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OPY.
Enclosure 1.
35249
RECO
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Sir,
REG 29 OCT
Attorney-General's Chambers,
Hongkong, 26th.September,1910.
2014
I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt
of your letter of the 31st. ultimo forwarding for my information a copy of His Excellency's the Officer Administering the Govern- -mont's despatch to the Secretary of State of 21st. of May and of Lord Crewe's reply dated 28th. July which pointed out that
it was desirable as a general rule to avoid the appointment of the Attorney-General as Acting Chief Justice owing to the dif- -ficulties arising where the Attorney-General may have been
concerned previously in advising the Crown on a matter coming
before him when acting as Chief Justice.
2.
I desire respectfully to submit that the
qualified instruction of the Secretary of State should not apply so long as I hold the position of Attorney-General in this Colony. I came here with the full assurance and belief that the
custom hitherto observed of the Attorney-General acting in the absence of the chief Justice would be adhered to. This was certainly so in the case of my two immediate predecessors, Sir
Henry Berkeley and Sir William Goodman.
I have spoken to His Excellency and I under-
-stand he indorses my submission that the instruction should not in any event apply in the case of myself.
3.
As regards the case of Sun A Wan and the remarks in paragraphs 4 and 5 of His Excellency's despatch I have to say that, as I had already given in the Full Court a considered judgment on the same zuhjææk question of costs in the case of the same individual, to have given another decision except for the apecified purpose of reversing that of Sir Francis Piggott would have been a farce as Mr. Bowley the Cr
Solicitor