Valedictory Address

"Bureaucratic Government Attacked by Valedictorian of Class of Law of U.N.B." The Daily Gleaner (1 November 1946): 4.

Many of us will recall one night about seven years ago when the students of our school were entertained at a dinner by the law faculty. Judge McInerney addressed us on that night and tonight ends there.

It is now seven years later and tonight we have reached the end of a road we started that many years ago. We have reached the end of a road, which involved a detour through six years of war. As for us we learned of the First Great War of this century through our history books, but in the case of the Second Great War we actually experienced the waste, destruction and horror of war. We all hope and trust that soon our recent experiences will fade from our memories and that we may be able to look forward to an enduring and a lasting peace--a peace so full of life that is will never die.

It is now more than a year since the cessation of hostilities--and we may well ask ourselves if our efforts and the sacrifices of our comrades have been in vain. Today we find the world in a turmoil of fear, suspicion, distress and doubt. Peace for the most of us has been disillusioning. There is a strike wave and a crime wave in North America, ruin, starvation, and distrust in Europe, civil war and chaos in Asia.

We are faced with a failure that can be as dismal as our victory was brilliant. But yet there must be no defeatism--we cannot afford to stop but we must go forward and just as we fought to win the war so must we fight to win the peace.

For three hundred years after every major war treaties have purported to aim at a lasting peace and have failed. Shall we fail again? From the beginning of enlightened conscience about human happiness and security the jurist and the lawyer in all lands have been leaders in efforts to lessen wars and in limiting the effects of wars. You as individuals must not relax and become careless but you as leaders must exercise every effort and proclaim your belief and support towards making peace a permanent thing.

Threat of Bureaucrats

I would also call your attention to another matter that is threatening our security that comes from within and goes under the name of bureaucracy. This institution made its way into our society before the last Great War, but it was during the war years that it thrived and developed to such an extent that what at first purported to be a transient stranger is now with us a permanent enemy.

No on can doubt that such a system of government interferes and restrains individual liberty and takes away the protection of the rule of law as administered in our courts.

The nature of human government has always been three fold--judicial, legislative and executive; certain it is that from earliest times sovereignty has concerned itself with declarations of justice, law-making and law-enforcing. The African chieftain under the tribal tree could do no more, the most advanced state can do no less.

By long tradition our legislatures have made laws and impartial judges have interpreted them. That is the rule of law. Individual liberties were preserved and protected, the ambitious and the energetic were encourage and rewarded. But those liberties are not endangered.

You are all aware of the ever increasing legislation by orders-in-council and regulations made by government departments. The familiar procedure is to pass a skeleton statute providing for this or that and containing provisions for the administration to be by order in council. It goes without saying that the tendency of our modern statute law and statutory rules and orders is to oust the jurisdiction of our courts. How common is the expression--the decision of the minister shall be final and conclusive--and by the term minister is meant some unknown and unnamed if brilliant and devoted official. Why elect at great expense our representatives to sit in parliament and make laws if their sole function is to delegate their legislative power and authority in to the hands of an arbitrary board, committee or department. Have we been so badly fooled that when we fought to save democracy we find that we have not even that for which we fought. A bureaucratic dictatorship is not democracy it is a dictatorship.

Safeguards Removed

Under such a system what protection has the individual in our courts against this delegated legislative power? Where are the safeguards of personal liberty and property? For centuries the bulwarks of liberty have been our courts wherein the rule of law has prevailed. These bulwarks are not being crushed and broken by reign of power, a power that is the negation of the rule of law.

You have all been told that it is better for the law to be fixed and certain than it should be ideally perfect. I would suggest that with our vast amount of our delegated legislation that even Solomon with all his wisdom would have difficulty in determining just what some of our laws really are.

In your studies you have found examples where the right of recourse to the courts in first instance has been taken away and even when the right of appeal from the decision of a board has been denied. Absolute power cannot go further than this--to deny the citizen his right of recourse to justice administered in our courts, civil and criminal--and his right of appeal from some arbitrary decisions. If we abolish such recourse and such appeal we abolish the courts and if we abolish the courts we abolish the lawyer, and if we abolish the courts and the lawyer we abolish the very machinery by which through centuries the British citizen has won his way to personal liberty and the right to have his case tried in open court before the King's judges.

I do not say the whole of bureaucratic system is bad--indeed there are elements of efficiency, but I do say that the evil which we must guard against is the tendency of ousting our law courts from jurisdiction and authority to protect the rights of persons and property against decisions based on radical theories and against arbitrary authority exercised by officials who owe no responsibility to our parliament, our courts and our electorate.

Profession of Law

Finally I would call your attention to matters concerning your own chosen profession. Many of you will consider yourselves handicapped by the loss of time you spent in the armed services. I would like at this point to express on your behalf our gratitude to the President, the Law Faculty and especially to the law lecturers who made the summer course for veterans possible and thus enabled us to graduate tonight.

I would suggest that the time you spent in the service may be an asset rather than a handicap--those years have served to widen your experience and have given you a breadth of understanding of men and affairs that are indispensable in the successful practice of any profession, and as one uses the mechanics of a trade these are the assets upon which more and more reliance is being placed. I have no doubt that your recent experiences will prove of the greatest value to you in the practice of law.

Technical Information

For the practice of law you have acquired certain technical information. You have passed the requisite examinations and completed the required course of study. You will probably recall that when we passed our first law examinations we thought that we had acquired a considerable amount of legal knowledge and considered ourselves authorities on the subjects so covered; on passing the second set of examinations we lost some of that confidence we previously had and now that we have passed our final examinations we are amazed at how far from perfect our legal education really is. You will recall the story told to us about a promising young German lawyer--as this was told by a Judge I feel at liberty to repeat it--when the young German lawyer was asked how he was getting along he replied that he was doing quite well now, he was a judge and hoped some day to be admitted to the bar. Our education is far from perfect and we have merely scratched the surface. We no longer have instructions to guide our thoughts and studies, but we have been given the foundations on which to build by our own diligence and industry. If any of you are not men of genius but are industrious plodding men then the condition of the law spread over many hundreds of volumes will give you the greatest encouragement. Mark well the words of Sir Cecil Rhodes--so much to do and so little time to do it in--Work work while it is yet day--in your lives that there be no misspent hours. Abraham Lincoln, one of the greatest Presidents of the United States once said--I don't think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday--.

A lawyer properly equipped brings a great power and usefulness to this daily tasks and to his profession which is unfortunately judged by its contribution to our national life. The responsibility of obtaining that proper equipment is yours. Let there be no general impressions in the domain of the law. General impressions are all very well for an artist who wishes to produce an effective landscape, but in our profession absolute certainty and exactitude of expression and thought are essential.

Members of the Graduating Class I have no doubt that you will prove equal to the task that may confront you and I am quite confident that you will continue to be firm supporters of our heritage, our most precious possession--liberty and justice.