BROUGHAM
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Many of those who have read and admired Mr. G. T. Garratt's new Life of Brougham must, like myself, have regretted that it was reviewed in your pages by one who admits that. he previously had thought Henry Brougham rather a tiresome fellow." That Mr. Garratt's book has made your reviewer " change his mind and pass a very different judgement " is all to the good, but none the less he writes that
" for all his fame, Brougham was never a great man." -
Brougham certainly gave posterity; as also his contempo- raries, plenty of scope for criticism. But surely a century after his Lord Chancellorship we must pronounce him great. His record in political and social reform alone deserves that adjective. But no man has a greater record as a Law Reformer. My only criticism of Mr. Garratt's book is that it is too much absorbed in the political scheming of the day to the detriment of Brougham's great and permanent work in legal reform : Mr. Garrett does not even mention the creation of the Central Criminal. Court._ That Court, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and our County Courts all owe their creation to Brougham. The establishment of County. Courts, where cases were to be tried " in a summary way "—an ambition never in fact realized—was one of our greatest legal reforms. It was Brougham who began the cleaning up of our legal system after the death-hand of tOrd Eldon was removed. He has had no successor worthy of him.
Today we appear to be content with such minor legal reforms as can pass uncontested and with the approval of the Bench and the Bar. Brougham knew better. He drove through his far vaster reforms in the face of professional
obstruction and opposition. No law reformer of today would deny Brougham the adjective great.—Yours faithfully.
14 Burgh Heath Road, Epsom. CLAUD MULLINS.
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