SIR JOHN SALMOND.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19283, 22 September 1924, Page 8

SIR JOHN SALMOND.

WELLINGTON MOURNS. EXPRESSIONS OF SYMPATHY SIE JOHN FINDLAY'S TRIBUTE. CFboh Oue Own Cohbespokdent.) WELLINGTON, September 21. The flag in the city aro at half-mast as a tribute to the late Sir John Salmond, and on all hands one hears expressions of sincere regret at his death in the heydey of his fame. It was known only to his friends and a few others that he was really seriously ill. It is just about a month since he began to suffer from heart trouble. He finished the hearing- of a case in the Supreme Court and then had to retire from active work, a request that his illness Should not be publicly referred to being generally respected. He received medical attention at Pendennis," where he lived, but a few days ago it was deemed advisable to have him moved into Dr Young's private hospital in Hobson street. On Friday he became much worse, and suffered a good deal of pain, and then passed suddenly iaway. It is a coincidence that Lady Saltnond happened to be a patient in the hosgatal in which he died. Sir John Salmond was a man whom it was a privilege to know. Apart from his position as an able judge and a worldtamed jurist he' was a brilliant conversationalist, with a fund of delightful humour, acid an extensive knowledge and keen appreciation of literature. One of his closest friends was Sir John Findlay, at whose charming country house at Day's Bay he was often a welcome and entertaining guest. At the request of your correspondent. Sir John Findlay, although himself on the sick list at presont, has been uood enough to contribute the following appreciation of his friend and fellow collegian :—' "It is over 40 years ago since, as a fellow student at the Otago University, I first men Sir John Salmond. The early friendship then commenced survived the commonly fatal trials of long poriods of Reparation and silence, and since his last return to New Zealand in 1906 our relationship has grown towards the closer bond of brotherhood. Wo were contemporaries nt college, his age and mine differing by ■but a few weeks. In our earliest associations I found him rather reserved and reticent, making friends more from, their admiration for his intellect than from the appeals of his personality. Like all natures, however, of undemonstrative sincerity he won his way by his sterling worth into the esteem of his classmates and gained there a place he never lost. He disdained all meretricious aids to popularity, and never consciously moulded his manner to ingratiate himself. He just seemed the tiling he was, which, if not immediately ecident. was finally found, to. be that of a personality mounted on a lofty intellect, decked by many endearing- graces of the heart. His teachers and professors, his and mine, early judged the quality of his mind, and fortold the distinguished future which his life, now so lamentably foreshortened in the tract of time", had already so amply realised. Those who knew him best in his younger manhood delighted to forecast tihe full orb to which his then - brilliant crescent would one day grow. Had he lived to deliver more of his masterly judgments and continue the compilation of his monumental legal treatises, np name would have loomed larger in the roll of the world's greatest jurists. He had a natural genius for clear legal exposition, arid'every lawyer oould tell of an obligation to his memory for the guidance and enlightment contained for example in his great work on torts, while his volume on jurisprudence is the codex juris canonici of young legal students. His opinions on abstruse questions possessed a unique authority. Now in the zenith of his powers he has vanished from the eyes of men nearly 20 years the junior of our revered Chief Justice. "It is rather, however, of the man than of the judge that I would speak. His true arena was not the gladiatorial one of advocacy. The dust and din of the hard fought controversies of the bar did not attract him. It is difficult to conceive of his maintaining before a jury a defence which he knew in his heart was invented and untrue. He would have made the poorest advocatus diaboli. His mind, his temperament, and his nature were all philosophic. He combined a wide moral understanding with his intellectual gifts, endowments rare in themselves and still rarer in his combination of them.- He was a wise man not merely in the narrower judicial sense of wise saws and modern instances, but in the highest sense of seeing life steadily and seeing it whole. On the bench he was the embodi--1 riient of a serene impartiality. Raised high above all considerations of favours, friendI ships, or personal influences, he brought to the discharge of his judicial ditties the clear light of right and truth, and armoured in a sense of unfailing justice. He was courageous. His courage being not of the aggressive type but calm, patient, persistent, indomitab!