You and I are
inclined
to put the cart before the horse, and to
forget that it is the man that is elemental, not the book.
forget that it is the man that is elemental, not the book.
Kipling - Poems
"
They were sitting in the veranda of "the splendid palace of an Indian
Pro-Consul"; surrounded by all the glory and mystery of the immemorial
East. In plain English it was a one-storied, ten-roomed, whitewashed,
mud-roofed bungalow, set in a dry garden of dusty tamarisk trees and
divided from the road by a low mud wall. The green parrots screamed
overhead as they flew in battalions to the river for their morning
drink. Beyond the wall, clouds of fine dust showed where the cattle and
goats of the city were passing afield to graze. The remorseless white
light of the winter sunshine of Northern India lay upon everything and
improved nothing, from the whining Persian-wheel by the lawn-tennis
court to the long perspective of level road and the blue, domed tombs of
Mohammedan saints just visible above the trees.
"A Happy New Year," said Orde to his guest. "It's the first you've ever
spent out of England, isn't it? "
"Yes. 'Happy New Year," said Pagett, smiling at the sunshine. "What a
divine climate you have here! Just think of the brown cold fog hanging
over London now! " And he rubbed his hands.
It was more than twenty years since he had last seen Orde, his
schoolmate, and their paths in the world had divided early. The one
had quitted college to become a cog-wheel in the machinery of the great
Indian Government; the other more blessed with goods, had been whirled
into a similar position in the English scheme. Three successive
elections had not affected Pagett's position with a loyal constituency,
and he had grown insensibly to regard himself in some sort as a pillar
of the Empire, whose real worth would be known later on. After a few
years of conscientious attendance at many divisions, after newspaper
battles innumerable and the publication of interminable correspondence,
and more hasty oratory than in his calmer moments he cared to think
upon, it occurred to him, as it had occurred to many of his fellows in
Parliament, that a tour to India would enable him to sweep a larger lyre
and address himself to the problems of Imperial administration with a
firmer hand. Accepting, therefore, a general invitation extended to him
by Orde some years before, Pagett bad taken ship to Karachi, and only
overnight had been received with joy by the Deputy-Commissioner of
Amara. They had sat late, discussing the changes and chances of twenty
years, recalling the names of the dead, and weighing the futures of the
living, as is the custom of men meeting after intervals of action.
Next morning they smoked the after-breakfast pipe in the veranda, still
regarding each other curiously, Pagett, in a light grey frock-coat and
garments much too thin for the time of the year, and a puggried
sun-hat carefully and wonderfully made, Orde in a shooting coat, riding
breeches, brown cowhide boots with spurs, and a battered flax helmet. He
had ridden some miles in the early morning to inspect a doubtful river
dam. The men's faces differed as much as their attire. Orde's worn and
wrinkled around the eyes, and grizzled at the temples, was the harder
and more square of the two, and it was with something like envy that the
owner looked at the comfortable outlines of Pagett's blandly receptive
countenance, the clear skin, the untroubled eye, and the mobile,
clean-shaved lips.
"And this is India! " said Pagett for the twentieth time staring long and
intently at the grey feathering of the tamarisks.
"One portion of India only. It's very much like this for 300 miles
in every direction. By the way, now that you have rested a little--I
wouldn't ask the old question before--what d'you think of the country? "
"'Tis the most pervasive country that ever yet was seen. I acquired
several pounds of your country coming up from Karachi. The air is heavy
with it, and for miles and miles along that distressful eternity of rail
there's no horizon to show where air and earth separate. "
"Yes. It isn't easy to see truly or far in India. But you had a decent
passage out, hadn't you? "
"Very good on the whole. Your Anglo-Indian may be unsympathetic about
one's political views; but he has reduced ship life to a science. "
"The Anglo-Indian is a political orphan, and if he's wise he won't be
in a hurry to be adopted by your party grandmothers. But how were your
companions, unsympathetic? "
"Well, there was a man called Dawlishe, a judge somewhere in this
country it seems, and a capital partner at whist by the way, and when I
wanted to talk to him about the progress of India in a political sense
(Orde hid a grin, which might or might not have been sympathetic), the
National Congress movement, and other things in which, as a Member of
Parliament, I'm of course interested, he shifted the subject, and when I
once cornered him, he looked me calmly in the eye, and said: 'That's all
Tommy rot. Come and have a game at Bull. ' You may laugh; but that isn't
the way to treat a great and important question; and, knowing who I was,
well, I thought it rather rude, don't you know; and yet Dawlishe is a
thoroughly good fellow. "
"Yes; he's a friend of mine, and one of the straightest men I know. I
suppose, like many Anglo-Indians, he felt it was hopeless to give you
any just idea of any Indian question without the documents before you,
and in this case the documents you want are the country and the people. "
"Precisely. That was why I came straight to you, bringing an open mind
to bear on things. I'm anxious to know what popular feeling in India
is really like y'know, now that it has wakened into political life.
The National Congress, in spite of Dawlishe, must have caused great
excitement among the masses? "
"On the contrary, nothing could be more tranquil than the state of
popular feeling; and as to excitement, the people would as soon be
excited over the 'Rule of Three' as over the Congress. "
"Excuse me, Orde, but do you think you are a fair judge? Isn't the
official Anglo-Indian naturally jealous of any external influences
that might move the masses, and so much opposed to liberal ideas, truly
liberal ideas, that he can scarcely be expected to regard a popular
movement with fairness? "
"What did Dawlishe say about Tommy Rot? Think a moment, old man. You
and I were brought up together; taught by the same tutors, read the same
books, lived the same life, and new languages, and work among new
races; while you, more fortunate, remain at home. Why should I change
my mind--our mind--because I change my sky? Why should I and the
few hundred Englishmen in my service become unreasonable, prejudiced
fossils, while you and your newer friends alone remain bright and
open-minded? You surely don't fancy civilians are members of a Primrose
League? "
"Of course not, but the mere position of an English official gives him
a point of view which cannot but bias his mind on this question. " Pagett
moved his knee up and down a little uneasily as he spoke.
