Irish Independent, 26/10/1972 - 2 8 8