Untitled

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 7914, 5 April 1887, Page 4

Wβ understand that Mr. Thompson, M.H.JR. for City North, has consented to accompany a deputation to interview Sir Bobert Stout on a matter of special interest to a native chief named Taurau, of Whangarei, and of general interest, as showing how natives are frequently " done." Ifc eeema that an Auckland lawyer had to pay this native £1000 for a block of land. Some difficulty, it is said, was experienced in getting the money, and the natives employed another lawyer to sue the first. When Taurau came to town for his monay, he found that lawyer No. 2 had decamped to Sydney, while lawyer No. 1 showed a receipt for the money. The police decline to take any steps against the lawyer who has gone, unless the native pays down some .£SO or £60 to defray the coste of pursuit and arrest. Taurau is doubtful about sending good money after bad. The object of the deputation is to get Sir Robert Stout to direct the police to prosecute. It has been found in Auckland that lawyers, however ready they are to take steps against infringements of the Law Society's rules, by which the privileges or the profits of the profession were injured, are loth to do anything against a professional brother who had done nothing worse than plunder a client. Will the Law Society do nothing in such a case as this? Does the Society exist only to protect the rights of lawyers 1 Has it nothing to do with the honour and credit of the profession ? The Society ought, if necessary, to furnish the funds for prosecution in such a case as this. Sir Robert Stout is appealed to, in the present instance, as the Premier of the colony, and he ought not to be induced by his professional instincts to protect an erring brother. We hope that the Premier will look carefully at the facts of* the case, and will, if possible, have the defaulting lawyer

brought back and made to answer for his misdeeds. We have heard a great deal about one law for the rich and another for the poor; but it is quite as bad if there is one law for the lawyers and another for laymen. Sir E. Stout has shown that he has the full ahsro of professional esprit de corps, bat i la must not allow it to carry him too far. If the facts as alleged are true, this m obtained the chance of robbing the natives by being a member of the legal profession, and his profession ought aofc to shield him from punishment.