6
soon as possible after the close of each year, you will furnish me with a general report on judicial proceedings during the year.
You will apply to me for instructions whenever you feel in difficulty as to the course you should adopt, and if in any case you think it necessary or expedient that the Queen should be moved to pass a further Order in Council, either for amend- ing the present one or for enacting altogether new provisions, you will send home a draft of such Order as will in your judgment provide for the case, together with all necessary explanations on the subject of it.
I
am, &c.
(Signed)
RUSSELL.
Ju4774/60-
Sir,
Copy of Despatch from Earl Russell to Sir E. Hornby.
Foreign Office, May 16, 1865. WITH the exception of Mr. Medard, whom I have consented to allow to be transferred, as Chief Clerk, from the Supreme Consular Court at Con- stantinople to the Supreme Court for China and Japan, I have not thought it necessary to appoint from this country any other person on the staff of the Supreme Court. You will endeavour to obtain in China, with the assistance of Her Majesty's Consuls, such clerical or other assistance as you may require; and I have only in this respect to impress upou you the necessity of keeping the establishment, especially at the outset, both as to numbers and as to allowances, and also all contingent expenditure, on the lowest scale practicable. It is always easier to increase than to reduce an establishment.
The fees which will be received in the several Consular Courts will, I trust, not only provide ample means for current expenditure, but will also go far to diminish the charge on the public for the salaries now provided in the annual Estimate.
The Treasury have agreed that, for the present at least, the current expenditure shall be provided out of the fees; but any balance which may remain after such expenditure is provided for must be transferred by you to the Commissariat Chest at Hong Kong, which will account for it to the Treasury.
The salaries voted on the Estimate will be issued, as other salaries in China, by the Anditor- General at Hong Kong,
You will report to me, after your arrival at
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