Originally my intention was to report the whole matter to the Secretary of State, and I now have the honour to do so. In so doing, I seek the protection to which I think I am entitled in the circumstances. I desire, in the first place, to draw the attention of the Secretary of State to a somewhat curious fact. The papers connected with the question of the Court Vacation have been submitted to the Secretary of State by His Excellency the Governor because of the incidental allusion to the action of the Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce in paragraph 5 of my letter of 12th March on another subject. The Secretary of State has expressed his opinion on one point which arose out of the question, but his opinion has not been invited on the main question involved. Moreover, there were other allusions in that letter which it seems to me might also have been explained in the same way. One of them was specially important: the general attitude of the Government towards the Judges. This is a matter which has caused me a great deal of annoyance ever since I have been in the Colony; I have referred to it again and again in my letters, but little attention has been paid to it; but it is very germane to the question which has been raised in this correspondence, because, in my opinion, the attitude of the Government is highly prejudicial to the dignity of the Bench, and the deplorable condition of inertness in which I found the Court on my arrival is entirely due to the lack of recognition and general ignoring of the position of the Judges by the Government.
I have long intended, as appears in many of my letters, to report on the whole subject to the Secretary of State; but I have always deferred doing so, preferring to try and ameliorate matters by representations to the Government. I refer to the questions now, not in any querulous spirit, but only because the question of the dignity of the Bench has been raised, and because, in my opinion, the attitude of the Government does not respect that dignity, and because it was specially unmindful of it on this occasion, with special reference...