*. The ancient historian in words, perhaps both cynical and cruel, said that men were universally judged to be fit for the highest place only after they had attained and held it. The late Sir John Salmond, however, was qualified for the highest judiciail position long beforo he reached it. It came to him not by birthright, but by brain right,- the well-won guerdon of his juristio achievements, tho proper and appropriate orown to his career. But the man was greater than his office, high though that was. He was singularly sensitive to human aiifforings, a man of the readiest sympathies looking- out on life with indulgent eyes, making allowances for human frailties in the hour of another's affliction. He had the tender sensitiveness and vibrant understanding of a woman. His mind dwelt upon the eternaJ verities and elevated the texture of his thoughts and conversation far above the gossipy commonplaces and trivial incidents of life's diurnal round. "In all my long years of friendship with Ipm I never heard him say, except in a spirit of jocularity, anything splenitive or unjustly bitter. He maintained throughout his life a quiet dignity born of self reverence, self-knowledge, and self-control. He won in my first academy year ,a valuable scholarship, which, small in amount, vet enabled him. with the strictest economy. to go to London and pursue there hi* studies. His parents were able to supplement his income but little, and he learnt in what was really poverty the lesson? which only poverty can teach—self-control, temperance, and a wise understanding ol ■jWlat the struggle of life means for the great multitude of men. He spoke little of these early hardships, but enough tc enable me to realise that the moral fibre of the man owed much to the penury of Ks' student days. He took his honours at the London University, laboriously tc win which he laid tho foundations of that edifice of legal knowledge which was the outstanding glory of his career. In those days. too, ne won moro than scnolastif honours, he won tne effections of the gracious lady who became later the shining beacon of his life, and who stimulated and guided it as only a gifted and sympathetic woman can. She cheered him in his early professional struggles, taught him to trust to his, intrinsic worth, and to believe that merit, . though commonly not immediately appreciated, eventually must triumph Throughout his life he never failed to remember the guiding star by which he had -steered from despondency to hopefulness^lolll adversity to success, and she aurvives him, appealing in her bereavement to our admiration and our sympathy. "Wi|h an inexorable hand upon hi? family life he lost in the war his brilliant Blder son, and he bore the blow with characteristic, fortitude. I must not leave tho impression that his character was one of severity or asceticism. He could pass deIjUAtfully from grave to gay, from lively His wni a many-sided personality, and no man brought to the wcllEsjpe. round of life a more buoyant or sense of humour. His wit was oK'tho" nimblest, piquant, pointed, perfect, iever mordant, and always adding general Baieiy to the mirth of his circle. Death iia overtaken him in mid-career with powers i 0: possibilities of even greater achievement unexhausted. He met with with tinpeftuvbed expectancy, for no man I have had less reason for hesitation itf -submitting the record of his life to "those pure eyes and perfect witness o f ill judging gave." PREMATURE OBITUARY NOTICE. *-• HOME JOURNAL'S ERROR. (Feom Ova Own Correspondent.) -I WELLINGTON, September 21. Sir John Salmond was one of the famous oen who had tho experience' of reading lis own obituary notice. When the death i the late Professor William Salmond. of Jjipedin, was cabled to England tho me*age was taken to refer to his son. and h* "Solicitors' " Journal of March 31. 817, published an obituary notice of the oau we are now mourning, from which the

