You may say they should or could have gone to an arbitrator. Do people anywhere in the world trust an unofficial arbitrator? There is a provision in Upper Burma allowing reference to arbitration, but it is a dead letter.
The original dispute in this case was about twenty or thirty rupees, the alleged excess paid for the goods. The suit filed was for several thousand rupees in transactions spread over years: there was an equally heavy counterclaim.
The total value of the suits filed in Burma in 1910 was about £1,380,000. I wonder what the value was of the matters first in dispute before the cases came to Court. A fifth, I dare say, would cover them. I notice much the same thing in England. Human nature does not differ East or West.
Now consider the enormous expense of all this. The value of the subject-matter of suits filed in Burma in 1910 was, as I have said, £1,380,000. The value of the matters really in dispute before they came to Court was infinitely less, but Court fees and lawyers' fees had to be paid on the full amount. Witnesses in thousands were called to prove matters that should never have come into Court at all.
And with what result?
There were 70,203 suits filed and decrees given, but in 53,594 of these satisfaction could not be obtained, and so the decree-holders had to come to Court for warrants for execution. That is to say that in over five suits out of seven the losing party could not or would not pay. (It does not follow that in the other two out of the seven he did pay. The decree-holder in a percentage of cases no doubt did not think it worth while to go any further.)
But in 53,594 cases he came to Court for execution. What did he get? In half these cases he got absolutely nothing; the execution was "wholly infructuous." In the other cases satisfaction was obtained in full or in part.
Thus out of £1,380,000 claimed how much was obtained? The Report does not give figures, but the reader can judge for himself it wasn't much. And to get even this little, what was the cost to the litigants, that is the public? No one knows. But there are a great many lawyers of kinds in Burma, and a good deal of money goes into their hands.
I do not think it would be an over-estimate to say that for every pound originally in dispute two pounds were spent in costs and only ten shillings recovered, and to get this, think of the trouble, the worry, the indignity, and the self-contempt involved. Besides, think of the waste of time—to say nothing of truth.
In the Report from which I take these figures the Judges of the High Court point out that the Courts are yearly becoming less and less used by the public. They can't think how this can be; but they suppose it is due to years of prosperity. That it should be due to anything wrong about the Courts never occurs to them. Yet perhaps the reader will see reason to doubt if the system of Civil Justice is perfect.