No. 3594
![handle is hein.journals/lwjrnal78 and id is 369 raw text is:
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VOVL. LXXVIII. [N.S.] SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1934. No. 3594
OBITER DICTA.
The New Royal THE Prime Minister stated in the
Commission on House of Commons on Tuesday, in
answer to a question by Mr. Lansbury
Delay in the whether any steps had been taken to
set on foot the inquiry into the state
of business in the King's Bench Division promised at
the end of last session, that a Royal Commission is to
be appointed with the following terms of reference--for
clearness we give them in paragraphs:-
To inquire into the state of business in the King's Bench
Division of the High Court of Justice and to report whether,
with a view to greater dispatch, any reforms should be
adopted;
And in particular what is the judicial strength required
to deal with the business;
Whether there should be any further fusion or further sub-
division of the Divisions of the Supreme Court;
Whether any alterations should be made in the circuits of
the Judges;
Whether any further measure should be taken for the
devolution of work from the High Court to the county court;
And whether a retiring age should be imposed upon those
appointed in the future to the Bench of the Supreme Court.
The chairman will be Lord Peel, and there will be six
other members of the Commission, including Lord Han-
worth, M.R., and Sir Claud Schuster, the Lord Chan-
cellor's secretary. It would, perhaps, have been more
convenient if the announcement had been made in the
House of Lords by the Lord Chancellor, who could have
explained the relation between the Royal Commission
and the Business of Courts Committe, which has already
in its two Interim Reports made valuable suggestions,
a good many of which have been carried into effect.
The reference to that Committee included to consider
the state of business in the Supreme Court, and to report
whether greater expedition in the dispatch of business,
or greater economy in the administration of justice in
the Court, is practicable and would be effected by any,
and if so, what, re-arrangements in the constitution of
the Supreme Court and of the Divisions comprised in
the High Court of Justice.
Lord St. WHILE the terms of reference to the
Royal Commission are similar in cer-
Aldwyn 's tain respects to the terms of reference
Commission. to the Business of Courts Committee
-both, indeed, include inquiry into the circuit system-
the Commission, it seems, will deal primarily with the
King's Bench Division. The appointment of the Com-
mission recalls the Royal Commission on Delay in the
King's Bench Division, of which Lord St. Aldwyn (Sir
Michael Hicks Beach) was chairman, and which made
its second and final Report in November, 1913. Lord
Darling, then Mr. Justice Darling, was a member of
the Commission, and also appeared-an unusual inci-
dent, we imagine-as a witness. The witnesses in-
cluded a long array of eminent judges and lawyers;
to mention only a few, and for brevity without prefixes:,
Haldane, Loreburn, Alverstone, Cozens-Hardy, Philli-
nore, Swinfen Eady, Channell, Sumner, Buckmaster,
Scrutton, Eldon Bankes, Willes Chitty, Albert Rollitt. In
fact, nearly all the Legal Luminaries of the day
appeared before the Commission. More, doubtless, would
have come of this great gathering of talent had not the
war supervened. It was part of Lord Birkenhead 's large
plans for reform to deal with what he described in
1920 as a greater press of business than has ever
been known in the history of the Courts (Points of
View, II, 38). But unfortunately political loyalty frus-
trated the promise of his too brief Chancellorship. The
problem has now been taken up again under Lord
Sankey's Chancellorship, and the only danger seems to
be that his schemes of reform may lack co-ordination.
Inevitably the new Royal Commission must go over very
much the same ground as Lord St. Aldwyn's. But,
notwithstanding the mention of the devolution of work
to the County Court, we miss any suggestion of a plan
for making that Court an integral part of the system
of Judicature.
Lloyd's AN interesting and attractive booklet
List. has been issued to commemorate the
completion of two hundred years of
continuous publication of Lloyd's List and Shipping
Gazette. Now, what news on the Rialto? So it
was asked at Venice in the Middle Ages. But not till
1740 did shipping news begin to be printed and pub-
lished in London, and the record of the date has been
preserved only by an accident. Owing to the great fire
at the Royal Exchange in 1838, no earlier issue of
Lloyd's List than that for January 2, 1740, is now
known to exist; but a report, dated June 14, 1837,
preserved in the Minute Books at Lloyd's, says that
Lloyd's List had then existed 103 years, and so we ge
back to 1734 as the date of commencement. There was
not much in the List at first. A single sheet, printed
on both sides, gave all the information available. The
issue for Friday, January 2, 1740, is printed in the
booklet in facsimile. On one side are the London
Exchanges on Paris and some sixteen other principal
Continental towns; the price of gold and silver in various
forms; and the prices of the few stocks and investments
(including lottery tickets) which were open to investors.
On the other side is the Marine List, showing the
arrivals of ships. Though substantially the publication
of Lloyd's List has been continuous through the period,
it has had vicissitudes both as to proprietorship and
name, and also rivals. For some twenty years it has
been a part of Lloyd's, and its merger in 1916 with
the Shipping Gazette resulted in the title of Lloyd's
List and Shipping Gazette. Its present size and variety
1aRn %ourual
In Its One-Hundred-and-Twelfth Year of Publication.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/lwjrnal78&div=25&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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