THE APPLICABILITY OF ENGLISH METHODS
299
NEW YORK The recent state "Commission on Law's Delay," of the state of New York, found, at the commencement of its in vestigation in 1902, that the greatest diversity of opinion existed among learned judges and lawyers as to the comparative efficiency of the courts of the city of New York and those of other great cities in England and America in the despatch of judicial business, and as to the volume of such business dealt with in the various jurisdictions. This diversity of opinion proceeded al most entirely from the general ignorance which prevailed (in the absence of judicial statistics) regarding the actual conditions •existing in the New York courts, as well as in those of other cities, and the entire lack of anything like definite knowledge as to nearly all of the facts necessary to the formation of a sound judgment upon the subject. There was, however, a general agreement between business men and merchants who appeared before the commission that the administration of justice had so far broken •down in the city of New York, in conse quence of the over-crowded condition of the calendars and the abuses of the referee system, that recourse to the courts for the adjustment of commercial controversies was impracticable, in the great majority of cases. It was upon the initiative of the Chamber of Commerce of the state of New York that the law authorizing the creation of the 'State Commission on Law's Delay was passed and the Commission appointed. The first work of the Commission was to collect the judicial statistics of the state, •which it did, covering a period of fourteen years, and those of other great American cities, as well as those of London, that it might be enabled to form a proper estimate -of the effectiveness of the New York courts as compared with those of other jurisdictions, operated under similar conditions, and
to form a reliable estimate of the degree of efficiency that it is practicable to attain. It found that the keeping of judicial sta tistics in England had reached a high state of perfection, under the able directorship of Sir John Macdonnell, C.B., LL.D., a master of the Supreme Court, and these statistics were easily available. A comparison between the New York Supreme Court of the First Department (Manhattan), the High Court of Justice in London, and the Court of Common Pleas in the city of Philadelphia, discloses many interesting facts, among which the follow ing are the most important to the subject under discussion. A jury case may be reached and tried in the King's Bench Division, sitting in Lon don, in from three to four months after issue joined; in the Philadelphia Common Pleas Courts, six months; and in the New York Supreme Court, First Department, three years; and in Brooklyn (Second Department) a little less than two years. The equity branch of the New York Su preme Court, First Department, has had on its calendar for a number of years, and now has about 2000 cases. It is able to dispose of these, in all ways, at the rate of about 750 a year. Although the effort is fre quently made to run through this calendar by a peremptory call at which three or four hundred cases are put on a call calendar on one day (which invariably results in a great majority of the cases so called being marked "off calendar" or reserved), and by this means the calendar is turned over in several months, the calendar is, neverthe less, about two years behind its work. In London the equity calendar is up to date, as it is in Philadelphia, and also in the Brook lyn Special Term of the Second Depart ment — the volume of equity business there being much smaller than in the First De partment. Sir John Macdonnell, compiler of the
