JAMES WILSON.
JAMES Wri.so' s who has just departed from us, will gather round him a stronger and more widely-extended sympathy than most men. The circumstances of his career identify him, in some way or other, with every class of the country. He is a type of the rising Englishman. " The Right Honourable James Wilson," Finance Minister of India who was with his own proper hand working a grand economical and commercial revolution in that vast Empire, had been not only a tradesman but, we believe a journeyman. If we are not mistaken, gentlemen in deputation from the North of England, who were glad to obtain access to the official upon some public matter, had been received by the same man when he was standing behind. the counter, and. when they were welcomed as customers. His career, therefore, illustrates the boasted freedom of our country ;—freedom, that is not only from oppres- sion by authority, but freedom to make fidi use of your faculties in
rising even to the very highest offices of the State. Mr. Wilson had already become the head of a connexion which was gradually-making good its station in the official strata of society ; and, out short, as it were, in official youth, he had shown a capacity for attaining to honours far higher. Before he entered office, he had made his mark upon English journalism ; having positively strengthened the character of that institution by developing the statistical branch. No sooner had he entered the official circle than his ex- traordinary eommand of figures made him a species of referee, and it was at length recognized, almost as a self-evident fact, that he had a right to be the Secretary to the Treasury. If his appointment to that office astonished some persons who could handle financial topics more philosophically, still greater was their surprise at his Indian commission; and if the public at large was astonished to see him going out to India, how much more as- tonished were they to see him making himself master of the situ- ation there ; and yet how far more stupendous would have been his return and the honours certain to await him ! It is probable that in watching the career of James Wilson, the public were as- sisting at the foundation of a noble house ; only the founder was called away before he could finish the work.
Wilson is a signal instance, amongst not a few which contra- dict the old dogma, that 4 every man knows his own business." It may be said that he failed in his own business, but that he afterwards attained a brilliant success in everybody else's business. He certainly was not master of the situation in the hatter's shop at Hawiek ; yet he did admirable service in assisting to man- age the counting-house of the Empire. The ease is not altogether dissimilar to that of Arthur Young, who failed in his own proper trade as a farmer, but threw a brilliant light over the broad ques- tion of farming, and has certainly contributed to the gigantic im- provement in some of the greatest Empires—particularly in Eng- land, in Ireland, and in France. So Wilson failed in his own finance but figured in that of India and of England. Of course, any intimate acquaintance with his personal qualities in life would soon explain this apparent anomaly. In no position of private life are figures everything ; but set a man who is a genius in accounts, and has a natural capacity for adaptation, to admin- istrative business over any great department of accounts, and he will perform his share of the work in the body corporate so as to increase the power of the whole.
The statesman whom we have just lost, however, is a type of a much rarer class, in being a sort of grand jounieyman acting upon other person's ideas. °In a contemporary journal, which is known to have received inspiration from his mind and actual as- sistance from his pen, he had, with great perseverance and ability, argued against the working and principle of Peel's Act, and against the theory of finance to which that measure belonged. Yet, no sooner was he in his place as Finance Minister of India, ere he consented to act as the instrument under the Chairman of the Select Committee which recommended Peel's Act to the House of Commons—Sir Charles Wood. That Mr. Wilson really gave up his own personal conviction, even at a late date, is proved by an early incident in his Indian administration. In his banking measure, as it was first announced, there was a remarkable point of obscurity. The amount of stock upon which a portion of the notes might be based was not fixed, as it is in our English Act, but was left undetermined. This omission appeared to us to be quite in accordance with Mr. Wilson's own idea as to an elastic basis for a currency ; but it was utterly inconsistent with Peel's Act, or with the convictions of the Chairman of the Select Com- mittee on that Act. Sir Charles Wood pointed out the error, and the Indian Finance Minister at once rectified it. He was, there- fore, the instrument for carrying out another man's ideas ; yet, instead of being left to complain that Mr. Wilson was cold in carrying out pure Peelism, we are compelled to admit that he threw himself, heart and soul, into the duties he had undertaken, and carried them out as earnestly and honestly as if they had been the result of his own independent reason. It would be difficult to find a more able and a. more honest servant, even where he was conscientiously fain to act in opposition to his own theoretical opinions.
In this practical aspect, again, his nature is brought home to every Englishman's sympathies. The fact that he has broken down in harness is another circumstance that touches the heart of our industrious community; We see that he was earning rewards which he had not time to attain, and we should all of us be glad if we could, by any miracle, convey to his grave the prizes which are so well his due. It may truly be said that the qualities which particularly distinguished Wilson, although they did not place him in the highest rank of intellect or of masterly statesmanship, are those which have rendered England what she is—practical sagacity, ready adaptability in the position to which Providence assigns a man, and thoroughly faithful service in distinctly re- cognized duties.
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