Haydon knew that werk was going on on the good faith of his assurances, though entirely at Mrs. Penlington's and my risk. Mrs. Penlington had by then prepared the Case Citator for the first 33 Volumes.
After my letter of November 28th referred to earlier, I eventually managed to contact Mr. Haydon on December 1st and was informed that the Finance Committee had now agreed to defer a decision indefinitely. Mr. Haydon con- firmed this (brusquely) in a letter of the same date. I had therefore no option but to withdraw my entire interest in the project. Since the Committee must be taken to have known that this would be the necessary result of an indefinite post- ponement I can only assume (since despite several requests I have been refused the courtesy of any explanation of the decision or, rather, non-decision) that my withdrawal was the result the Committee intended to achieve. In the circum- stances I believe the Bar Committee will not feel that I acted unreasonably; indeed I hope that they will feel that I have done everything it was in my power to do to get the whole project off the ground.
The Chief Justice has since drawn to my attention that it is still "open to the profession to undertake a project of this kind if they so wish." Clearly this is so; indeed, if they do so I hope the work I have already done will be of value to them, and in this connection I would ask that the part Mrs. Penlington has played to-date be favourably considered, as I believe her services on any indexing project would be very valuable.
H. Litton, Esq.,
Marina House,
Queen's Road Central, Hong Kong.
Your sincerely,
(Sd.) JOHN REAR
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