Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/31

 commerce of Bombay the same enlightened patronage which has formed the permanent glory of Florence and Venice. Two of the foundations are further intended to bear the names of two men whose memory will, I trust, not be soon forgotten in this University. Many of the elder members of the Senate will join me in recognising the fitness of such a monument to my valued friend the late Framjee Cowasjee, a man not less remarkable for his effective support of education, and of every judicious project of native improvement, than for his genuine originality and sturdy independence of character. I dare not trust myself to say all I would of the fitness of the tribute paid to Lord Canning. But I believe that the honour thus done his memory, under circumstances which render that honour like a verdict of history, will be deeply felt by all Indian and English statesmen who love India as he loved her, though they may not be able to devote, as he did, their lives and their labors to her service. I would notice more especially the tendency of some of the foundations to encourage the study of law, for of all studies which can be appropriately grafted on an University course there is probably none which is likely to produce such important results, as the study of law. A great experiment is, as you all know, now going on in India. In the course of little more than a single generation,—within the memory, in fact, of men now living,—many nations, each containing millions of people of diverse races and religions, have passed under the sway of the Sovereigns of England. Diverse in every other respect, there was this one feature common to all, that in no one nation from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin was there any court of justice such as we have been for centuries used to in Europe,—that is to say, open and accessible to all men, dependent on no man, and professing, however imperfectly, to administer to all impartial justice according to one known body of laws. I do not say that substantial justice was not often practically administered in Native States in a manner which rendered it as accessible to all as it would be in many countries in Europe. In some parts of India the private character of the sovereign, or the usages which had descended from former ages, gave substantial security for person and property. But certainly India in the 18th century would never have struck a traveller, as we are told it did in the 14th century, as remarkable for the just and equal administration of the law, and I cannot call to mind any single instance in which any nation of modern India could boast of regular courts of justice, possessing the characteristics I have described, as