"That sounds plausible enough, but, like more plausible notions on
Indian matters, I believe it's a mistake. You'll find when you come to
consult the unofficial Briton that our fault, as a class--I speak of
the civilian now--is rather to magnify the progress that has been made
toward liberal institutions. It is of English origin, such as it is, and
the stress of our work since the Mutiny--only thirty years ago--has
been in that direction. No, I think you will get no fairer or more
dispassionate view of the Congress business than such men as I can give
you. But I may as well say at once that those who know most of India,
from the inside, are inclined to wonder at the noise our scarcely begun
experiment makes in England. "
"But surely the gathering together of Congress delegates is of itself a
new thing. "
"There's nothing new under the sun When Europe was a jungle half Asia
flocked to the canonical conferences of Buddhism; and for centuries the
people have gathered at Pun, Hurdwar, Trimbak, and Benares in immense
numbers. A great meeting, what you call a mass meeting, is really one of
the oldest and most popular of Indian institutions in this topsy-turvy
land, and though they have been employed in clerical work for
generations they have no practical knowledge of affairs. A ship's clerk
is a useful person, but he is scarcely the captain; and an orderly room
writer, however smart he may be, is not the colonel. You see, the writer
class in India has never till now aspired to anything like command. It
wasn't allowed to. The Indian gentleman, for thousands of years past,
has resembled Victor Hugo's noble:
"'Un vrai sire Chatelain Laisse ecrire Le vilain. Sa main digne Quand il
signe Egratigne Le velin. '
"And the little egratignures he most likes to make have been scored
pretty deeply by the sword. "
"But this is childish and mediaeval nonsense! "
"Precisely; and from your, or rather our, point of view the pen is
mightier than the sword. In this country it's otherwise. The fault
lies in our Indian balances, not yet adjusted to civilized weights and
measures. "
"Well, at all events, this literary class represent the natural
aspirations and wishes of the people at large, though it may not exactly
lead them, and, in spite of all you say, Orde, I defy you to find
a really sound English Radical who would not sympathize with those
aspirations. "
Pagett spoke with some warmth, and he had scarcely ceased when a
well-appointed dog-cart turned into the compound gates, and Orde
rose saying: "Here is Edwards, the Master of the Lodge I neglect so
diligently, come to talk about accounts, I suppose. "
As the vehicle drove up under the porch Pagett also rose, saying with
the trained effusion born of much practice: "But this is also my friend,
my old and valued friend Edwards. I'm delighted to see you. I knew you
were in India, but not exactly where. "
"Then it isn't accounts, Mr. Edwards," said Orde, cheerily.
"Why, no, sir; I heard Mr. Pagett was coming, and as our works were
closed for the New Year I thought I would drive over and see him. "
"A very happy thought. Mr. Edwards, you may not know, Orde, was a
leading member of our Radical Club at Switchton when I was beginning
political life, and I owe much to his exertions. There's no pleasure
like meeting an old friend, except, perhaps, making a new one. I
suppose, Mr. Edwards, you stick to the good old cause? "
"Well, you see, sir, things are different out here. There's precious
little one can find to say against the Government, which was the main of
our talk at home, and them that do say things are not the sort o' people
a man who respects himself would like to be mixed up with. There are no
politics, in a manner of speaking, in India. It's all work. "
"Surely you are mistaken, my good friend. Why I have come all the way
from England just to see the working of this great National movement. "
"I don't know where you're going to find the nation as moves to begin
with, and then you'll be hard put to it to find what they are moving
about. It's like this, sir," said Edwards, who had not quite relished
being called "my good friend. " "They haven't got any grievance--nothing
to hit with, don't you see, sir; and then there's not much to hit
against, because the Government is more like a kind of general
Providence, directing an old-established state of things, than that
at home, where there's something new thrown down for us to fight about
every three months. "
"You are probably, in your workshops, full of English mechanics, out of
the way of learning what the masses think. "
"I don't know so much about that. There are four of us English foremen,
and between seven and eight hundred native fitters, smiths, carpenters,
painters, and such like. "
"And they are full of the Congress, of course? "
"Never hear a word of it from year's end to year's end, and I speak the
talk too. But I wanted to ask how things are going on at home--old Tyler
and Brown and the rest? "
"We will speak of them presently, but your account of the indifference
of your men surprises me almost as much as your own. I fear you are a
backslider from the good old doctrine, Edwards. " Pagett spoke as one who
mourned the death of a near relative.
"Not a bit, Sir, but I should be if I took up with a parcel of baboos,
pleaders, and schoolboys, as never did a day's work in their lives, and
couldn't if they tried. And if you was to poll us English railway
men, mechanics, tradespeople, and the like of that all up and down the
country from Peshawur to Calcutta, you would find us mostly in a tale
together. And yet you'd know we're the same English you pay some respect
to at home at 'lection time, and we have the pull o' knowing something
about it. "
"This is very curious, but you will let me come and see you, and perhaps
you will kindly show me the railway works, and we will talk things over
at leisure. And about all old friends and old times," added Pagett,
detecting with quick insight a look of disappointment in the mechanic's
face.
