History of the Parsis : including their manners, customs, religion and present position : with coloured and other illustrations : in two volumes

264 HISTORY OF THE PARSIS. [CHAP. Vv.

The sixth question was :—

Could it, in any case, be recommended to provide for the relief of the Parsis of the Presidency towns by special and limited legislation, leaving the Parsis of the Mofussil under a Separate system of law? and if so, was the actual case one in which such a course could be recommended ?

As the Mofussil Parsis strongly protested that they preferred to remain in their old position, viz. subject to the ordinary courts of the country, which regulated their decisions in accordance with such evidence of custom as was produced before them, the observations of the Commission on this head are so valuable that we quote them here entire, with the statement that the conservative Modi of Surat alone dissented :—

“Laws should be commensurate with the evils they are passed to remedy. Symmetry and uniformity in legislation are, no doubt, desirable; but the primary objects are justice and the general good. That one portion of a limited community are living within the dominion of a paramount State, under a system of laws with which they are contented, and which therefore they do not seek to alter, can never be a reason for refusing reasonable reforms in legislation to another portion of the same community also living within the dominion of the same paramount State, but under a widely different system of laws, with which, on good grounds, they are not contented, and which therefore, on good grounds, they do seek to alter. In such a case as this, if the special legislation proposed for the relief of the discontented class of the community in question be good in itself and as regards them, the mere fact that it is not desirable or practicable to extend it to the contented class can never be an argument against its enactment for the discontented class 5 no doubt, if enacted there will be two classes of the same com-