SIR,
319
SUPREME COURT,
4th
October, 1882.
I regret extremely that I have been obliged to delay sending in the Report which I promised to make so long ago on the various matters connected with the Supreme Court staff to which the Secretary of State has referred in his despatch of 4th January,
1882.
Mr. Justice SNOWDEN'S absence, however, for two months threw all the business of the Court on me and I had as much as I could do to dispose of the current work of the Court in its various jurisdictions. The collection of the statistics herein referred to has also occupied a great deal of time owing to the imperfect manner in which the Books of the Court, have hitherto been kept.
I notice that in his despatch Lord KIMBERLEY states that with the exception per- haps of Melbourne there does not appear to be any Supreme Court with so highly paid a staff as that of Hongkong. This no doubt is true, but then the work done in the Registrar's Office in Hongkong is not confined as in most other Colonies to the ordi- nary routine work of the Court, but the bulk of the work now and hereafter to be done in the Registrar's Office is, as I hope to show conclusively, not work done ordinarily by the Registrar quâ Registrar, but work which is largely administrative and which in most other Colonies is done by Officers in many cases unconnected with the Registry, and who are separately remunerated either by salary or fees.
In 1860 the work done in the Registry was merely the routine work of the Supreme Court, and the staff appears to have consisted of the following Officers with the follow- ing salaries:-
Registrar,
Deputy Registrar,
Clerk of Court,
and Judge's Clerk,
.$3,840.00
1,920.00
1,440.00
1,440.00
$8,640.00
and so ample appears to have been the staff, that by the Civil List Ordinance 1860 no provision was made for payment of a Deputy Registrar after a vacancy should occur in
that office:
But other duties from time to time have had to be performed by the Registrar and other officers of the Court not originally belonging to the Registry of the Court, and although the duties have been imposed in some instances on the Registrar by Ordi- nance, yet any other officer might have been appointed, and the Registrar and other
the up of the with