A.—s

10

code of procedure contemplated by the Parliament of England as essential to the successful working of its High Court of Judicature. That code has not arrived in the colony; and there seems some reason to think, that the Judges and their fellow-Commissioners in England require further time to complete their Rules of Procedure, if they have not applied to Parliament to pass a special Act for the purpose of enlarging that time. We may reasonably expect that within a few months we shall receive that complete code of rules ; and if so, it will be practicable to prepare a comprehensive measure, together with a scheme of procedure founded thereon and adapted to the circumstances of this colony, in such time that the whole may be printed and circulated to be considered by the profession and by members of the General Assembly before the meeting of that Assembly in 1875. This course the Judges recommend, and we entertain the hope that our view accords with that of yourself and of the Government. It is possible that the Legislature of Victoria may have been actuated by some similar motive in its dealing with the Bill to which you were pleased to invite my attention on a former occasion. I allude to the Bill entitled " An Act to consolidate the various Jurisdictions of the Supreme Court, and for other purposes relating to the better administration of Justice in Victoria." The nature of that proposed enactment seems not to have been rightly understood. Far from abolishing inferior Courts, it provides for appeals from those Courts; and the only jurisdiction which it imports into the Supreme Court of Victoria, in addition to those already vested in that Court, appear to be two, viz., that of the Circuit Courts, created by one of the Victorian Statutes, and that of the Court of the Chief Judge of Courts of Mines. It indeed reconstitutes the Supreme Court of Victoria under two heads, viz., of its original, and of its appellate jurisdiction; and it provides for the administration of law and equity concurrently. But in order to effectuate these objects, it enacts in terms the leading provisions of the Bnglish Supremo Court of Judicature Act; and in its Schedule, after adapting with slight variations a few of the Rules of Procedure from the Schedule to the English Act, it adopts iisdem verbis the bulk of the remainder of those rules, as supplementary to its own existing code of procedure. For meanwhile it enacts expressly that the existing practice and procedure in criminal cases, including that in Crown cases reserved, shall continue in force; and it also saves and keeps in operation all its existing rules of Court, and all its forms and methods of procedure, except so far as they are by that Bill expressly varied. Further, although the Bill was introduced in the Victorian Parliament during last year, it enacts that, except as to special provisions, the Act should not come into operation until the Ist July of the present year. Tet, notwithstanding this considerate method of legislation, the Legislative Council appear to have deemed it prudent to postpone the passing of that measure, and it was postponed accordingly. So far, therefore, as the example of the Victorian Parliament extends, it confirms the Judges in the conclusion which they have formed. I have, &c, Geoege Alfeed Aeney, The Hon. the Premier. Chief Justice. By Authority: Geoege Didsbckt, Government Printer, Wellington.—lB74. Price 9d.