conversant with Welsh manners and feelings, and it was therefore better for the Welsh people to have Judges who came often amongst them. Further, he maintained that although in many instances the proceedings had to be held in the native language of the country, the business was conducted with such regularity and regard to justice that the country was satisfied with the system.
The Commissioners summed up their report in favour of the abolition of the Welsh system by stating "that they could not but think that, however well adapted those Courts might have been in their origin to the circumstances of a country newly subdued and in which the English language was at that time almost unknown, having little or no means of communication with the seats of justice in England, and liable to all the jealousies inspired by recent enmity, yet the lapse of years and the great changes that had taken place in the condition of Wales had removed most, if not all, the reasons on account of which the institution of local jurisdictions was resorted to in preference to the established tribunals of the Country."
It must be noted here that the abolition of the Welsh Courts of Great Session was not brought about at the instance of the main body of the Welsh people, or of Welsh suitors, but at the instance of the landed gentry of Wales. The wishes of the humble Welsh suitors were not so much regarded as the ambition of the nobility and landed proprietors of that time to make Wales a part of the judicial system of England. There was considerable danger in the alteration, for it was a change, from a fairly efficient method of judicature which had grown after three centuries of useful working into a national institution easily capable of being reformed, to the acknowledged defects and notorious costliness of the English system. For sixteen years, that is, until the introduction of the modern County Court system in 1846, there were no common law Courts in Wales for deciding cases of small