following- is taken: —"His treatiso on the law of Torts is perhaps the greatest monument to his name. Its scholarly precision as well ag its brilliant criticism of ririnciples, sometimes too hastily accepted as sound in normal treatises, has Riven it a unique position among modern text uuoics on Jaw. The late Professor Gray's rule on perpetuities is perhaps the only other recent law book in our language which the academic world of lawyers can regard us of equal excellence. His treatise on jurisprudence, too, is a great and original work, essentially reasonable and practical. It discards at once tho somewhat narrow doctrinarism of the Austinian school, the metaphysical unrealty of the German Naturrech, and the rather cumbrous historical methods of Maine and Maitland. The student who wishes to grasp the real meaning of juristic institutions must go to Sir John Salmond's works." A DISTINGUISHED CITIZEN. NEWSPAPER TRIBUTES. CFeosi Oue Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, September 21. Tho New Zealand Times says r.f Sir John Salmond: "New Zealand loses a very distinguished citizen, one, indeed, whose distinction was much wider than his adopted country. When raised to the Supreme Court bench in 1920 the late judge had made a great name as a profound lawyer whose text books were recognised in England and America, and had become a recognised authority on international law. In this latter respect Sir John Salmond was second to none, his fame standing as high as that of Mr Elihu Root, the United States lawyer and statesman who is regarded by his countrymen as the foremost constitutional lawyer in the world- It was his standing as an international and con stitutional lawyer that procured for Sir John Salmond the honour of representing New Zealand at the Washington Conference, a duty which he performed with considerable credit. His report, wnieh is a model of terse English, and cogent style, fully corroborates the many expressions of appreciation which he received at Washington. To the youth of New Zealand his career will always be an inspiring example of what resolute, purposeful industry can do for a man." The Post says: "As a jurist and an academic lawyer he had attracted a worldwide reputation long before his promotion to the Bench, and even before he had entered the public service of this country. 3Tor New Zealand his chief work was done during the 13 years of his service, first as counsel for the Law Drafting Office and afterwards as Solicitor-General, as the 10 years during which ho held the second of these important posts included the whole period bosh of tho war and of the peace settlement. He often had problems to face which had never troubled any of his predecessors, and for which sometimes even the experience and the archives of the law officers of Great Britain failed to provide any precedent. But during those trying years no Government in the Empire had a law officer better qualified to cope with these difficult problems. Tho value and the comfort of so surefooted an adviser in emergencies of that kind is best known to those who had to depend upon him in that time of trial. It was not'often that the publio was given a chance of judging for itself. One of these rare cases was when a difference of opinion arose between the British Government and our own Government about a constitutional issue presented by Now Zealand's acceptance of the mandate for Western Samoa. The deference shown to our Government's attitude in the matter appeared to be something more than the habitual courtesy of Downing street. The knowledge that our Government was likely to be just as well advisod as Downing street itself was doubtless a contributing element. Such was Sir John Salmond's industry and so strong his ruling passion that almost to the end he was, we understand, adding to tho immense labours of the Bench by the writing of anothor treatise which would doubtlesshave take its place beside his "Torts" and his "Jurisprudence." WANGANUI LAW SOCIETY. MR JTJSTICE REED'S TRIBUTE. (Pes United Press Association.) WANGANUI, September 20. A large gathering of members of the Wanganui Law Society assembled in tho Supreme Court building to-day to pay atribute to the memory of the late Sir John Salmond. Mr Justioe Reed paid an "eloquent tribute to the memory of the deceased. Ho said the passing of Sir John Salmond was a great loss to the dominion. He referred to tho deceased as a great iurist, and his knowledge of international law as Solicitor-General had been invaluable during the Great War. Mr Justice Reod also referred to the value of Sir John Salmond's book on "Torts,' which was recognised the world over. Mr Lloyd (president of the local Law Society), also paid a fine tribute to the memory of Sir John Salmond.

THE FUNERAL SERVICE. (Pee United Press Association.) WELLINGTON, September 21. The funeral of the late Sir John Salmond took place this afternoon. The church service was conducted by Archdeacon Johnson at St. Paul’s Pro-cathedral, also the service at the graveside. There was a large attendance at tho church, including practically all the prominent members of the Bar and all tho members of the Supremo Court Bench in Wellington. Mr Massey, Sir Joseph Ward, and Sir Francis Bell wore also present. The pall-bearers included three Kings’ Counsel