The Court of Appeal and the House of Lords deal with domestic matters of the little Island, which, however important the principles involved and however critical the issues to the litigants themselves, seem almost petty in comparison with the broad field of the Privy Council. Little as the average man knows of it, and rarely as it figures in news of the day, no American lawyer can fail to perceive in this great court something of the tremendous scope of his own Supreme Court of the United States, to which tribunal only is the Privy Council secondary.
CHAPTER X
MASTERS: THE TIME SAVERS
CURRENT HEARINGS—MINOR ISSUES THRESHED OUT.
The numerous motions and interlocutory applications, supported by affidavits and urged by argument, which consume so much of the time of an American court, are disposed of in England by Masters—competent barristers appointed by the Courts, who are paid salaries of about £3,000 a year.
At a certain hour the Master takes his seat at a desk with a printed list of "applications without counsel" or "applications with counsel." He nods to the uniformed officer at the door who admits the solicitors engaged in the cause which happens to be first on the list of cases "without counsel." The solicitors stand before the Master with a shelf upon which to rest books or papers; one side then states its demand and the other its objection in the briefest and most direct manner. The Master's immediate oral decision, accompanied by imposition of the costs and a few scratches of his pen on the back of the summons, indicates to the officer the opening of the door to admit the next case. By actual count twenty-seven cases may thus be disposed of in one hour and thirty-two minutes—an average of a little more than three minutes each. Of course there is a right of appeal, which, however, is rarely exercised.
As the door opens two solicitors hurry in. There are no salutations nor introductory remarks and the business proceeds abruptly:
Plaintiff's solicitor: "Master, we claim £50 judgment for rent."
Master to defendant's solicitor: "Do you admit the amount?"
Defendant's solicitor: "Yes, but we claim a set-off."
Master: (endorsing a few words on the summons) "Judgment for rent £50 with stay of execution until counter claim is tried."
Defendant's solicitor: "If you please, Master."