LEGAL REFORM.

Evening Star, Issue 2981, 7 September 1872, Page 4

LEGAL REFORM.

Mr Justice Richmond, in charging the grand jury at Kelson the other day, ia reported to have made the following remat ks on the above subjectl may be allowed to congratulate you, as representing the district, on the awakened interest in law reform that has recently been displayed. All honest and intelligent lawyers desire to see a scientific reform in our laws, but it is absolutely necessary that this reform should be scientific and one of principle, and not mere patchwork, which would be productive of more harm than good. I would refer to the Land Transfer Act, 1870, the principle of which was good, though not very scientifically carried out—and from this 1 anticipate that in the course of time difficulties may arise—yet it certainly goes to the fundamental principles of the law. If any of us were to see the walls of our wooden houses out of the perpendicular, we should not begin to patch with a weatherboard here and another there, but should go at once to the foundation and examine and repair the piles and studs. It is not so easy as some may think to initiate such reform in our laws. To use the word put into the mouth of Mephistopheles by the great German poet and philosopher : “ Laws descend like an inveterate hereditary disease. They trail from generation to generation, and glide from place to place. ,J We must not trifle with the symptoms of the disease, but must go to work at the root of the system. Another attempt has been made to assimilate the devolutions of real to that of personal property. This too ia a fundamental and scientific reform cutting at the root of the existing law, and giving some intelligible principle iu its place. To such reform I give my most hearty approval, and most lawyers will, I am sure, agree with me on this pointThis subject is oue that is capable of very large development; but it is not my duty to speak at length ujjon it, nor yours to listen to mo. I wish, however, that it may be understood that I am no enemy of real beneficial law reform. ”