"GREAT JURIST AND JUDGE."

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 205, 30 August 1928, Page 8

"GREAT JURIST AND JUDGE."

MR. JUSTICE BLAIR'S TRIBUTE.

DEATH NOT UNEXPECTED.

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

HAMILTON, this day.

"New Zealand has lost one of its greatest jurists and judges," said Mr. Justice Blair to-day, when paying a tribute to the late Sir William Sim.

There was a large assembly of the legal profession. Mr. W. Tudhope, president of the Law Society, said that the judge, before his elevation to the Bench, was one of New Zealand's most able lawyers, and in his long judicial career he had proved himself one of the most able judges New Zealand had ever had. Mr. Justice Blair, speaking with obvious emotion, said tfiat as a judge he had been associated wTth Sir Win. Sim only in the Court of Appeal for one sitting, but he was proud to boast of the fact that when practising at the Bar it was his privilege frequently to appear before him. It was known at the last sitting of the Court of Appeal that Sir William had been stricken with a malady which they feared might mean the early termination of his career, and therefore his death was not altogether unexpected. He had died, as he would have wished, in harness. Beside a legacy of numerous judgments and expositions of law, he had left behind him standard works in the practice and procedure of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal, and the Divorces and Matrimonial Causes Act and rules. There was not a lawyer in New Zealand who did not use with the utmost confidence these books, which remained a monument to the care and accuracy of the brain of their author.

"DISTINGUISHED SERVICES." (By Telegraph—Press Association.) NEW PLYMOUTH, this day. The Taranaki District Law Society this morning passed a resolution placing on record its high appreciation of the distinguished services rendered by Sir William Sim, and conveying to Lady Sim and her family its deep sympathy in their great loss.