The Sun.
London, England, 1856-08-09 00:00:00

STON.

There is one lesson, however, which his Lord-
ship may learn from the citizens, and to which in
all seriousness we call his attention. He will find
them getting their new patterns and fabrics ready
for " the season." All the printers will be rack-
ing their brains to have something ready then,
which shall " take." It will not do for them to
be devising and manufacturing when the article
should be in the shop windows of their customers
all the country over. Now we really do want a
little of this common sense proceeding in our
Governments. However busy they may be with
administration (luting the six months of irrespon-
sibility, the session is their season, and they are
bound to prepare for it. By ithe House of Com-
mons they are put into office and put out of it ;
and by their success with the House of Commons
they are chiefly judged. They are expected to have
a leasonable degree of influence with the Lords,
but t{,,.;, 19 r.hica.p clepozaJ4:l6 vu
their success in the Lower House. Commanding
majorities in the Commons are never long resisted
by the Upper House. Next session, if the Go-
vernment intends to survive, it must be prepared
for it in a very different style to what it was the
last one—there will be no excuse for being engaged
in winding up a war, and settling the terms of a
peace; and the reputation of the Government
must depend entirely on being well prepared to
meet Parliament. A Limited Liability Bill, and
a Bishops' Retirement Bill, will not again be
thought a sufficient result of six months' legisla-
tive labour.

There is, in truth, little excuse for a Govern-
ment failing, as Lord PALMERSTON'S did this year,
chiefly by the imperfection of its measures, or
occasionally by its want of heartiness in pressing
them. A Government has at his command the
best possible information. It has its innu
merable officials always bound to answer
any question it can put to them ; it has
ready access to men of standing and know-
ledge in every department ; to them it can always
resort when fearing to rely on the routine know-
ledge or contracted views of its own servants.
Every gentleman in England worth being con-
sulted is but too proud to place his knowledge at
the service of his country. A. Government which
would take the pains, could present its bills to
Parliament founded upon such ample and correct
information that it would be next to impossible
for even the Opposition to reject them without
discrediting themselves. We refer, of course, to
measures of practical reform, such as the princi-
pal ones withdrawn last session. Seven or eight
of these were of great importance to the better
working of our laws and institutions, and they
were lost, we believe, entirely through carelessness,
oversight, or through neglect of accurate inquiry,
as in the case of the Local Dues on Shipping, to
which, indeed, the Opposition was purely factious
and interested, and could not have beep. main-
tained for a moment had Ministers but secured
more precise information at first, or been more
decided to go into committee and make the
requisite alterations there.
We take the prime cause of all these mis-
carriages, however, to be, not commencing pre-
paration in time. We question whether
Government, like manufacturers, begins to pre-
pare for another season as soon as the last one
is over. They ought to do it. They are law
manufacturers ; the House meets to canvass their
measures, and accept them if good, and is desirous
for its own credit's sake to pass as many as it
fairly can. It is obviously no easy thing to have
considered all the bearings of a measure, and to
be prepared to show that they have been taken
account of, and that the balance of good largely
predominates over any evils incidental to change ;
or to show that every danger which can be met
is duly provided for. Sir ROBERT PEEL,
when he did get hold of a sound
principle, was
an example of what may be done in elaborating a
host of details with such care as to make it no
easy work to throw discredit on his proposals.
Perhaps his greatest failure in that respect was
his adopting wholesale all the old-fashioned ma-
chinery of the previous Income Tax, with hardly
a modification. This, however, was not like him,
and probably, had he lived, he would have brought
it into a much more perfect feral as a permanent
X. lie was totoo well aware of the danger of resist-

ing public opinion not to have made up his mind
either to abandon the tax, or to place it on a less
assailable basin.

Suppose this year the Government took up
the two bills affecting Ecclesiastical CourLs—
those relating to Testamentary and Matrimonial
matters—and determined to put them into a
shape in which no predilections were consulted,
no extravagant sacrifice made to vested abuses,
and a new court provided on a plan, at once eco-
nomical and honest to the public—a court con-
structed for the people's use, not for lawyers'
fees—does any one doubt that such a proposal
could, with a little resolution, be carried ? and
would not the Ministry which gave the coup de
grace to the detested Ecclesiastical Courts be re-
membered almost as much as the Ministry who
gave peace and all her territories again to Rus-
sia ? Nor would the Cabinet be soon forgotten
which let daylight into the London Corporation,
or which boldly made it a Corporation for all Lon-
don, and not for a fraction of it merely.