Nodding briefly to Orde, Edwards mounted his dog-cart and drove off.
"It's very disappointing," said the Member to Orde, who, while his
friend discoursed with Edwards, had been looking over a bundle of
sketches drawn on grey paper in purple ink, brought to him by a
Chuprassee.
"Don't let it trouble you, old chap," 'said Orde, sympathetically. "Look
here a moment, here are some sketches by the man who made the carved
wood screen you admired so much in the dining-room, and wanted a copy
of, and the artist himself is here too. "
"A native? " said Pagett.
"Of course," was the reply, "Bishen Singh is his name, and he has two
brothers to help him. When there is an important job to do, the three go
into partnership, but they spend most of their time and all their money
in litigation over an inheritance, and I'm afraid they are getting
involved, Thoroughbred Sikhs of the old rock, obstinate, touchy,
bigoted, and cunning, but good men for all that. Here is Bishen
Singh--shall we ask him about the Congress? "
But Bishen Singh, who approached with a respectful salaam, had never
heard of it, and he listened with a puzzled face and obviously feigned
interest to Orde's account of its aims and objects, finally shaking his
vast white turban with great significance when he learned that it was
promoted by certain pleaders named by Orde, and by educated natives.
He began with labored respect to explain how he was a poor man with no
concern in such matters, which were all under the control of God, but
presently broke out of Urdu into familiar Punjabi, the mere sound of
which had a rustic smack of village smoke-reek and plough-tail, as
he denounced the wearers of white coats, the jugglers with words who
filched his field from him, the men whose backs were never bowed in
honest work; and poured ironical scorn on the Bengali. He and one of
his brothers had seen Calcutta, and being at work there had Bengali
carpenters given to them as assistants.
"Those carpenters! " said Bishen Singh. "Black apes were more efficient
workmates, and as for the Bengali babu--tchick! " The guttural click
needed no interpretation, but Orde translated the rest, while Pagett
gazed with interest at the wood-carver.
"He seems to have a most illiberal prejudice against the Bengali," said
the M. P.
"Yes, it's very sad that for ages outside Bengal there should be so
bitter a prejudice. Pride of race, which also means race-hatred, is the
plague and curse of India and it spreads far," Orde pointed with his
riding-whip to the large map of India on the veranda wall.
"See! I begin with the North," said he. "There's the Afghan, and, as
a highlander, he despises all the dwellers in Hindoostan--with the
exception of the Sikh, whom he hates as cordially as the Sikh hates him.
The Hindu loathes Sikh and Afghan, and the Rajput--that's a little lower
down across this yellow blot of desert--has a strong objection, to put
it mildly, to the Maratha who, by the way, poisonously hates the Afghan.
Let's go North a minute. The Sindhi hates everybody I've mentioned. Very
good, we'll take less warlike races. The cultivator of Northern India
domineers over the man in the next province, and the Behari of the
Northwest ridicules the Bengali. They are all at one on that point.
I'm giving you merely the roughest possible outlines of the facts, of
course. "
Bishen Singh, his clean cut nostrils still quivering, watched the large
sweep of the whip as it traveled from the frontier, through Sindh, the
Punjab and Rajputana, till it rested by the valley of the Jumna.
"Hate--eternal and inextinguishable hate," concluded Orde, flicking the
lash of the whip across the large map from East to West as he sat down.
"Remember Canning's advice to Lord Granville, 'Never write or speak of
Indian things without looking at a map. '"
Pagett opened his eyes, Orde resumed. "And the race-hatred is only a
part of it. What's really the matter with Bishen Singh is class-hatred,
which, unfortunately, is even more intense and more widely spread.
That's one of the little drawbacks of caste, which some of your recent
English writers find an impeccable system. "
The wood-carver was glad to be recalled to the business of his craft,
and his eyes shone as he received instructions for a carved wooden
doorway for Pagett, which he promised should be splendidly executed and
despatched to England in six months. It is an irrelevant detail, but in
spite of Orde's reminders, fourteen months elapsed before the work was
finished. Business over, Bishen Singh hung about, reluctant to take his
leave, and at last joining his hands and approaching Orde with bated
breath and whispering humbleness, said he had a petition to make. Orde's
face suddenly lost all trace of expression. "Speak on, Bishen Singh,"
said he, and the carver in a whining tone explained that his case
against his brothers was fixed for hearing before a native judge
and--here he dropped his voice still lower till he was summarily stopped
by Orde, who sternly pointed to the gate with an emphatic Begone!
Bishen Singh, showing but little sign of discomposure, salaamed
respectfully to the friends and departed.
Pagett looked inquiry; Orde, with complete recovery of his usual
urbanity, replied: "It's nothing, only the old story, he wants his case
to be tried by an English judge--they all do that--but when he began
to hint that the other side were in improper relations with the native
judge I had to shut him up. Gunga Ram, the man he wanted to make
insinuations about, may not be very bright; but he's as honest as
daylight on the bench. But that's just what one can't get a native to
believe. "
"Do you really mean to say these people prefer to have their cases tried
by English judges? "
"Why, certainly. "
Pagett drew a long breath. "I didn't know that before. " At this point a
phaeton entered the compound, and Orde rose with "Confound it, there's
old Rasul Ali Khan come to pay one of his tiresome duty calls. I'm
afraid we shall never get through our little Congress discussion. "
Pagett was an almost silent spectator of the grave formalities of
a visit paid by a punctilious old Mahommedan gentleman to an Indian
official; and was much impressed by the distinction of manner and fine
appearance of the Mohammedan landholder. When the exchange of polite
banalities came to a pause, he expressed a wish to learn the courtly
visitor's opinion of the National Congress.
