Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/285

 are those volumes of the Bombay High Court Reports : and the Bombay series of the Indian Law Reports, which, whilst they have added so much to your renown^ have been of such immense use to all judicial officers. Sir Raymond West, behind that mysterious curtain, which is supposed to, but does so slightly, veil the confidential proceedings of Government, it would not be proper to intrude : but the public would be sure, without one word from those who have served with you, from their knowledge of your public career, that you have proved a loyal and reliable colleague, one on whose calm and judicial impartiality your colleagues could rely for sound advice at any moment. You have probably found, as most Statesmen do find when they enter a position of less freedom and great responsibility, that every reform advocated previously was not feasible in the exact form you would have preferred; that the views of the individual before office is held must necessarily undergo some modification when a more diffused light is thrown on the subject; and also that in a Government other than an autocracy, opinions, however determined, have not infrequently to accommodate themselves to other views in some measure. But such is the experience of every man who enters on the arduous task of Executive Government, and happy are those who can say, as we can say, I think, that we shall always look back with pleasure to the time when our official position induced and established sentiments of friendship. But, Sir, this brief resume of your thirty-five years' labours has not touched on your efforts for the advancement of education, which, so far as execution are concerned, are better known to your colleagues than the public ; but I am committing no indis- cretion when I say that whilst keeping almost careful guard over the proper appropriation of the tax payers^ money you have never failed to press for the largest possible sums that could be spared ; and it must be a satisfaction to you to feel that in your last days here additional funds have been made available to carry out those promises made to Local Boards in more prosperous times; and that there is nothing now to prevent that improvement in legal tuition which you have always advocated except the sanction, of the higher authority. Finally, Sir, amongst the numerous crowd which is grateful to you for private and public advice and assistance last, but by no means least, comes this University in the councils of whose administration you for so many years took an active and interested share. It has been your object to extend to it a wide measure of freedom and it is due to no hesitation on your part that that measure will only be introduced by gradual and cautious steps. That this University is grateful for