Justice Tempered by Mercy

A compliment was paid to the Railway Department by Mr. H. P. O'Leary, of the legal firm of Messrs. Bell, Gully, Mackenzie and O'Leary, in the course of a lecture on the subject of the law relating to the carriage of goods before a meeting of the Wellington Accountants Students' Society last month. Mr. O'Leary said that he had invariably found the Department willing to meet him half way in negotiating for the settlement of claims for loss or damage. The Department did not stand on the letter of the law, but if satisfied of the equity of a claim was always prepared to make a reasonable settlement. He had found the same principles applied to the settlement of claims under the Workers' Compensation Act. The Department, said Mr. O'Leary, was always disposed to allow claimants more rather than less than that to which they were strictly entitled.

By a coincidence, the accompanying photograph came into our hands just prior to Mr. O'Leary's lecture. It shews Mr. E. Bell (of the firm with which Mr. O'Leary is associated) as a schoolboy in the school taught by Robert (now Sir Robert) Stout in 1865–63 years ago.