CORRESPONDENCE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 27 September 1924, Page 6

CORRESPONDENCE.

AMERICAS BAR’S VISIT TO ENGLAND.

(To the Editor)

Sir.-—The very attenuated reference to this visit contained in. yesterday’s Star deads me to think that a considerable section of your readers would be interested in further details' of the visit.

For the purpose of making the- visit, the Canadian and United States Bars amalgamated, and the idea at the back of the visit took' its origin out of a \visit to Canada by a delegation of •English lawyers ten years-ago.. Curiously enough, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Haldane, who as titular head of the profession, welcomed the visitors to England, headed the delegation of ten years ago. -

The chief function was the official welcome which took place on* a specially constructed platform at the south end of St. Stephen’s Hali, in Westminster Hall. There was a great gathering of judges, barristers. and solicitors. Lord Haldane presided. Sir Patrick Hastings, K.C. (Attorney-General), presented the visitors, and. in doing so referred to the lasting foundation which society had in law. He - emphasised the closeness of the ties which bind the members of the Saxon races together, and expressed the hope that the visit would result in a better understanding between America and Britain. Mr R. W. Dibdin, president of the Law Society qf England, followed, and drew attention to the fact that the. meeting was taking place in a hall which had been built by the common, ancestors of guests and visitors.. Sir James Aikins (president of the Canadian Bar Association) in. a most 'felling and forceful address, endorsed the • sentiments expressed by the previous speakers, -and drew the attention, of those present to the peed of fostering, a spirit ,bf harmony between the two‘nations. . He drew a. glowing picture of the Temple of Peace which could he built if all the lawyers in the British Empire and the United States placed that before them as a goal.' In the reply of the Lord Chancellor he made mention of some of the men who had helped to- fashion in Westminster Hall some of those institutions which were regarded as being the very ground .work and foundation oi society in England. He mentioned the names of those who in America had received inspiration from the works of English jurists, and who had fashioned in America, a constitution the genius ol which was imported from the, institutions of England.

Mr C. E. Hughes, Secretary of State, and president of the American Bar Association, replied on behalf of the guests. He expressed tlieir pleasure in coming as a representative body to the ancestral roof-tree. He testified to the debt of the United, States to England in regard to legal ’and contsitutional principles and to the old common law ol England which the pioneers to America had taken with them. But he contrasted the present position of the United States bound by a written constitution with that of "England having a. constitution which took its rise in custom centuries old and which is able to adapt itself to changing times. Mi Hughes paid a very high tribute to the value of the judiciary of the legal profession generally. Two days later, in the Central Courts of Justice, Mr Wickersham presented and unveiled a statute of Sir William Blackstone, the eminent jurist who first cast into definite form the legal principles involved in the common low of England. He inentioned that i.t was. a perusal of Blaekstone’s commentaries that first directed the attention ol Abr.aham Lincoln to the study of that science. He said that it was possible to see the effects of Blackstohe’s influence in the. Declaration of Independence of the United States.

In concluding the address, Mr W. Y. Kersham used these words: “1 venture to ask that the statue may re- 1 main here as a perpetual reminder ol the bond of union between .us, as the symbol of a conception of justice, and an assurance that so long as we aim at the same standpoint and cherish the same high attributes of justice r irci liberty under law, of an impartial judiciary. of the preservation of Jie great rights that were won here and maintained here that- it may remain where it now stands, ever indicating the brotherhood, or the American and British Bar.” During the visit opportunity was taken to present to the Coumil of Legal Education in England a portrait of Chancellor James Kent, a gioat lawyer of New 'York, who has been referred to- as the American Blackst-one. and who did much to uphold and develop the principles of freedom and justice. The whole visit was a very memorable and noteworthy one' :n legal annals. —I am, etc., • ,‘LEGIS.”