The Colony of Surinam. 29 
large. Apart from all this, the High Court of Appeal 
from judgments given by the Court of Justice of Surinam 
was the High Court of the Netherlands, settled at the 
Hague, with whose members, certainly in the latter years, 
the study and knowledge of the law and procedure in the 
colony, was, as with the Bench and the Bar, the excep- 
tion, certainly not the rule. 
There was an entire want of confidence in the law and 
its administration. A spirit of unrest and a general 
depression prevailed. The colonial machinery was 
shaky and unsettled, and capitalists in the colony as 
well as at home, were deterred from embarking in enter- 
prises which might prove to be of a reproductive char- 
after for the colony. The cry for a judicial organisation 
and a new legislation for the colony was more and more 
loudly raised ; and in 185 1 the Home Government 
declared her intention of remedying the existing evil. 
In the Bill for a new constitution and fundamental law 
for the colony, introduced in the Chambers of the States- 
General in 1851, it was stated that "it is the intention 
" of the Government to introduce, with the modifications 
" required by the local exigencies of the colony, the 
" Dutch Civil, Commercial, and Criminal (Penal) Codes, 
" and the Codes of Procedure in Civil and Criminal 
" cases." 
Shortly afterwards, under the Ministry then in power, 
a State Commission was appointed by Order of the 
King in Council of 27 September 1852, No. 46, whose 
mandate it was " to examine and to report on the Draft - 
" Codes, composed by order of the Government, with 
" the view to adapt the Home Legislation to the colony." 
