5
COPY. Confidential.
sir,
Jonclosure!
Chambers,
Supreme Court, Hongkong,
25th October, 1910.
1 36289
Pre Rref26 NOV 10
316
I have the honour to acknowledge your letter
of 22nd. instant. I should not have replied to it, for the subject is almost threadbare; but there is a point raised in it,
which as it is the basis of your recommendation to the Secretary of State, sonma to no to require further light thrown on it.
You say that you are not convinced that by
2.
a well-defined arrangement some of the work in the Original Jurisdiction might not be allocated to a thoroughly competent Pulane Judgo. With very great deference, I find it hard to under
-stand how any one who is not perfectly familiar with the daily
working of the court, with its many namifications and complex-
-ities, can express a positive opinion on the subject, for it
is a matter about which a layman can know nothing from his own
experience. What puzzles me is this; that whereas no layman would
think of suggesting a re-arranrement of the details of adminis-
-tration to the Captain of a Han-of-war, or to the Colonel of a
Regiment, suchu gestions are always being made to the Judges;
for it is the familiar roply which has invariably been made in
England to the Chief Justices ever since they have urged the
necessity for increasing the staff of Judzes. I am hound there-
-fore to tell you that from my long experience of the Court I
know of no arrangement of work such as you suggest which could
possibly be made which would have any other result than that of
further complicating the conduct of business, of wasting time,
and of adding to the delay in trying cases. The question at
issue in the Colony is precisely the sane as it was in England
before the Government recognised the necessity of a pointing
fresh Judges, and it is perfectly simple Is it possible to carry on the present accumulation of business with the same
staff
}