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the Solicitor's hands.
(c) Increase in the Scale of the professional char- ges in the Colony.
(d) Increase in the salaries attached to offices formerly on a par with the Crown Solicitor's office.
6. I need not enlarge upon the first point as it is within His Excellency's knowledge that the cost of house rent and all the necessaries of life in HongKong has recently very largely increased and is still increasing: and it is upon this ground that the re- cent general increase of salaries has taken place.
I know of no reason why the Crown Soli- citor should be dealt with less liberality than other officers in this respect.
7. With regard to the increase of work I am unable to give any accurate statistics on this point as no record of work passing through this office is kept, but seeing thatthe Colony has increased very considerably in population, in area, in wealth and in general importance during the last 10 years, it followS that the "ork of this office must necessarily have grown considerably during the same period.
From information gleaned from gentle-
men who have held the post in previous years I should gather that the work is quite doubly as heavy as it was
when the present rate of salary was fixed.
8. To take a concrete example, the Re- turn of Criminal cases committed to the Supreme Court in 1899 shows that 98 prisoners were committed for tri- al, a number largely in excess of any of the preceeding nine years: and during the first six months of the pre- sent year 53 prisoners have been committed for trial
In each of these cases a large amount
of work devolves upon the Crown Solicitor who has to
•
examine
then
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