AS A MINING ADVOCATE.

Colonist, Volume XLVIII, Issue 11668, 2 July 1906, Page 3 (Supplement)

AS A MINING ADVOCATE.

Dr. J. Giles, an ex- West Coast Warden, writes respecting the late Mr Seddon:-- "His cleverness as an advocate was beyond question. He never lost a chance when apy legal point gave him an opportunity, and the readiness with which he grasped the bearing of legal points was remarkable, although, as we now know, this was only one indication of the brain power and mental acuteness with which he wa9 so abundantly endowed. I have as little doubt|that with a legal education he could nave made a great name at the Bar, as gratification in the knowledge that he was reserved for greater and better work."' "A Warden on a goldiield can scarcely please everybody, and it was not surprising if Mr Seddon sometimes thought me in the wrong in some action or omission on my part. On one of these occasions he censured me in a speech in Parliament for something 1 had done, or failed to do, in connection with the famous Kumara sludge channel. But tne next year, although we had during I the interval scarcely exchanged half a dozen words. Mr Seddou, in a aneech in the House, expressed a wish to correct what be had said in the preceding year, in so far as it conveyed any reflection on the Warden, as a fuller knowledge of the facts had convinced h»m that he was mistaken. This gratuitous amends satislied mo that the man who made it had no venom in his nature.