25 JANUARY 1935, Page 6

The Lord Chancellor, I see, has raised the question of

attaching a shorthand-writer to each High Court Judge. To adopt that suggestion would mean a considerable attack on the law's delays, for the necessity for the Judge to take a long-hand note slows down proceedings. seriously. But the position is not as simple as it sounds. The Judge who has his own note can refer to any part of it at any moment. To ask the shorthand-writer to find a particular passage and transcribe it, or read it sotto voce, raises obvious difficulties. Most Judges, I think, would relin- quish with reluctance the opportunity of consulting their own notes.