3
against the proposal is, that it would so reduce the income of the Attorney General that no gentleman with a family to live, without even making provision for the inevitable occasional extreme removal to a more temperate climate, would accept the occupying any position at the English Bar. A Barrister of ability and application could, I am informed, easily make £3,000 a year here by private practice, in addition to the Salary of Attorney General. Two out of the four private practitioners at present at this bar, are making, I am assured on the best authority, over £6,000 a year each. The cost of living in the Colony is nearly four times that of living in England; is that Salary of £1750 would only enable a barrister to live, without even making provision for the inevitable occasional extreme removal to a more temperate climate. If, therefore, a barrister occupying any position at either the English or Irish Bars were through ignorance of these circumstances to accept the appointment without private practice upon a salary of £1750, which sounds large at home, he would assuredly on his arrival here at once resign the Office, and either embark on his own account in private practice, or return in disgust to England. The Government would then have to fall back upon an inferior man.