A Fearless Judge.

Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume XIII, Issue 1083, 1 April 1903, Page 2

A Fearless Judge.

Lord Justice Vaughan Williams isvone of the most remarkably characters upon the English bench to-day, &nd \yilj be "remembered as the. judge' who.sat at -the in ' tion into "the New Zealand Loau and Mercantile Agency ' affairs about 1894, and gave such a dressing down to certain Cabinet Ministers and other, great personages. Tills week; he has been making Lome wholesome remarks at a din ncr of one of the oity companies. He said that, the view which judges and, he believed, the whole legal profession,' took of law and litigation 'was that their object was to settle disputes. Io did not please them that litigation should increase i it did please pheii] that the approach of the law : ~-tHe approach of justice-—should be^ so easy that every man, including the poorest man in the community, could get justice if he came to them for "it. They did not, how ever, wish that ail disputes should be settled by litigation. ' : He adyised people neve}- tp enter into litigation if they could possibly avoid it. VVliqu a mau felt that his dispute .had■.■arrived at a point when a c.;)ol head was required, he urged him to go direct to a solicitor, who, he. hom:d, would be one of those who fully. appreciated the.-, object of the existence of lawyers —thai disputes' hhoujd be settled as'-vjuickly aucjas cheaply as possible, He.■beloved that the cases that came intfj court represented only a very tjimll percentage of. the disputes which arose, among maniciml. Thl worth of a. .solicitor should not he judged by* the num her of cases & had won or fought, but by the njimber. wJiich lie and his opposing had "settled out of court. ( v