ut, the proposed section, which was from the
original draft of the case as framed by the Commission, was less severe
than the English law. Briefly, a man was to be punishable for writings
of which it was the obvious intention to produce rebellion. A journalist
might freely abuse officials and express disapproval of a particular
measure, such, for example, as a tax. The disapproval, again, might tend
to general disaffection. But unless there were a direct intention to
stimulate resistance to the law, he would not be guilty. Fitzjames
thought that to invoke the phrase 'liberty of the press' in order to
permit direct provocatives to crime, whether against the public or
against individuals, was a grave misapplication of popular phrases.

Upon another closely connected subject, Fitzjames, if he originated
little, spent a very great deal of labour. The Penal Code had been
necessarily followed by a Code of Criminal Procedure, which defined the
whole system of the English administration of justice in India.[111]
Courts of justice had been gradually introduced when the British
establishments were mere factories, and had gradually grown up, as our
power increased and the borders of the empire widened, into a most
elaborate and complex organisation. Although, in a general way, the
English institutions had served as a model, it had diverged very far
from its originals. The different classes of Indian magistrates are
carefully graded; there is a minute system for subordinating the courts
to each other; they are superintended in every detail of their procedure
by the High Courts; and, in brief, the 'Indian civilians are, for the
discharge of all their judicial and other duties, in the position of an
elaborately disciplined and organised half-military body.' Such words
would obviously be inapplicable to the English magistrate. While,
therefore, the Penal Code was in the main a version of English law, the
Code of Criminal Procedure defined the various relations and processes
of an official body entirely unlike anything existing in England.

The code originally passed in 1861 had been amended by an Act of 1869,
and Fitzjames observed (June 28, 1870) that he proposed a reform which
was 'almost typographical.' The two laws might, as the Law Commission
had suggested, be combined in one by slightly altering their
arrangement; though the opportunity might be taken of introducing 'a few
minor alterations.' On December 9 following, however, he