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CHAMBERS, SUPREME COURT, HONGKONG, 19th February, 1908.
SIR-I have the honour to point out that the minute of the decision of the Committee of the Chamber with respect to the question
of the tale of Court made by me extending the Vacations of the Court, referred to the Chamber by His Excellency the Governor, conveys a very inaccurate impression of what has taken place. I have therefore the honour to request that the minute may be re-cast, or failing this, that this letter may he read before the meeting of the Chamber on 24th instant, when as I understand the minutes come up for confirmation.
2. I am not exaggerating when I say that the innuendo conveyed by the minute is that the Chief Justice has made a Rule of Court altering the Vacations of the Court without consulting the members of the profession: that the Solicitors of the Court objecting to the change cannot get the Chief Justice to modify it, and that therefore they are compelled to seek the assistance of the Chamber of Commerce ja protect them from the acts of an arbitrary Chief Justice.
3. That the facts which have led to the making of the Rule have not the faintest resemblance to what is the plain inference from this minute is within your own personal knowledge. These facts appear in the letter from me to His Excellency the Governor which was communicated to the Chamber, and is set out in the Appendix to the Report.
4. I must express my regret that the letter which I addressed ra you, and which I requested should he laid before the Committee, does not appear in that Appendix. In that letter I called your attention to the fact that the question had been discussed with the Committee of the Law Society, and that the terms of the Rule of Court had been agreed to by the Committee; I pointed out that the Law Society has been constituted by the entire body of the Solicitors, and the Committee elected by the members was therefore a representative body, and that the Chamber would deal a severe blow to the public life of the Colony if it endeavoured to go behind or to deal unfairly with a body constituted in the same manner as the Committee of the Chamber itself, and dealing, as that Committee deals, with questions affecting the welfare and interests of the Community.
5. It is more than regrettable that you should yourself have solicited the opinion of any member of the Legal Profession on the question, and by so doing fostered not merely disloyalty to the Committee of the Law Society among the members of the Society, but discord and a feeling of distrust between the members of the Profession and myself'. I have a very strong opinion that the action of the Committee of the
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Chamber has gone beyond the limits of the reference by His Excellency the Governor, which requests the opinion of the Chamber on the matter, and does not refer it to them either to collect evidence against it, or for their advice. But this is a question I intend to submit to His Excellency, if the minute is preserved in its present form.
6. I have the honour further to point out that there is a manifest slip in the statement in the minute, that the leading Solicitors agree with the Chamber: for the following firms are represented on the Com- mittee as at present constituted :--Messrs. Deacon, Looker & Deacon, Messrs. Dennys & Bowley, Messrs. Ewans & Harston, Messrs. Johnson, Stokes & Master, and Messrs. Wilkinson & Girist.
7. A copy of this letter has been sent to the leader of the Bar, the Honourable Mr. H. E. Pollock, K.o., and to the Chairman of the Law Society-I have, etc.
F. T. PIGGOTT. Chief Justice.
The Chairman of the ChhaMBER OF COMMERCE.
HONGKONG, 22nd February, 1908. S.-With reference to the letter addressed to you by myself and other solicitors concerning the proposed extension of vacation I beg to inform you that at the fine that the letter was written i and the other signatories to it were unaware of the fact that the matter had already been referred to and discussed by the menthers of the Committee of the Law Society who, for reasons which appear to me and all other solicitors in the Colony to be fully adequate, had practically agreed to a extension of the vacation upon certain terms and had consequently justified the Chief Justice in his statement that the solicitors had approved of the proposed extension.
The reasons which influeneed the Committee in arriving at the conclusion which they did upon the matter were fully discussed at a meeting of the Law Society held fast evening, at which nearly all the solicitors in the Colony were present. It was then pointed out that, while the necessity for a vacation of sufficient length to assure complete rests, and to restore vigour of mind and body, was apparent at any rate so long as the Bench remains constituted as at present and so long as
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