RECORDING EVIDENCE

Taranaki Daily News, 12 June 1928, Page 3

RECORDING EVIDENCE

UNIQI E METHOD ADOPTED. Auckland, June 8. Tho method by which evidence given before the Transport Commission was officially recorded, was unique. It was, in point of fact, made possible only by concurrence of au unusual set of circumstances. The chairman, an experienced magistrate, is also a skilled shorthand writer, and he was able to confine a full record to essential points to an extent that an official stenographer could not presume to do. A separate transcriber was able to decipher his shorthand notes and interpret them as the inquiry proceeded. The day the commission eat Miss Barton, daughter of Air. J. S. Barton, chairman of the commission, was occupied with a noiseless typewriter, and to her, every few minutes, Air. Barton would pass a sheet of his notes verbatim, where necessary, and condensed as regards tho less important phases, which she transcribed concurrently with the examination of the witness. The result was that a few minutes after each witness left the stand the record of his evidence was completed with carbon copies available for the three commissioners and also for counsel engaged in tho inquiry.

Now the commissioners are in a position to proceed at once with their deliberations upon their report instead of having to wait weeks for the transcription of a stenographer’s notes as is the case where one shorthand writer transcribing his own notes is employed. Mr. Barton stands alone in such matters, for there is no other man in the Dominion with the qualifications that would enable him to achieve such an outstanding feat.