2
of Hongkong with a Summary Jurisdiction
cases.
in certain cases.
2
Your Lordships will be aware from the above Despatch, that in a Petition addressed by the European Inhabitants of this Colony to the House of Commons, they state that they cannot too strongly express their conviction of the bad moral effect produced on the minds of the Chinese by the forms adopted in the Supreme Court, and by heavy fees authorized to be levied by the Court, "which the ends of justice in consequence of which the ends
"
"are too often frustrated; whereas these forms "and fees in the opinion of the Petitioners, "should be the simplest and lightest that circumstances will admit of.
3.
In my Despatch No. 55 of the 8th August, 1848, I explained to Your Lordship that I did not consider the system of judicature at present in force
3
adapted to this Colony, which entails on the suitors in Civil cases, when the amount in dispute exceeds $100, all the uncertainties, delays and vexations incidental to the practice of the Courts at Westminster, and the Inhabitants in their petition having arrived at the same conclusion, I considered it to be my duty to obviate this evil to a certain extent at once.
4.
On inquiry, I found that the Court fees, by which I mean those paid into the Court, and eventually into the Government Treasury, were by no means high. In fact, they appear to have been taken from the scale in force in the Court of Judicature at Prince of Wales' Island, Singapore and Malacca; but I soon discovered that the great expense to which suitors were said to be subject arose from their being unable