SIR JOHN SALMOND.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19283, 22 September 1924, Page 6

SIR JOHN SALMOND.

The announcement of the premature death of Sir John Salmond, one of the judges of the Supreme Court of New Zealand, will have been received with general regret, heightened by the element of unexpectedness that attended the event. The late judge had occupied a seat upon the Bench for only four years, and in that brief period he had displayed judicial qualities of a high character, winning the confidence of the legal profession and the community in a signal degree. Prominence as an advocate or practitioner was never enjoyed by him—in which respect he resembled that great judge, Sir Joshua Williams, —but early repute as a jurist led to his appointment to important professorial positions at Adelaide and Wellington in which he gained distinction. It will be as a jurist, however, that his name will chiefly live. His works on juridical questions earned for him, indeed, a fame that, far from being confined to the dominions where he was best known, was deservedly widespread. “ Salmond on Torts ” was an accepted authority in the courts of the Empire. It was only recently that a passage from it was relied upon- in an English court as conclusive and that the Court of Appeal adopted it as a definite expression of the law on the subject to which it related. It was a recognised text-book of the highest value. To affirm that a work on which ho was latterly engaged on the subject of Contracts, and which, it is to be feared, will not have been completed although Sir John Salmond had devoted a great deal of time to it, would have proved equally authoritative would be to indulge in useless speculation. The fact, however, remains that the late judge occupied an assured place as the most brilliant jurist in the dominions and as one of the greatest in the Empire. His ten years’ service as Solicitor-General, though not of a kind that attracts frequent public notice, accentuated his obvious suitability for high judicial office. While the brief duration of the culminating phase of his career is much to be deplored, it should be admiringly acknowledged that few judges have made such a distinctive mark in so short a time. It would not be easy to point to any weakness in Sir John Salmond’s mental equipment. His legal acumen was of a most searching order, and the fine balance of his temperament was accompanied by an exceptional mastery alike of general principles and complicated details. His style, both in speech and writing, was scholarly and faultlessly lucid. An illustration of this that should be familiar to the public was furnished after his return from the Washington Disarmament Conference, at which he was attached to the British delegation as a representative of New Zealand, for he issued a valuable report on the Conference, characterised by shrewd suggestiveness and

explanatory clearness. The Otago High School, it may be added, has reason to be proud of the inclusion of Sir John Salmond’s name in the list of its alumni. The dominion has too early lost a distinguished figure.