It is, however, needless to enter into details.
We have indicated what we think the Govern-
ment ought to do if it means to get creditably
through another session, or, perhaps, to get
through it at all. In all probability next year will
be the last for the present Parliament. Members,
as well as the Government, will be anxious to
place themselves in a good position with their
supporters ; the Ministry must bring them mea-
sures deserving their support, or calculate upon
losing it rather than lose their seats. Slovenly
got up bills will not answer for a Parliament that
may soon be dissolved, and slovenly they will be
if Ministers do not regard it as their grand busi-
ness during the prorogation to elaborate their
measures for the cdming session. Of political
measures we have said nothing ; it were absurd
'to expect political reforms from Lord PALMER-
STON. Heaven knows we need them enough. The
Ballot and a vastly enlarged constituency must be
conceded in due time ; but we conceive the present
Premier to be opposed to all popular reforms. If
he saw them to be inevitable, he would joke their
opponents as to the figure they cut in resisting
them ; but we do not remember a single measure
for conferring power on the people which he ever
advocated on its own merits. We should expect
as much in that line from Lord STANLEY, a Mr.
GLADSTONE, or even from Sir JOHN PAKINGTON,
not to mention Mr. WALPOLE of the militia fran-
chise, as from Lord PALMERSTON. The most to
be thought of from him is a fair list of legal and
social reforms ; but to carry these next session he
must not wait till January before he begins to
prepare.

Upwards of half a century ago a lad of sixteen,
with a few rupees in his pocket, entered on the
tug of business life in India. Had any of his
contemporaries been required at that time to
vaticinate his career, in all probability years of
anxiety and toil, rewarded by a moderate compe-
tence barely sufficient to meet his frugal wants,
would have been the most favourable result. For
the lad dil not belong to the ruling caste, had no
powerful patron—was, in point of fact, a heathen,
sprung from a subjugated race in a British depen-
dency to which Englishmen repaired to make, by
hook or crook, their fortunes. The young Parsee,
however, like all his people, was intelligent and
frugal in his habits, but, unlike most of them,
enterprising and self-reliant, as well as industrious.
PROVIDENCE smiled on his efforts ; rupees flowed
on rupees in his stores, and it became evident he
was a rising man. He became of service to the
ruling caste, and the ruling caste took notice of
him. A career calculated to gratify the ambition
of a Parsee lay open to him, and, relaxing no
endeavour, and maintaining a character for
probity not always acquired by the European,
and still seldomer by the Indian at4en-
turer, he persevered Ae became mole
than Pal6ttl bad ever been before, suc-
cessful as some had been, a merchant prince,
worthy to rank with the greatest merchant
princes of England, and, as a crowning distinc-
tion, knelt by command before her Majesty the
QUEEN, and rose Sir JAMSETJEE JEJEEBHOY, Knt.,
the first of his race on whom the honour has
been conferred.
The story so far illustrates the value of energy,
probity, intelligence, and self-reliance to aspirants
for wealth and distinction in the mercantile
career, under unfavourable circumstances ; and,
to a certain extent, speaks well for the character
)f British rule. What we have narrated, how-
-1 ever, is the mere outline or husk of our Parsee's
life. More than a rising adventurer, or a great
merchant prince, Sir JAMSETJEE JEJEEBHOY has
been, from the dawning of prosperity upon him,
a great public benefactor. The wealth ho ac•
quired was not wholly sunk in new adventures,
nor, when the harvest may be said to have been
reaped, was it garnered exclusively for his own
personal use. The man's life was princely, and
immense sums were disbursed by him with a lavish
hand. Other men have clone the like before his
day, and others in all probability will do so after.
But there was this peculiarity about the Parsee
merchant—his gifts flowed not from an ostenta-
tious, but from a benevolent heart, and were
directed into their channels by an intelligent and
discriminating mind. Emphatically he war—he
is—a great public benefactor—the friend alike of
the Parsee, of India, and of Englishmen
His countrymen toiling beneath a broiling sun I

lacked water. He sunk wells, constructed tanks,
built aqueducts even, to assuage their thirst. A
road was required for the public convenience, a
river wa3 to be spanned. JAMSEZTEE JEJEBEHOY

laid out the road and built the bridge. The suf-
fering of his fellow-countrymen from accident and
disease passed before him—he did not dole out a
few rupees--he built them an hospital. This
was not enough, though it involved a victory

over native prejudice—he supplied the students

of the hospitals with books and offered prizes
for their emulation. For the helpless and the
distressed he provided a " Homo of Charity."
All this he did spontaneously and at his own cost.
His charity did not end here—it took a yet
higher flight and a more expansive range. It
transcended the barrier of country, and came to
the relief of our follow-countrymen in the year
famine, when so many Scotch and Irish homes
became desolate, fever finishing but too often
what unsatisfied hunger had begun. To British
genius, valour, and devotion, his heart was
large enough and his mind capacious enough
Lo pay unmistakeable homage. To the WELLING-
TON Testimonial he was among the most liberal
contributors, and to the Patriotic Fund his dona-
tion was 750/. On public works and charities he
has expended no less a sum than a quarter of a
million ; and now that his career, in the course
of nature, must be well nigh finished, we find

him in negotiation with Government for the insti-
tution of a School of Design in India, to which he
proposes to contribute 10,0001.
Such a public benefactor as this deserves to be
honoured in his lifetime on the theatre of his good
(feeds ; and the testimonial now being got up at
Bombay in recognition of his services to humanity,

however striking, is not likely to exceed his
deserts. The Parsee merchant has set an example
which the proudest and the most benevolent