Orde reluctantly interpreted, and with a smile which even Mohammedan
politeness could not save from bitter scorn, Rasul Ali Khan intimated
that he knew nothing about it and cared still less. It was a kind of
talk encouraged by the Government for some mysterious purpose of its
own, and for his own part he wondered and held his peace.
Pagett was far from satisfied with this, and wished to have the old
gentleman's opinion on the propriety of managing all Indian affairs on
the basis of an elective system.
Orde did his best to explain, but it was plain the visitor was bored
and bewildered. Frankly, he didn't think much of committees; they had
a Municipal Committee at Lahore and had elected a menial servant, an
orderly, as a member. He had been informed of this on good authority,
and after that, committees had ceased to interest him. But all was
according to the rule of Government, and, please God, it was all for the
best.
"What an old fossil it is! " cried Pagett, as Orde returned from seeing
his guest to the door; "just like some old blue-blooded hidalgo of
Spain. What does he really think of the Congress after all, and of the
elective system? "
"Hates it all like poison. When you are sure of a majority, election
is a fine system; but you can scarcely expect the Mahommedans, the most
masterful and powerful minority in the country, to contemplate their own
extinction with joy. The worst of it is that he and his co-religionists,
who are many, and the landed proprietors, also, of Hindu race, are
frightened and put out by this election business and by the importance
we have bestowed on lawyers, pleaders, writers, and the like, who have,
up to now, been in abject submission to them. They say little, but
after all they are the most important fagots in the great bundle of
communities, and all the glib bunkum in the world would not pay for
their estrangement. They have controlled the land. "
"But I am assured that experience of local self-government in your
municipalities has been most satisfactory, and when once the principle
is accepted in your centres, don't you know, it is bound to spread, and
these important--ah--people of yours would learn it like the rest. I see
no difficulty at all," and the smooth lips closed with the complacent
snap habitual to Pagett, M. P. , the "man of cheerful yesterdays and
confident tomorrows. "
Orde looked at him with a dreary smile.
"The privilege of election has been most reluctantly withdrawn from
scores of municipalities, others have had to be summarily suppressed,
and, outside the Presidency towns, the actual work done has been badly
performed. This is of less moment, perhaps--it only sends up the
local death-rates--than the fact that the public interest in municipal
elections, never very strong, has waned, and is waning, in spite of
careful nursing on the part of Government servants. "
"Can you explain this lack of interest? " said Pagett, putting aside the
rest of Orde's remarks.
"You may find a ward of the key in the fact that only one in every
thousand of our population can spell. Then they are infinitely more
interested in religion and caste questions than in any sort of politics.
When the business of mere existence is over, their minds are occupied by
a series of interests, pleasures, rituals, superstitions, and the like,
based on centuries of tradition and usage. You, perhaps, find it hard to
conceive of people absolutely devoid of curiosity, to whom the book, the
daily paper, and the printed speech are unknown, and you would describe
their life as blank. That's a profound mistake. You are in another
land, another century, down on the bed-rock of society, where the family
merely, and not the community, is all-important. The average Oriental
cannot be brought to look beyond his clan. His life, too, is more
complete and self-sufficing, and less sordid and low-thoughted than you
might imagine. It is bovine and slow in some respects, but it is never
empty.
You and I are inclined to put the cart before the horse, and to
forget that it is the man that is elemental, not the book. 'The corn and
the cattle are all my care, And the rest is the will of God. ' Why should
such folk look up from their immemorially appointed round of duty and
interests to meddle with the unknown and fuss with voting-papers. How
would you, atop of all your interests care to conduct even one-tenth
of your life according to the manners and customs of the Papuans, let's
say? That's what it comes to. "
"But if they won't take the trouble to vote, why do you anticipate that
Mohammedans, proprietors, and the rest would be crushed by majorities of
them? "
Again Pagett disregarded the closing sentence.
"Because, though the landholders would not move a finger on any purely
political question, they could be raised in dangerous excitement by
religious hatreds. Already the first note of this has been sounded by
the people who are trying to get up an agitation on the cow-killing
question, and every year there is trouble over the Mohammedan Muharrum
processions.
"But who looks after the popular rights, being thus unrepresented? "
"The Government of Her Majesty the Queen, Empress of India, in which, if
the Congress promoters are to be believed, the people have an implicit
trust; for the Congress circular, specially prepared for rustic
comprehension, says the movement is 'for the remission of tax,
the advancement of Hindustan, and the strengthening of the British
Government. ' This paper is headed in large letters-'MAY THE PROSPERITY
OF THE EMPIRE OF INDIA ENDURE. '"
"Really! " said Pagett, "that shows some cleverness. But there are
things better worth imitation in our English methods of--er--political
statement than this sort of amiable fraud. "
"Anyhow," resumed Orde, "you perceive that not a word is said about
elections and the elective principle, and the reticence of the Congress
promoters here shows they are wise in their generation. "
"But the elective principle must triumph in the end, and the little
difficulties you seem to anticipate would give way on the introduction
of a well-balanced scheme, capable of indefinite extension. "
"But is it possible to devise a scheme which, always assuming that
the people took any interest in it, without enormous expense, ruinous
dislocation of the administration and danger to the public peace, can
satisfy the aspirations of Mr. Hume and his following, and yet safeguard
the interests of the Mahommedans, the landed and wealthy classes, the
Conservative Hindus, the Eurasians, Parsees, Sikhs, Rajputs, native
Christians, domiciled Europeans and others, who are each important and
powerful in their way? "
Pagett's attention, however, was diverted to the gate, where a group of
cultivators stood in apparent hesitation.
