817 



benches at different stations during their tours. It may not 

 be feasible to introduce these arrangements at the outset in 

 all parts of the country. They should be introduced in 

 all districts in which litigation is very heavy and gradually 

 extended throughout the presidency. 



110. In making the above remarks, I do not wish to be 

 „ . , . understood as in the least undervaluinaf 



of British system of the immcusc advantage resulting to the 

 justice as applied to couutry f rom the introduction of the liberal 

 coun ry. principles of English law breathing the 



spirit of free institutions. The most important of these 

 principles are, first, that nobody is punishable for anything 

 done, spoken or written by him, except according to the 

 known conditions of the laws and by regularly-constituted 

 tribunals, the accused being given the benefit of the doubt 

 in all cases in which the act complained of is not clearly 

 shown to have been committed or clearly shown to be an 

 offence ; secondly, that nobody, however highly placed he 

 may be, is above the law or held to be unaccountable for 

 infractions of law ; and thirdly, that private individuals have 

 the same remedies against Government for injuries caused to 

 them by acts authorized by it in excess of the powers con- 

 ferred by law, as they would have if the acts had been com- 

 mitted by other private individuals. The conscientious spirit 

 in which these principles have, on the whole, been carried 

 out, notwithstanding the adverse conditions under which 

 they have to be worked, is truly wonderful ; and the result is 

 the diffusion throughout the country of a sense of security 

 of person and property, which is above all price and which 

 was formerly altogether unknown. Nor is the complaint often 

 made that the Indian legislature has been over-active well- 

 founded. This charge has been effectually disposed of by 

 Sir Henry Maine, who pointed out that if the legislature had 

 not provided intelligible codes of laws for the guidance of 

 courts of justice, judicial legislation would have imported into 

 India whole masses of English law with all its technicalities, 

 and that all really important influence in the direction of law- 

 making would have fallen " into the hands of a very small 

 minority of lawyers trained in England, whose knowledge 

 must have seemed to the millions affected by it hardly less 

 mysterious and hardly more explicable than the inspired utter- 

 ances of Mahomet or Menu." The law in any case having 

 to be derived from exotic sources instead of being developed 

 gradually according to social necessities, it is a great advan- 

 tage to have>it authoritatively embodied in codes of manageable 



