"BACK-DOOR" BARRISTERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 103, 3 May 1930, Page 8

"BACK-DOOR" BARRISTERS.

Sir Michael Myers' attempt to perpetuate the stigma placed on men who have been called to the Bar in one of the two .ways provided by the legislation by applying t<b them an opprobrious epithet is contrary alike to the principles of good taste and of justice. What right has he to publicly censure the laws which he has been called 011 to administer? Further, if one considers the extra subjects that a barrister ip called on to pass to enter by what the Chief Justice has chosen to call the "front door," of. what value ate thev? Perhaps somebody who knows will tell us what is the value to a banister to have passed an examination in Roman law. The worst feature of the Chief Justice's attitude/ however, is its manifest injustice. In England and other countries whera barristers and solicitors belong to separate professions, the keeping of them apart is all very well. But in New Zealand, where ninety-nine per-cent of the barristers practise as solicitors, why hurl insults at the solicitors who retaliate By becoming barristers, as provided by law? If the barristers are so jealous of their privileges, then I submit that it is up to them to leavethe domain of the solicitors alone. Of course' they cannot do that, because if-they did the vast majority of them would starve. I trust his Honor will think of this aspect of the case before he throws any more slights on the law as it stands. AN OLD SOLICITOR.