SIR HUBERT OSTLER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25174, 15 March 1943, Page 6

SIR HUBERT OSTLER

SUCCESSFUL PRACTICE OF LAW

The most recent issue of the New Zealand Law Journal contains a report of the valedictory function tendered by the Wellington District Law Society 'to Sir Hubert Ostler on his retirement from the Bench. The function was, owing to Sir Hubert’s indisposition, held at his home. Tributes of respect and affection were paid to Sir Hubert by Mr A. B. Buxton, president of the Wellington Law Society, and Mr G. G. G. Watson. Sir Hubert Ostler, speaking from his invalid chair, said the only qualification which he could claim for himself of those that should be possessed by a good judge was the habit of work acquired by him through having for the first eight years of his life after he left school, been a working man in the country. Oddly enough, he drifted into the law by a pure accident and started training for his career without the least enthusiasm. His first trouble was that he could not get a job in any legal office. At last he managed to’get one at £1 a week outside the law, and with that and £ls, which was the sole extent of his capital, he managed to get through his first year at the University. He obtained lodgings at 15s a week and had to look twice at every sixpence before he spent it. At the end of the first year he was penniless. By working long hours in the country, cutting down trees and sawing them into lengths, for a mill, he was able to return to Wellington with £6O in his pocket. Then he interviewed a lawyer, who said he could not afford to pay more than 15s a week, but on learning that he (Sir Hubert) could use a typewriter engaged him at £1 a week. His employer gave him a bonus of £5 at Christmas and raised his salary in the New Year to 25s a week. Then one day he was offered the position of associate to the Chief Justice, and from that moment his financial worries were over. After a brief reference to his experience at the Bar and to the 18 years he had spent on the Bench, every minute of which he had enjoyed because of the pleasantness of his relations with members of the Bar. Sir Hubert wished one and all success in the practice of his profession and defined the success he wished for them in this way: “If, when you come to the end of your strength and lay aside your work, vou are able to say to yourself, ‘I did not use my profession for the purpose of getting rich quickly— I kept the ideal before me of service to the community, I have so conducted my profession and so lived that I have been of some service to my fellow men, and have done something to make this world a better place for our children and their children after them ’ —if you can say this, then I would say you have been successful in your profession.’’