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admission to the bar. 1 admit the force of that in the matter of reciprocity, that if you want reciprocity you should have it in the same sexes, and where the desirability exists in England of women not being admitted to the Bar, and it does not exist in New Zealand, you could not have reciprocity in that respect. I think it is unreasonable under the reciprocity provisions of the Act that women should be allowed to practice when they are not eligible. Otherwise I should like to say, however, that the difficulty can be effectively removed if the Order in Council provides that it shall apply only to persons who would otherwise be eligible for admission. That would exclude women from the benefits of the Act in the United Kingdom and elsewhere where they are not eligible. I have dealt only with the United Kingdom and New Zealand, but the same observations would, of course, apply to other portions of the dependencies in cases where the same objections have been urged. Now, I want to say on this matter that I do personally feel that it is greatly to be regretted that a matter of sentiment which can be provided for in the terms of the Order in Council, should prejudice or stand in the way of what would be regarded by the profession, certainly in New Zealand, and I presume elsewhere, too, the inestimable advantage for them to have the right of reciprocity with their professional brethren in England. To my mind it appears to be purely sentimental, this objection to the admission of women to the Bar in New Zealand where comparatively few women, only two or three at the most, have passed, and who have certainly been very far from a discredit to the profession; the women I know who have passed for the Bar in New Zealand have obtained it as the result of hard work, and every examination that a male requires to pass through they undergo, so that they have attained to the position after every ordeal which it is possible to put in their way to enable them to attain to a very high and honourable position, and the few who have passed have carried out their work in a most capable way and stand to-day very high in the esteem of the male members of the profession in New Zealand. I do hope that at this Conference, where we are trying to bring about mutuality and agreement, where we are trying to bring about the interchange of officers in the Defence Department, where we are trying to bring about the interchange of units, in the Defence Organisation, we are not going to allow a question of pure sentiment which could be provided for by the most ordinary clause in the Order in Council, and the Imperial Act as I say provides already for reciprocity excepting for the fact that barristers and solicitors in New Zealand are combined while that is not so in England, should stand in the way so far as to prevent the carrying out of what was originally intended under the Imperial Act, the interchange between members of the professions. I would personally look upon it as almost an insult to the members of the profession in England if they were to say they could not provide for an interchange by declaring it to be really on sentimental grounds which could be obviated in the Order in Council in the ordinary way. I can say with some experience of our country, that the profession in New Zealand, some of the leading members of the profession, regard the matter as of the deepest possible interest to their profession, and I am persuaded in my own mind that nine-tenths of the advantages would accrue to the men in England in the profession who want to have the opportunity of practising as barristers and solicitors, which they could do in New Zealand and which the leadingbarristers and solicitors in New Zealand themselves could not do if they came to England. For the reasons I have urged as briefly as I can my views, I hope that the Conference may see its way to affirm the Resolution. The conditions required to meet the sentimental side of it can and would be provided for by Order in Council. I move the Resolution, my Lord.

Thirteenth Day. 8 May 1907.

Reciprocity as to Barristers. (Sir Joseph Ward.)