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way to accede to the request of the Committee. No reasons are given, but a reference to India, as to the practice operating in that dependency, is stated to confirm the system prevailing in this Colony.
The Committee do not consider the analogy of Indian Custom has anything to do with the question here. Apart from other considerations that may be urged against such a contention, the Committee would refer to the enormous disparity in numbers of the class from which Special Jurors are drawn in India compared with Hongkong. In one place the tax on the commercial community is light, while in the other it is a positive burden.
The Committee would most strongly urge that their application is almost without the pale of the Government to refuse. It is not in the nature of a public tax in which the Government might rightly be heard, but rather bears the character of a voluntary arrangement between the public themselves who seek to adjust the inequalities of the Special Jury fees. If the proposed payment to Special Jurors, at per diem, instead of per case, formed an obstacle to litigants the Government would have some ground in public interests for refusing the applica- tion. But as the proposition is based on the strictest equity-it is not a hindrance to Suitors, and its increased incidence is always commensurate with the importance of the issues to be decided the Committee would again urge a reconsideration of the question, and the passing of a short bill to permit the change which is unani- mously desired by the Special Jurors, and is not, it appears, opposed by the rest of the Community whose voice would certainly have been raised ere this against the proposition had they felt impending hardship from the change.
I have the honor to be,
The Honorable F. STEWART, LL.D.,
Colonial Secretary.
No. 2187.
Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
F. HENDERSON, Secretary.
Colonial Secretary to the Chairman, Hongkong General Chamber of Commerce.
Special Jurors-Respecting payment of Fees to.
COLONIAL SECRETARY'S OFFICE,
HONGKONG, 13th August, 1889.
SIR,
I am directed by the Governor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 9th instant, in which the Committee of the Hongkong General Chamber of Commerce urge a reconsideration of the question, raised by them in their letter of 30th April, 1888, as to an increase of the allowance made to Special Jurors, and in reply I am to say that His Excellency sees nothing in your letter which in any way modifies his view as to the inexpediency of altering the law in the direction
desired.
The reasons for the Governor's decision, (in the absence of which the Com- mittee inake comment), His Excellency had thought would be sufficiently obvious to preclude the necessity of giving thein.
The duty of serving on Juries has, from time immemorial, been regarded as an obligation attaching to British citizenship, for the fulfilment of which payment was not contemplated by the Common Law.
Such payment is moreover not now granted in England, nor, as he believes, in most of the Colonies; nor does His Excellency see any peculiarity in the circumstances of Hongkong, which justifies an exception from the general rule.
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