Jonclosure 1.
Sir,
Chambers,
Supreme Court, Hongkong,
March, 1909.
C.O. 12798
RECR
REGP 15 APR 09
237
I have the honour to acknowledge Your Excellency's letter of 11th January in which you inform me by request of the Secretary of State that he regrets that I should have embarked in newspaper correspondence relating to the proposals I had made for increasing the Long Vacation. The Secretary of State further expresses the opinion that newspaper controversy hardly conduces to the dignity of the Bench upon which I hold a conspicuous position. I have the honour to request that this letter should be transmitted to the Secretary of State.
2. I am glad in the first place to observe that the Secretary of State is not of opinion that there was any breach of the Colonial Regulations as it appeared to him to be the fact at first, as expressed in the Secretary of State's despatch of 5th August, 1908, and as suggested by His Excellency the Governor in his letter of 18th June.
3. In spite of this however, the expression of the Secretary of State's opinion that I had not been duly observant of the dignity of the Bench is I believe unmerited. That such an opinion should be held by the Secretary of State is exceedingly galling to a Judge whose whole aim since his appointment to the Colony has been to raise the Bench to a position more suited to the dignity which the Supreme Court should hold than it has hitherto done, and who in the instance was actuated solely by the desire to restore its dignity which was being shaken by the unfortunate events which led up to the letter. I desire therefore in the first place to remove the impression