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JUNE, 1912J
The Gazette of the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland.
17
they would be prevented from acting as
blacklegs and scabs in reference to the legal
profession. He hoped he had said nothing
to reflect in the slightest way upon the
Council of the Society or any of its members.
He had no such intention ;
his only desire
and wish being in his own humble way to
see that the rights and privileges of his
professional brethren were safeguarded. They
started the agitation in 1898, and were
successful then, and he trusted that under
the President's guidance that all they had got
to complain of at present would be remedied.
At all events there was nothing like trying.
Every other body throughout the United
Kingdom,
throughout
the world, were
making a strong fight to maintain their
position, and he thought they ought to do
the same. He moved his motion, and trusted
it would be carried unanimously.
MR. CRAIG seconded the motion. He
did not propose to make a speech, because
he thought it was a motion that would be
agreed to unanimously by the Solicitors.
Undoubtedly,
as Mr. Brady had
said,
attempts had been made in recent years to
cut in on their profession by clerks and
members of public bodies. xHe was the first
to call attention to the attempts made in
Coroners' Courts to represent the next-of-
kin. The matter was gone into then, and it
was taken up by the then Council of the
Incorporated Law Society.
It was stopped,
but he understood attempts were being made
again
in connection with many of
the
industrial Acts that had been passed ;
there–
fore, it was time that a formal protest should
be made.
MR. MACNAMARA said he desired to
correct Mr. Brady in his impression that a
certain rule had been approved after con–
sultation with the President of the Incor–
porated Law Society. The fact was that the
rule was made after a consultation with the
President but in spite of his protest against
it, and that the amendments proposed by
this Society had received no consideration
by the Local Government Board.
MR. F. W. MEREDITH said he could
confirm what Mr. Macnamara had said.
MR. MOFFATT said, while not agreeing
with all that Mr. Brady had said in moving
the resolution, he heartily supported the
resolution.
MR. BRADLEY mentioned that when Sir
John Lynch was President of the Society he
proposed amendments to some Labourers
Act rules, but those amendments were not
accepted by the Local Government Board.
MR. W. J. SHANNON said that in all
questions which arose between Solicitors and
the public the Local Government Board
would decide against the Solicitors. They
would cut out the Solicitors in every possible
way they could. They would have cut in
still more on the profession were it not for
the action taken by the Society under the
Labourers Acts.
MR. CRAIG said that his humble opinion
was that Rule 43 of the new Rules went
entirely beyond the powers conferred on the
Local Government Board by Section 207 of
the Public Health Act.
If it were
ultra vires
it should be set aside.
MR. MEREDITH said when he was
President everything he suggested in con–
nection with High Court Rules was agreed
to by the Judges, but as regarded the Local
Government Board, it was merely a sham.
No real consultation whatever took place
with the President in reference to these
rules, and no attention was paid to the
representations of the President, although he
was invited to attend a consultation with the
Local Government Board in reference to
them, and did attend and give his views.
MR. H. SHANNON (Nenagh) suggested
as an addition to the motion, that steps
should be taken to see that Solicitors were
given appointments such as those of Resident
Magistrates.
MR. I. J. RICE (Vice-President) said he
thought Mr. Shannon's suggestion ought to
be agreed to. For himself he was personally
very much in favour of the resolution moved
by Mr. Brady. He thought it was a most
unfair thing to the Solicitors' profession that
unqualified people should be allowed
to
trench on their rights. He was glad to say
that the local authority with which he was
connected had never shirked its duty. A
local authority could not save anything by
sending down to Court a man who had no
legal training. He had known of cases in
which the local authority was represented
by laymen, and he heard those men making
a most absolute muddle of the cases. Instead
of saving money
these
local authorities