DIAGRAM E.

DIAGRAM SHOWIUSINESS TRANSACTED IN THE COURTS FROM 1875 TO 1924

The Scale of this diagrepresents Sheriff Court Ordinary" Actions and has beenale solely in order to show graphically the tenen to the movements of the Court of Session lines. of the Lord Ordinary on the Bills. Business done by him odied in the Outer House line. rewar average

N of Cases

4500°

50

400

50

=

=

2783. 1030.

5 6 7 8 9 0 1 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4

OUTER

HOUSE - ACTIONS

INITIATED.

the line of business in the Sheriff Courts characteristically reflects the line of unemployment. As appears from Appendix No. III, the recovery between 1918 and 1923 is almost wholly made up of actions for personal debt-precisely the class of action (concerned mainly with relatively small amounts and often uncontested) which is likely to show the greatest volume of increase in the Sheriff Courts in times of depression (see Appendix No. III, "Personal Debt " in the Sheriff Courts). The line for the Outer House of the Court of Session seems at first sight to react similarly; but, as will be shown hereafter, its movements are explained otherwise. The line for the Inner House pursues, on the whole, a contrary course.

(c) From 1781 to 1924.-In the last place, extending our survey to the widest limits possible with existing materials, we find that on a comparison of the business in the Inner and Outer Houses of the Court of Session during the five years 1880-4 with that during the five years 1920-4, there were 18,087 cases in the earlier period and 18,041 in the later-so far as mere numbers go, a striking identity. Again, we have hitherto been considering the total number of Actions before the Court"; but, when we turn to "Cases initiated within each year," it is (as already explained) possible, so far as the Outer House is concerned, to carry this long-period survey back far beyond the date (1868) at which the Scottish Judicial Statistics were instituted. Appendix No. V gives the figures for new enrolments from the year 1781 to the year 1924, and indicates the sources of information. Diagram F gives a pictorial view of the same figures. From this Diagram it will be seen that, apart from a slump (starting in the period 1901-3) in the years preceding and during the war, Outer House business so far as figures are a guide to it—has during the last forty years tended to maintain a level appreciably higher than that of the preceding fifty years. These results are all the more remarkable when it is remembered that, prior to 1868, appeals from Inferior Courts to the Court of Session took the form of Advocations which were first enrolled in the Outer House, in consequence of which the figures before 1868 include a large number of cases of a type excluded from the series in all subsequent years. There is no reason to suppose that, in any of the years forming the gap between 1867 and 1879, the volume of work was appreciably greater than in 1879-the higher terminus of the gap in the threeyear averages.

Conclusion. It is difficult to see in these figures any evidence of long-period tendency to decline in the number of cases brought into the Court of Session.

(iv) The present position. Although our enquiry up to this point may explain much that has hitherto been puzzling in the movements of judicial business, we do not pretend to have found a formula that satisfies all the facts. When we come to the present position, considered in the light of recent experience-and avoiding the attribution of too much importance to the war and