DUTY GALLANTLY DONE

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 97, 19 January 1924, Page 16

DUTY GALLANTLY DONE

FALLEN MEMBERS OF LEGAL PROFESSION , MEMORIAL TABLET UNVEILED The memorial tablet erected to the memory of the legal practitioners, law clerks, and students of the Wellington district who paid the supreme sacrifice in the Great War was unveiled at the Supremo Court library yesterday hv the Acting Primo Minister, the Hon. Sir Francis Bell. Tire ceremony was simple and im-

pressive. Among those present, were the Chief Justice ,the High Hon. Sir Robert. Stout), Sil- Frederick Chapman, Mr. Justice Hosking, Air. Justice Frazer, Mr. 0. P. Skerrett, K.C. ’ (president of the New Zealand Law Society), Mr. A. Gray, K.C., Mr. M. -Myers, K.C.,' Professor J. Rankinc-Brown (V iceChancellor of the New Zealand University), Professor Boyd "Wilson (chairman of the Victoria College Council), Professor Adamson, Professor Garrow, Mr. E; T. Norris (Registrar of the University), Mr. W. G. Riddell, S.M.. Ml- C R. Orr-Wnlker, S.M., Mr. D. G. Cooper, M-- \V. A. Hawkins (Registrar of the Supremo Court), Mr. AV. Perry (president gf the Wellington District, Law Society), ( Mr. 0. N. C. Pragnall (representing the Masterton practitioners), Mr. L. M. Abraham (representing the Palmerston North practitioners), and Mr. E. 11. Williams the Hawke s Bay practitioners). •.

Country First. Sir Francis Bell (the naiue -of whoso

son the late Mr. AV. D. Bell, is inscribed on the tablet), eaid the members of the Wellington Law, Society had joineft in having the memorial tablet erected to the memory of those practitioners, clerks, and students who had paid the supreme sacrifice in the Great War, and the names inscribed on the tablet were of those men who had enlisted in the service of their country and laid down the : r lives in that service. It was a good thing to have such a beautiful, simple monument erected in the library of the Supreme Court because it was there that members of the legal fraternity congregated almost exclusively, and the tablet would servo as a memorial —a remembrance—and would stand as a sign and a token that they honoured and revered the memory of those who had gone before. Perhaps the education demanded by the profession gave them a keener appreciation of the horrors of war; they were less fitted to such activity, apart from the loss of precmus years in study; yet none hesitated.’Tovo of country and duty were paramount with them, end all other considerations, • no matter how dear,

paled into insignificance. One who chose to speak for alkmust refrain from using words of extravagant usage. Those who had died for us would only say that they had been dominated by the duty for country, and we could only say that they had given their Jives nobly for that groat cause. The survivors bad seen the end of the strife and were in the possesion of the happy memories cf such duty gallantly done. Many had fallen in the great

struggle, and were resting on the soil of other countries, but some were sleeping in unknown graves ,ovw which we could raise no monuments. It was our privilege to collect their names that they may not, at all events, he forgotten in the land in which they lived and for which they died. Snientliri and Honourable. It was still a splendid and honourable think to place country before self, and tho tablet bore their still living message to the youth of the profession

to follow their example: Was it not sublimely true that This Ensland never hath, nor never aha,ll, Lie at the foot of a conaueror? This was the message that was conveyed to those who would remember the men who had paid the greatest of all sacrifices, death, for their country. It was tho very flag veiling the tablet which they died for, and they had upheld the (honour of the profession and maintained flip ancient traditions of the British Empire by giving faithful and loyal service to their country. The memorial would be reverently preserved, and would go down with the ages an everlasting memory. Sir Francis Bell then unveiled the tablot, which is of extremely simple design, mounted on oak. It has two laurels surrounding the years 1914 and 1918, and the carefully incised names ? have been done on bronze. A simple, ’ artistic floral design surrounds the names. At tlje foot of the tablet is the Latin inscription meaning “This Way Leads to Heaven.”