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44
The Gazette of the Incorporated Law Society ot Ireland.
[DECEMBER, 191G
formed themselves into a Committee, and
elected me their Chairman, and Mr. R. N.
Matheson their Secretary.
In the first place
we wish to acknowledge the efforts of your
Council to assist us and to assist our clients
by helping us to replace the documents
destroyed in our offices. We regret, as I am
sure your Council regret, that your efforts
have not been more successful. In connection
with this I think the public should know that
we Solicitors have received less compensation
than any other class of sufferers. We have
been paid for the loss of our office furniture
as all other sufferers have, but we have not
and will not receive one penny for the loss
of our records and entries which, as you all
know, form, the most valuable portion of our
stock in trade.
In the second place we wish
to acknowledge with very grateful thanks the
enormous assistance given to us by the
Property Losses Association. They are, as
we know, an association of business men upon
whom we have no claim. Yet they assisted
us materially, and without their aid we would
indeed be in a sorry plight. On our applica
tion they were good enough to elect me a
member of their Committee. This enabled
me to state our case to Mr. Samuel, the
Home Secretary, and to get from him on
behalf of the Government the statement that
the Goulding Committee would be expected
to deal with the claim in connection with
the reconstitution of the lost documents.
Thirdly, we wish
to
tender our sincere
thanks to the City Members, and especially
Mr. J. J. Clancy, K.C., for enabling us
to obtain two valuable clauses in the Act
of Parliament known
as
the Law and
Procedure (Emergency Provisions) Ireland
Act, 1916. The first was a clause on behalf
of our clients enabling us in a cheap way to
apply to the Chancery Courts to perpetuate
the testimony afforded by the lost documents.
Rules have been made by the Lord Chancellor
to enable us to work this section. We had
an interview with his Lordship, who received
us most sympathetically, and at his suggestion
my Committee submitted to his Lordship a
list of suggestions in reference to these rules,
and I have here a letter from, his Lordship's
Secretary,
in which he
says
that our
suggestions have been of great assistance in
drafting the rules. We hope under this
section eventually to put our clients, as
regards the lost documents, J.n _as good a
position as they were before the destruction
of the documents. The second clause is a
clause freeing us and all similar persons in
whose possession original documents were—
such,
for example, as mortgagees—from
liability in respect of the loss.
In connection
with this clause we wish publicly to thank
the present Attorney-General and Solicitor-
General for their efforts on our behalf.
In
Parliament the Attorney-General stated that
in his opinion we Solicitors could not be held
liable even without the clause. Nevertheless,
it is a valuable safeguard both for-us and for
mortgagees.
There is just one other matter
which I would wish to mention :
the result
of our being free from liability would mean,
in the ordinary course that our clients would
have to bear the expenses of replacing the
documents. The injustice of this was pointed
out to Mr. Samuel and to the law officers.
Mr. Samuel stated :—" There is no doubt
there must be certain, expenditure required
when reconstituting the deeds.
.
.
.
The
Committee
(i.e.,
the Goulding Committee)
will be expected to take cognizance of this
claim." And the Attorney-General in Parlia
ment stated that we '' had been allowed and
encouraged to apply to this Goulding Com
mittee with regard to any of their property,
including deeds,
for compensation."
Of
course we could have no claim for compensa
tion for the loss of the deeds, but we now
understand that the Goulding Committee are
prepared to treat the loss as our loss, and to.
recommend
the Government
to pay as
compensation the cost of replacement.
MR. JAMES BRADY said :—With refer
ence to the question of the Government of
Ireland Act, he trusted sincerely they would
never again be troubled with.the question of
partition. He thought the promoters of such
a suggestion as that ought to be confined in
a lunatic asylum. He regretted there was a
reduction in the membership of the Society.
They ought to be loyal to one another; but
so long as men remained outside the Society
they should endure and suffer the results of
many queer transactions that occurred in
Court from time to time. There were nearly
1,600 Solicitors on the roll in Ireland, and
there were only 828 members of the Society,