§ DR. R. FARQUHARSON (Aberdeenshire, W.)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether his attention has been called to the serious loss of time and money incurred by medical witnesses, who are compelled to leave their practices in order to give evidence at sessions and assizes in England and Wales, for which no adequate remuneration is given them; and, if so, whether he is prepared to provide a remedy by assimilating the fees to those paid in Scotland?
§ SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEYThe question of the remuneration of medical witnesses has received the consideration both of my predecessors and myself. It forms a part only of the question of remuneration of witnesses generally, and I should not feel justified in altering the amounts to be paid to one class of witnesses alone. I am disposed to think that the revision of the present general scale, which was fixed so long ago as 1858, will require to be undertaken sooner or later, but any such general alteration would be attended by a large increase of expenditure falling on county funds.