Page:Indian Home Rule by Mohandas K. Gandhi.djvu/65

all about it, he will tell them that both must be more or less at fault and will advise them no longer to quarrel. They go to lawyers. The latter’s duty is to side with their clients, and to find out ways and arguments in favour of the clients to which they (the clients) are often strangers. If they do not do so, they will be considered to have degraded their profession. The lawyers, therefore, will, as a rule, advance quarrels, instead of repressing them. Moreover, men take up that profession, not in order to help others out of their miseries, but to enrich themselves. It is one of the avenues of becoming wealthy and their interest exists in multiplying disputes. It is within my knowledge that they are glad when men have disputes. Petty pleaders actually manufacture them. Their touts, like so many leeches, such the blood of the poor people. Lawyers are men who have little to do. Lazy people, in order to indulge in luxuries, take up such professions. This is a true statement. Any other argument is a mere pretension. It is the lawyers who have discovered that theirs is an honourable profession. They frame laws as they frame their own praises. They decide what fees they will charge, and the put on so much side that poor people almost consider them to be heaven-born. Why do they want more fees than common labourers? Why are their requirements greater? In what way are they more profitable to the country