187 COMPOSITE LAW COURTS BUSINESS. TOTAL ACTIONS BEFORE THE COURT) 188 189 190 191 DIAGRAM A. 192 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 Court of Session cases plus Ordinary Actions in the Sheriff Court, 1452 W36444 B 1260 2 27 31 6 9 187 188 190 191 192 189 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 Sheriff Court Ordinary Actions 10 15 Percentage of recorded Unemployment in the United Kingdom Course line probably would have taken without the addition of cases previously tried in the Debts Recovery Court. 187 188 OUTER HOUSE BUSINESS. ("TOTAL ACTIONS BEFORE THE COURT") 189 190 191 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 3 Main movements in Unison. 5 3 1452 W 36644/18 9 12 annual fluctuations of prosperity, and compare with them the figures for legal business over the period of fifty years. The results of these comparisons are shown in Diagrams A, B, C, and D. In each of these the line of legal business has been drawn in a scale which makes its tendencies easily comparable with those of the Unemployment line. For the purpose of this first head of the enquiry Diagram A is the most suitable. In it the line of litigation represents the number of Court of Session cases plus the number of ordinary actions in the Sheriff Court in each year. To prevent misunderstanding, it may be well to explain that (both in the Judicial Statistics and in this Report) the expression "ordinary actions," when used in relation to the Sheriff Courts, includes what are there known as summary" actions; and that the expression " Ordinary Court," when similarly used, means the Court in which both "ordinary and "summary" actions are disposed of. The line accordingly is a composite line, which we take to represent the volume of substantial litigation in the whole of Scotland from year to year. It will be seen that in this Diagram there is a marked correspondence between the short-period movements of the lines of Unemployment and Legal Business. With one exception, the outstanding extremes of bad and good trade (marked 1 to 12) are in approximate agreement with a corresponding rise or fall in legal business-the latter increasing as unemployment increases (that is, in times of bad trade and industrial depression) and decreasing with the return of prosperity. Only in one major instance, viz. between 1901 and 1904, is there a marked opposition of these tendencies. In this Diagram, the business of the Sheriff Courts, owing to its greater quantity, is the dominating factor in the composite line. In Diagrams B, C, and D, the component parts of this line are considered separately. Diagram B shows the line applicable to ordinary actions in the Sheriff Courts. It discloses (but in a more marked degree) the same tendencies as the line of legal business in Diagram A; and leads, as regards Sheriff Court litigation, even more decidedly to the same conclusion, viz. that it increases in bad times and decreases in good. When, however, we turn to the Court of Session, both Diagrams C and D (applicable respectively to the Outer House and the Inner House) yield a different result. In the Outer House the movement of litigation is in unison with the Unemployment extremes four times only out of the twelve; in the Inner House, thrice only. In each case the general tendency of the two lines is towards opposition. In short, although the total volume of litigation in Scotland tends to diminish in times of prosperity, the tendency is for the greater part-in some years the whole of the diminution to be borne by the Sheriff Courts. Nor is that all. Coincident with the diminution in the Sheriff Courts, there seems to be an access of new business, and possibly also a certain transfer of B |