on
by the Judges of the King's Courts shall no longer be necessary to give
validity to those regulations within the towns of Calcutta, Madras, and
Bombay.

I could scarcely, Sir, believe my ears when I heard this part of our
plan condemned in another place. I should have thought that it would
have been received with peculiar favour in that quarter where it has met
with the most severe condemnation. What, at present, is the case? If the
Supreme Court and the Government differ on a question of jurisdiction,
or on a question of legislation within the towns which are the seats of
Government, there is absolutely no umpire but the Imperial Parliament.
The device of putting one wild elephant between two tame elephants was
ingenious: but it may not always be practicable. Suppose a tame elephant
between two wild elephants, or suppose that the whole herd should run
wild together. The thing is not without example. And is it not most
unjust and ridiculous that, on one side of a ditch, the edict of the
Governor General should have the force of law, and that on the other
side it should be of no effect unless registered by the Judges of the
Supreme Court? If the registration be a security for good legislation,
we are bound to give that security to all classes of our subjects. If
the registration be not a security for good legislation, why give it to
any? Is the system good? Extend it. Is it bad! Abolish it. But in the
name of common sense do not leave it as it is. It is as absurd as our
old law of sanctuary. The law which authorises imprisonment for debt
may be good or bad. But no man in his senses can approve of the ancient
system under which a debtor who might be arrested in Fleet Street was
safe as soon as he had scampered into Whitefriars. Just in the same way,
doubts may fairly be entertained about the expediency of allowing four
or five persons to make laws for India; but to allow them to make laws
for all India without the Mahratta ditch, and to except Calcutta, is the
height of absurdity.

I say, therefore, that either you must enlarge the power of the Supreme
Court, and give it a general veto on laws, or you must enlarge the
power of the Government, and make its regulations binding on all
Courts without distinction. The former course no person has ventured to
propose. To the latter course objections have been made; but objections
which to me, I must own, seem altogether frivolous.

It is acknowledged that of late years inc