"Here are the twelve Apostles, by Jove--come straight out of Raffaele's
cartoons," said the M. P. , with the fresh appreciation of a newcomer.
Orde, loth to be interrupted, turned impatiently toward the villagers,
and their leader, handing his long staff to one of his companions,
advanced to the house.
"It is old Jelbo, the Lumherdar, or head-man of Pind Sharkot, and a very
intelligent man for a villager. "
The Jat farmer had removed his shoes and stood smiling on the edge of
the veranda. His strongly marked features glowed with russet bronze, and
his bright eyes gleamed under deeply set brows, contracted by lifelong
exposure to sunshine. His beard and moustache streaked with grey swept
from bold cliffs of brow and cheek in the large sweeps one sees drawn
by Michael Angelo, and strands of long black hair mingled with the
irregularly piled wreaths and folds of his turban. The drapery of stout
blue cotton cloth thrown over his broad shoulders and girt round his
narrow loins, hung from his tall form in broadly sculptured folds,
and he would have made a superb model for an artist in search of a
patriarch.
Orde greeted him cordially, and after a polite pause the countryman
started off with a long story told with impressive earnestness. Orde
listened and smiled, interrupting the speaker at times to argue and
reason with him in a tone which Pagett could hear was kindly, and
finally checking the flux of words was about to dismiss him, when Pagett
suggested that he should be asked about the National Congress.
But Jelbo had never heard of it. He was a poor man and such things, by
the favor of his Honor, did not concern him.
"What's the matter with your big friend that he was so terribly in
earnest? " asked Pagett, when he had left.
"Nothing much. He wants the blood of the people in the next village, who
have had smallpox and cattle plague pretty badly, and by the help of
a wizard, a currier, and several pigs have passed it on to his own
village. 'Wants to know if they can't be run in for this awful crime.
It seems they made a dreadful charivari at the village boundary, threw a
quantity of spell-bearing objects over the border, a buffalo's skull and
other things; then branded a chamur--what you would call a currier--on
his hinder parts and drove him and a number of pigs over into Jelbo's
village. Jelbo says he can bring evidence to prove that the wizard
directing these proceedings, who is a Sansi, has been guilty of theft,
arson, cattle-killing, perjury and murder, but would prefer to have him
punished for bewitching them and inflicting smallpox. "
"And how on earth did you answer such a lunatic? "
"Lunatic! --the old fellow is as sane as you or I; and he has some ground
of complaint against those Sansis. I asked if he would like a native
superintendent of police with some men to make inquiries, but he
objected on the grounds the police were rather worse than smallpox and
criminal tribes put together. "
"Criminal tribes--er--I don't quite understand," said Pagett.
"We have in India many tribes of people who in the slack anti-British
days became robbers, in various kind, and preyed on the people. They are
being restrained and reclaimed little by little, and in time will become
useful citizens, but they still cherish hereditary traditions of
crime, and are a difficult lot to deal with. By the way what about the
political rights of these folk under your schemes? The country people
call them vermin, but I suppose they would be electors with the rest. "
"Nonsense--special provision would be made for them in a well-considered
electoral scheme, and they would doubtless be treated with fitting
severity," said Pagett, with a magisterial air.
"Severity, yes--but whether it would be fitting is doubtful. Even those
poor devils have rights, and, after all, they only practice what they
have been taught. "
"But criminals, Orde! "
"Yes, criminals with codes and rituals of crime, gods and godlings of
crime, and a hundred songs and sayings in praise of it. Puzzling, isn't
it? "
"It's simply dreadful. They ought to be put down at once. Are there many
of them? "
"Not more than about sixty thousand in this province, for many of the
tribes broadly described as criminal are really vagabond and criminal
only on occasion, while others are being settled and reclaimed. They are
of great antiquity, a legacy from the past, the golden, glorious
Aryan past of Max Muller, Birdwood and the rest of your spindrift
philosophers. "
An orderly brought a card to Orde, who took it with a movement of
irritation at the interruption, and banded it to Pagett; a large card
with a ruled border in red ink, and in the centre in schoolboy copper
plate, Mr. Dma Nath. "Give salaam," said the civilian, and there
entered in haste a slender youth, clad in a closely fitting coat of grey
homespun, tight trousers, patent-leather shoes, and a small black velvet
cap. His thin cheek twitched, and his eyes wandered restlessly, for the
young man was evidently nervous and uncomfortable, though striving to
assume a free and easy air.
"Your honor may perhaps remember me," he said in English, and Orde
scanned him keenly.
"I know your face somehow. You belonged to the Shershah district I
think, when I was in charge there? "
"Yes, Sir, my father is writer at Shershah, and your honor gave me a
prize when I was first in the Middle School examination five years ago.
