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which they frequently avail themselves.
13. Another heavy item in the Crown Solicitor's work consists in conducting Civil Suita on behalf of the Crown, for instance the cases of Howard V.Sir William Robinson, the same v. the Attorney General and others: ifordinary professional charges were made in these Suits the total would be a considerable sum.
14. The last statement naturally leads
to the third ground of my application, namely that dur- ing the last few years the scale of fees charged by private legal practitioners has been considerably raised: a new scale of conveyancing fees has been fix- ed by agreement between the firms, and new scales of costs in the Supreme Court (Original and Summary Jur- isdiction) have been approved by the Judges, in each case the scale is some 50 percent higher than the old scales.
Is it not fair that the Government should pay for professional services at a similarly in- creased rate?
I estimate that if Government were to pay at ordinary professional rates for the work done by the Opown Solicitor the expense would be over $1,000 per
month.
15.
It may be answered that the
Crown Solicitor is allowed private practice, but when so much time is exhausted by Government work private prac- tice must suffer, and it is not logical that one's pri- vate clients should be forced to make up deficiencies in one's remuneration for Government work.
In this connection it must be borne
in mind that the privilege of private practice is to
some