*
OPY.
37
C.O.
Enclosure 1.
Rec?
17083
Chambers, 13 MAY 08
Supreme Court House, Hongkong,
11th. June, 1907.
sir,
In reply to Your Excellency's letter of 7th.
June relative to certain remarks made by me on the subject of
the staff of the Supreme Court, I have the honour to remind
Your Excellency that the Judges are independent of Government,
and that such queries as the one addressed to me by Your Excel-
-lency in the letter under reply with reference to remarks made
by me in the performance of my judicial duties are incompatible
with the freedom and independence of the Bench, which are as
great in the Colonies as at at home.
I have however not the slightest objection
personally to inform Your Excellency that the paragraph referred.
to contains a substantially accurate report of my remarks. More
fully they were to the following effect:- that while the Chief
Justice of the Colony has to deal with questions of life and
death, and almost daily with questions involving the liberty of
the inhabitants of the Colony, while he has also almost daily
to dispose of great interests involving often many lakhs of
dollars, yet when it came to so simple a matter as advising the
Government