CO129-374 - Public Offices & Others - 1910 — Page 531

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for himself. If he were to leave the Colony the next

Colonial Secretary would have the greatest difficulty -in finding a house, There was a great amount of enter-

tainment to be done, and it was very expensive.

4.

He next referred to the question of the Court of Appeal. He was absolutely convinced that the scheme

proposed of bringing in the Chief Justice from

Shanghai would not work. It was quite impossible, as Sir Havilland de Sausmarez could not give more than three weeks and it would be quite impossible to get

through the work in that time. With reference to a

third Judge, he pointed out that Hong Kong had the same judicial staff as forty years ago while the work had

enormously increased, and there were no less than

twelve firms of solicitors there, all with heavy work. He considered a third Judge absolutely essential. If

a third Judge were provided, he would divide the

judicial jurisdiction of the Court between the Chief

Justice and one Judge, and give Appeals to the other

Judges sitting together. He admitted that the third

Judge would not be as fully employed as the other two, but at times all three would be as fully occupied as

possible, that is to say at least five months in the

year. There had lately been an extraordinary increase

of crime. The senior Puisne Judge, he thought, should

do criminal and bankruptcy work and work in Chambers,

He said that Lord Crowe had told him that he did not

think that anything could be done at present on finan-

cial grounds, but Sir Francis Piggott thought that a

great deal might be done to raise further revenue. He

was very much against the system of import duties, which

he said might upset the whole trade of Hong Kong which was very delicately balanced. He much preferred an

universal