The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-09-03

Richard Burton Haldane. Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, delivered the annual address ot the meeting in Montreal, Monday, of the American Bar Association. His subject was High CT Nationality, a Study in Law and Ethics.'' and he held the attention of his hearers until the end of his speech, which was only a, little under ten thou sand words long.
 The Lord Chancellor began by ern- phasizing the fact that the United States, Canada and Great Britain to- gether form a unique group because of the common inheritance of tradi- tio1s, surroundings and ideals, and particularly in the region of jurispru- dence. He declared that lawyers are called on in days that lie in front to mould opinion and encourage the na- tfons of this group to develop and rec ognize a. reliable character in the ob- legations they assume toward each other. He considered that there are relations possible within such a group that are not possible for nations more isolated and lacking identity of history and spirit. Canada, Great Britain and the United States, with common language, common interests common ends, resemble a, single so- ciety, which might develop a foun- dation for international faith of a kind new in the history of the world The English visitor urged lawyers to assist in the freshening of the con Ventiona1 atmosphere which surrounds men in public life by omiting no op- portunity to think rightfuIly and to contribute to the fashioning of a more hopeful and resolute kind of public opinion. It was the chance of laying before the audience at the American Bar Association at Montreal this thought that induced him to obtain permission from King George V toI visit this meeting
 Continuing, Lord Haldane presented the following message from King George ":
 ''I have given my Lord Chancellor permission to cross the seas so that he may address the meeting at Montreal. I have asked him to convey from me to that great gathering of the lawyers of the United States and of Canada my best wishes for it's success. I en- certain the hope that the deliberations of the distinguished men of both coun- tries who are to assemble at Montreal may add yet further to the esteem and good will which the people of the United States and of Canada. and the United Kingdom have for each other
 The speaker then pointed to the power of lawyers in creating and de- veloping law, as we'll as changing it. a power more exercised out of the legislature than within it. He spoke of the influence of lawyers in the new world in public affairs, which, he said, was very striking to the observer. He quoted from President Wilson, as fol- lows: The country must find lawyers of the right sort and the old spirit to advise it. or it must stumble through a very chaos of blind experiment. It never needed lawyers who are also statesmen more than needs them now: needs them in it's courts, in it's legis- latures in it's seats of executive au- thority; lawyers who can think in the terms of society itself
 Lord Haldane then dwe1t at some length upon the difference between formulated law. whether civil or cl-inn- inal; the moral rules enjoined by pri- vate conscience and the spirit of the community for which the Englisalt have no name, but which the Ger mans call "sittlichkeit," and which he defined as the system of habitual or customary conduct, ethical rather than legal, which embraces all those obligations of the citizen which it is "bad form or mot the thing to dis regard, the social penalty for which is being 'fcut'' or looked on aSkance. He pointed out that without such re- straint there could be no tOlerable so- ciaI life, and said that it was this in stinctive sense of what to do and what not to do in daily life and behavior that this instinctive sense of obliga- tion was the chief fondation of socie- ty. He described "Sitt1ichkeit as those principles of conduct which reg u1ate people in their relations to each other, and which have become matter of habit and second nature at the stage of culture reached, and of which therefore we are not explicitly con- scious. After calling attention to the moral organism of the commun- ity which is actuated by the general