Since then I have prosecuted my studies, and I am now second year's
student in the Mission College--"
"Of course: you are Kedar Nath's son--the boy who said he liked
geography better than play or sugar cakes, and I didn't believe you. How
is your father getting on? "
"He is well, and he sends his salaam, but his circumstances are
depressed, and he also is down on his luck. "
"You learn English idioms at the Mission College, it seems. "
"Yes, sir, they are the best idioms, and my father ordered me to ask
your honor to say a word for him to the present incumbent of your
honor's shoes, the latchet of which he is not worthy to open, and who
knows not Joseph; for things are different at Shershah now, and my
father wants promotion. "
"Your father is a good man, and I will do what I can for him. "
At this point a telegram was handed to Orde, who, after glancing at it,
said he must leave his young friend whom he introduced to Pagett, "a
member of the English House of Commons who wishes to learn about India. "
Orde had scarcely retired with his telegram when Pagett began:
"Perhaps you can tell me something of the National Congress movement? "
"Sir, it is the greatest movement of modern times, and one in which all
educated men like us must join. All our students are for the Congress. "
"Excepting, I suppose, Mahommedans, and the Christians? " said Pagett,
quick to use his recent instruction.
"These are some mere exceptions to the universal rule. "
"But the people outside the College, the working classes, the
agriculturists; your father and mother, for instance. "
"My mother," said the young man, with a visible effort to bring
himself to pronounce the word, "has no ideas, and my father is not
agriculturist, nor working class; he is of the Kayeth caste; but he had
not the advantage of a collegiate education, and he does not know
much of the Congress. It is a movement for the educated
young-man"--connecting adjective and noun in a sort of vocal hyphen.
"Ah, yes," said Pagett, feeling he was a little off the rails, "and what
are the benefits you expect to gain by it? "
"Oh, sir, everything. England owes its greatness to Parliamentary
institutions, and we should at once gain the same high position in
scale of nations. Sir, we wish to have the sciences, the arts, the
manufactures, the industrial factories, with steam engines, and other
motive powers and public meetings, and debates. Already we have a
debating club in connection with the college, and elect a Mr. Speaker.
Sir, the progress must come. You also are a Member of Parliament and
worship the great Lord Ripon," said the youth, breathlessly, and his
black eyes flashed as he finished his commaless sentences.
"Well," said Pagett, drily, "it has not yet occurred to me to worship
his Lordship, although I believe he is a very worthy man, and I am not
sure that England owes quite all the things you name to the House of
Commons. You see, my young friend, the growth of a nation like ours
is slow, subject to many influences, and if you have read your history
aright"--
"Sir. I know it all--all! Norman Conquest, Magna Charta, Runnymede,
Reformation, Tudors, Stuarts, Mr. Milton and Mr. Burke, and I have
read something of Mr. Herbert Spencer and Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall,'
Reynolds' 'Mysteries of the Court,' and"--
Pagett felt like one who had pulled the string of a shower-bath
unawares, and hastened to stop the torrent with a question as to what
particular grievances of the people of India the attention of an elected
assembly should be first directed. But young Mr. Dma Nath was slow to
particularize. There were many, very many demanding consideration. Mr.
Pagett would like to hear of one or two typical examples. The Repeal of
the Arms Act was at last named, and the student learned for the first
time that a license was necessary before an Englishman could carry a
gun in England. Then natives of India ought to be allowed to become
Volunteer Riflemen if they chose, and the absolute equality of the
Oriental with his European fellow-subject in civil status should be
proclaimed on principle, and the Indian Army should be considerably
reduced. The student was not, however, prepared with answers to Mr.
Pagett's mildest questions on these points, and he returned to vague
generalities, leaving the M. P. so much impressed with the crudity of
his views that he was glad on Orde's return to say goodbye to his "very
interesting" young friend.
"What do you think of young India? " asked Orde.
"Curious, very curious--and callow. "
"And yet," the civilian replied, "one can scarcely help sympathizing
with him for his mere youth's sake. The young orators of the Oxford
Union arrived at the same conclusions and showed doubtless just the
same enthusiasm. If there were any political analogy between India and
England, if the thousand races of this Empire were one, if there were
any chance even of their learning to speak one language, if, in short,
India were a Utopia of the debating-room, and not a real land, this
kind of talk might be worth listening to, but it is all based on false
analogy and ignorance of the facts. "
"But he is a native and knows the facts. "
"He is a sort of English schoolboy, but married three years, and the
father of two weaklings, and knows less than most English schoolboys.
You saw all he is and knows, and such ideas as he has acquired are
directly hostile to the most cherished convictions of the vast majority
of the people. "
"But what does he mean by saying he is a student of a mission college?
Is he a Christian? "
"He meant just what he said, and he is not a Christian, nor ever will
he be. Good people in America, Scotland and England, most of whom would
never dream of collegiate education for their own sons, are pinching
themselves to bestow it in pure waste on Indian youths. Their scheme
is an oblique, subterranean attack on heathenism; the theory being that
with the jam of secular education, leading to a University degree, the
pill of moral or religious instruction may he coaxed down the heathen
gullet. "
"But does it succeed; do they make converts? "
"They make no converts, for the subtle Oriental swallows the jam and
rejects the pill; but the mere example of the sober, righteous, and
godly lives of the principals and professors who are most excellent and
devoted men, must have a certain moral value. Yet, as Lord Lansdowne
pointed out the other day, the market is dangerously overstocked
with graduates of our Universities who look for employment in the
administration. An immense number are employed, but year by year the
college mills grind out increasing lists of youths foredoomed to
failure and disappointment, and meanwhile, trades, manufactures, and the
industrial arts are neglected, and in fact regarded with contempt by our
new literary mandarins in posse. "
"But our young friend said he wanted steam-engines and factories," said
Pagett.
