STRANGE MISTAKES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21601, 23 March 1932, Page 14

STRANGE MISTAKES

LEGAL FIRMS AT FAULT. (From Our Own Correspondent. y LONDON, February 4. Solicitors have to depend so much on precedents and the past that they are apt to be at fault sometimes where present-day affairs are concerned. An instance of this has come under the notice of the librarian of the High Commissioner’s Office. Writing on behalf of a client, a firm of English solicitors explained that this client was about to marry a New Zealand man, and they were anxious to know whether the lady in question, by so doing, would lose her British nationality. New Zealand lawyers may not take unction to their souls for their English colleagues’ mistakes, for they are the worst offenders in regard to the Dominion’s representation in London. Letters come to the office from law firms addressed to the Agent-general for New Zealand, the writers forgetting that it is many years since New Zealand became a Dominion and established a High Commissioner in London. Not a few of these firms address letters to Sir James Allen or to Sir James Parr, evidently not aware that some changes have taken place during the last 10 years. Some persist in addressing their letters to 13 Victoria street, where the New Zealand Offices were until 1915. Conservatism may sometimes be carried too far.