LATE CHIEF JUSTICE

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 41, 20 February 1929, Page 10

LATE CHIEF JUSTICE

AN APPRECIATION

(Written by Sir John Findlay, K.C.)

It is thirty-five years since I first -met the late Sir Charles Bkerrett at the Bar. In decades Dastwe were opposed to each other.almost daily. "Forensic . contests reveal the' true" character of the contestants, and however he may have found me, I always found him blade straight and steel. true—with barristerial weapons bright and sharp but never envenomed. His .hand was never subdued to tho hue of; the narrow, sharp practices of Ms. arena. He was a great advocate, but his manhood was greater and higher ■than his advocacy, and no ;temptations of success dominated the impulses of his rectitude. He took his defeats as he took his many successes, in the spirit of a true'sportsman, find never reviled tho umpire, however much he thought him wrong. He had an amaziug faculty of finding.tho law within the law, and through the densest jungles of verbosity of finding the real ratio dceidendi.

.He never bullied an opposing tnior, but rather indulged his slips, s mistakes, his liberties with the law ©f evidence in his kindliest fashipn #onsistent with Ms duty to hiß client. His mind: had an almost mechanical orderliness, and I have often admired the brilliancy of his devastating arguments when they were most destructive of. my case. His painstaking industry in the preparation of his eases was phenomenal, and he never trusted his outstanding readiness to supply what called for.preparation. With some experience of conferences with leaders of the English Bar, I can speak with more emphasis when I say that it was a trust to. confer with him upon a difficult legal question. He never dogmatised, but heard all 'one had to say—weighted, dissected it, and then modestly expressed his opinion. Ho never spared himself in tho conduct of his cases, but threw as-much vigour and force into all alike, indifferent to their importance. I have-often chidden him for spending so much vital energy in a small case, but ho always had the effective answer: "Why.not?-.. lam paid to do my best."

It was these qualities that gave him his-pre-eminence at the Bar- and made him its acknowledged leader. Above all, he was the soul of honour. No one wanted in writing'any promise he really made. -His qualities of sociability and .friendship were no,less conspicuous and inherent than his abilities as a .lawyer. He never aimed at popularity; it came to him by natural attraction, and the friendships he made endured because based upon qualities that last and wear. Our admiration ombraccs our affection, and he will not soon bo forgotten.