"Yes, he would like to direct such concerns. He wants to begin at the
top, for manual labor is held to be discreditable, and he would never
defile his hands by the apprenticeship which the architects, engineers,
and manufacturers of England cheerfully undergo; and he would be aghast
to learn that the leading names of industrial enterprise in England
belonged a generation or two since, or now belong, to men who wrought
with their own hands. And, though he talks glibly of manufacturers, he
refuses to see that the Indian manufacturer of the future will be the
despised workman of the present. It was proposed, for example, a few
weeks ago, that a certain municipality in this province should establish
an elementary technical school for the sons of workmen. The stress of
the opposition to the plan came from a pleader who owed all he had to a
college education bestowed on him gratis by Government and missions.
You would have fancied some fine old crusted Tory squire of the last
generation was speaking. 'These people,' he said, 'want no education,
for they learn their trades from their fathers, and to teach a workman's
son the elements of mathematics and physical science would give him
ideas above his business. They must be kept in their place, and it was
idle to imagine that there was any science in wood or iron work. ' And he
carried his point. But the Indian workman will rise in the social scale
in spite of the new literary caste. "
"In England we have scarcely begun to realize that there is an
industrial class in this country, yet, I suppose, the example of men,
like Edwards for instance, must tell," said Pagett, thoughtfully.
"That you shouldn't know much about it is natural enough, for there are
but few sources of information. India in this, as in other respects, is
like a badly kept ledger--not written up to date. And men like Edwards
are, in reality, missionaries, who by precept and example are teaching
more lessons than they know. Only a few, however, of their crowds of
subordinates seem to care to try to emulate them, and aim at individual
advancement; the rest drop into the ancient Indian caste groove. "
"How do you mean? " asked Pagett.
"Well, it is found that the new railway and factory workmen, the fitter,
the smith, the engine-driver, and the rest are already forming separate
hereditary castes. You may notice this down at Jamalpur in Bengal,
one of the oldest railway centres; and at other places, and in other
industries, they are following the same inexorable Indian law. "
"Which means? " queried Pagett.
"It means that the rooted habit of the people is to gather in small
self-contained, self-sufficing family groups with no thought or care for
any interests but their own--a habit which is scarcely compatible with
the right acceptation of the elective principle. "
"Yet you must admit, Orde, that though our young friend was not able to
expound the faith that is in him, your Indian army is too big. "
"Not nearly big enough for its main purpose. And, as a side issue, there
are certain powerful minorities of fighting folk whose interests an
Asiatic Government is bound to consider. Arms is as much a means of
livelihood as civil employ under Government and law. And it would be
a heavy strain on British bayonets to hold down Sikhs, Jats, Bilochis,
Rohillas, Rajputs, Bhils, Dogras, Pathans, and Gurkhas to abide by the
decisions of a numerical majority opposed to their interests. Leave the
'numerical majority' to itself without the British bayonets--a flock of
sheep might as reasonably hope to manage a troop of collies. "
"This complaint about excessive growth of the army is akin to another
contention of the Congress party. They protest against the malversation
of the whole of the moneys raised by additional taxes as a Famine
Insurance Fund to other purposes. You must be aware that this special
Famine Fund has all been spent on frontier roads and defences and
strategic railway schemes as a protection against Russia. "
"But there was never a special famine fund raised by special taxation
and put by as in a box. No sane administrator would dream of such
a thing. In a time of prosperity a finance minister, rejoicing in
a margin, proposed to annually apply a million and a half to the
construction of railways and canals for the protection of districts
liable to scarcity, and to the reduction of the annual loans for public
works. But times were not always prosperous, and the finance minister
had to choose whether he would bang up the insurance scheme for a year
or impose fresh taxation. When a farmer hasn't got the little surplus
he hoped to have for buying a new wagon and draining a low-lying field
corner, you don't accuse him of malversation, if he spends what he has
on the necessary work of the rest of his farm. "
A clatter of hoofs was heard, and Orde looked up with vexation, but his
brow cleared as a horseman halted under the porch.
"Hello, Orde! just looked in to ask if you are coming to polo on
Tuesday: we want you badly to help to crumple up the Krab Bokhar team. "
Orde explained that he had to go out into the District, and while the
visitor complained that though good men wouldn't play, duffers were
always keen, and that his side would probably be beaten, Pagett rose to
look at his mount, a red, lathered Biloch mare, with a curious lyrelike
incurving of the ears. "Quite a little thoroughbred in all other
respects," said the M. P. , and Orde presented Mr. Reginald Burke, Manager
of the Siad and Sialkote Bank to his friend.
"Yes, she's as good as they make 'em, and she's all the female I possess
and spoiled in consequence, aren't you, old girl? " said Burke, patting
the mare's glossy neck as she backed and plunged.
"Mr. Pagett," said Orde, "has been asking me about the Congress. What is
your opinion? " Burke turned to the M. P. with a frank smile.
"Well, if it's all the same to you, sir, I should say, Damn the
Congress, but then I'm no politician, but only a business man. "
"You find it a tiresome subject? "
"Yes, it's all that, and worse than that, for this kind of agitation is
anything but wholesome for the country. "
"How do you mean? "
"It would be a long job to explain, and Sara here won't stand, but you
know how sensitive capital is, and how timid investors are. All this
sort of rot is likely to frighten them, and we can't afford to frighten
them. The passengers aboard an Ocean steamer don't feel reassured when
the ship's way is stopped, and they hear the workmen's hammers tinkering
at the engines down below. The old Ark's going on all right as she is,
and only wants quiet and room to move. Them's my sentiments, and those
of some other people who have to do with money and business. "
"Then you are a thick-and-thin supporter of the Government as it is. "
"Why, no! The Indian Government is much too timid with its money--like
an old maiden aunt of mine--always in a funk about her investments. They
don't spend half enough on railways for instance, and they are slow in
a general way, and ought to be made to sit up in all that concerns
the encouragement of private enterprise, and coaxing out into use the
millions of capital that lie dormant in the country. "
The mare was dancing with impatience, and Burke was evidently anxious to
be off, so the men wished him goodbye.
