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FEBRUARY, 1912] The Gazette of the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland.
95
you occupy to-day than I do. May I ask
those present if they consider that we have
made a case here to-day after they have
heard the different speakers ;
may I implore
them to unanimously support the proposition
of my friend Mr. Craig.
MR. J. R. STRITCH, in supporting the
motion, said :—I had the privilege of attend
ing Wolverhampton Sessions, and saw how
the work was carried on there, and it has
often struck me as a peculiar thing that we
do not get such an Act of Parliament over
here. Under their Act of Parliament, when
a
subpoena
is issued and is not obeyed, the
Judge can order imprisonment.
In
this
country a witness not attending can be fined
a sum not exceeding
£10.
What is
the
result ? You
subp'i'iia
a gentleman to attend
and prove his means—this is the practice in
Green Street; and although he gets the
summons requiring to attend personally, he
does not attend and is fined
£5.
The English
Act is advantageous from another point of
view. Here, if a man living in Dublin sues
a man in the country for a small sum, and
the latter enters a defence, the plaintiff will
have to go down and prove the debt. But in
nine cases out of ten he won't go on, owing
to the small sum involved, and he loses his
debt.
In England it is different, and if the
English system prevailed here, a defendant
from the country would have to attend at
Green Street.
MR. T. W. DELANY (Longford), said :—
The Solicitors in County Longford approve
very heartily of the proposal which has been
so very well made by Mr. Craig. However,
our only difficulty in the matter is that these
resolutions do not go far enough.
As
I
gather from the speech of Mr. Craig and the
phrasing of the resolution, 'the object of the
Commission is to inquire into how you can
better the procedure in the County Courts.
After twenty years' experience in the country
I say, and I voice the opinion of my brother
Solicitors in the County Longford, that the
resolution proposed does not go far enough.
The County Court is the poor man's Court,
and the poor man ought to have all the
luxury and opportunity of going to law that
the rich man had in the past.
I may put it
that unless you go further and have reform
in jurisdiction and proper setting out of all
the work that should go before the County
Court, a Commission would be largely a waste
of time. We realise that when we come to
the Four Courts, we come more or less to a
wilderness, and that when we go back to the
County Courts we go back to a place full of
life and business. But there are a great many
obstacles placed in the way of those who have
of necessity to go to law to seek redress of an
honest grievance.
If the resolution was
amended in the way I suggest, it would have,
the hearty approval, not merely of
the
profession, but of the public who have to go
into the County Courts, and who would go
in under different circumstances in much
larger numbers. Everyone knows the pro
cedure is antiquated, and that there are a
hundred and one ways in which it might be
improved. The only way I can see that it
can be done is by having proper procedure
jurisdiction, and proper machinery.
The
only way I can see of having the improve
ments carried out in the way of proper
procedure jurisdiction and machinery, is by
putting the benefits of our experience before
the Commission. But I think we should try
and induce the Government to give us the
opportunity of providing for the public the
proper conveniences that modern civilisation
requires, and that the poor man is entitled
to have just as much as the rich. In hundreds
of cases actions are neglected simply because
of the expense of coming to Dublin, and the
uncertainty of the result makes men very
chary of going to law.
I think that amongst
Solicitors
there should be no arguments
necessary to convince them of the absolute
necessity of the procedure now suggested by
this resolution being adopted.
I think that
instead of giving instances of how much
better off they are in England and Scotland
we ought to make up our minds to agree to
the resolution proposed and devise such
machinery as will bring about the result
asked for. Evidence could be given by the
most skilled representatives of the profession,
and even by members of the public.
Let
the Commission in its turn properly report,
and we shall have an unanswerable case not
in the interest, of the profession merely, but
of the public at large.
SIR JOHN P. LYNCH, said:—I am
entirely in favour of the reforms suggested,
but I think that in asking for a Royal Com
mission to inquire into a subject of this kind,