"Who is your genial friend who condemns both Congress and Government in
a breath? " asked Pagett, with an amused smile.
"Just now he is Reggie Burke, keener on polo than on anything else,
but if you go to the Sind and Sialkote Bank tomorrow you would find Mr.
Reginald Burke a very capable man of business, known and liked by an
immense constituency North and South of this. "
"Do you think he is right about the Government's want of enterprise? "
"I should hesitate to say.
They were sitting in the veranda of "the splendid palace of an Indian
Pro-Consul"; surrounded by all the glory and mystery of the immemorial
East. In plain English it was a one-storied, ten-roomed, whitewashed,
mud-roofed bungalow, set in a dry garden of dusty tamarisk trees and
divided from the road by a low mud wall. The green parrots screamed
overhead as they flew in battalions to the river for their morning
drink. Beyond the wall, clouds of fine dust showed where the cattle and
goats of the city were passing afield to graze. The remorseless white
light of the winter sunshine of Northern India lay upon everything and
improved nothing, from the whining Persian-wheel by the lawn-tennis
court to the long perspective of level road and the blue, domed tombs of
Mohammedan saints just visible above the trees.
"A Happy New Year," said Orde to his guest. "It's the first you've ever
spent out of England, isn't it? "
"Yes. 'Happy New Year," said Pagett, smiling at the sunshine. "What a
divine climate you have here! Just think of the brown cold fog hanging
over London now! " And he rubbed his hands.
It was more than twenty years since he had last seen Orde, his
schoolmate, and their paths in the world had divided early. The one
had quitted college to become a cog-wheel in the machinery of the great
Indian Government; the other more blessed with goods, had been whirled
into a similar position in the English scheme. Three successive
elections had not affected Pagett's position with a loyal constituency,
and he had grown insensibly to regard himself in some sort as a pillar
of the Empire, whose real worth would be known later on. After a few
years of conscientious attendance at many divisions, after newspaper
battles innumerable and the publication of interminable correspondence,
and more hasty oratory than in his calmer moments he cared to think
upon, it occurred to him, as it had occurred to many of his fellows in
Parliament, that a tour to India would enable him to sweep a larger lyre
and address himself to the problems of Imperial administration with a
firmer hand. Accepting, therefore, a general invitation extended to him
by Orde some years before, Pagett bad taken ship to Karachi, and only
overnight had been received with joy by the Deputy-Commissioner of
Amara. They had sat late, discussing the changes and chances of twenty
years, recalling the names of the dead, and weighing the futures of the
living, as is the custom of men meeting after intervals of action.
Next morning they smoked the after-breakfast pipe in the veranda, still
regarding each other curiously, Pagett, in a light grey frock-coat and
garments much too thin for the time of the year, and a puggried
sun-hat carefully and wonderfully made, Orde in a shooting coat, riding
breeches, brown cowhide boots with spurs, and a battered flax helmet. He
had ridden some miles in the early morning to inspect a doubtful river
dam. The men's faces differed as much as their attire. Orde's worn and
wrinkled around the eyes, and grizzled at the temples, was the harder
and more square of the two, and it was with something like envy that the
owner looked at the comfortable outlines of Pagett's blandly receptive
countenance, the clear skin, the untroubled eye, and the mobile,
clean-shaved lips.
"And this is India! " said Pagett for the twentieth time staring long and
intently at the grey feathering of the tamarisks.
"One portion of India only. It's very much like this for 300 miles
in every direction. By the way, now that you have rested a little--I
wouldn't ask the old question before--what d'you think of the country? "
"'Tis the most pervasive country that ever yet was seen. I acquired
several pounds of your country coming up from Karachi. The air is heavy
with it, and for miles and miles along that distressful eternity of rail
there's no horizon to show where air and earth separate. "
"Yes. It isn't easy to see truly or far in India. But you had a decent
passage out, hadn't you? "
"Very good on the whole. Your Anglo-Indian may be unsympathetic about
one's political views; but he has reduced ship life to a science. "
"The Anglo-Indian is a political orphan, and if he's wise he won't be
in a hurry to be adopted by your party grandmothers. But how were your
companions, unsympathetic? "
"Well, there was a man called Dawlishe, a judge somewhere in this
country it seems, and a capital partner at whist by the way, and when I
wanted to talk to him about the progress of India in a political sense
(Orde hid a grin, which might or might not have been sympathetic), the
National Congress movement, and other things in which, as a Member of
Parliament, I'm of course interested, he shifted the subject, and when I
once cornered him, he looked me calmly in the eye, and said: 'That's all
Tommy rot. Come and have a game at Bull. ' You may laugh; but that isn't
the way to treat a great and important question; and, knowing who I was,
well, I thought it rather rude, don't you know; and yet Dawlishe is a
thoroughly good fellow. "
"Yes; he's a friend of mine, and one of the straightest men I know. I
suppose, like many Anglo-Indians, he felt it was hopeless to give you
any just idea of any Indian question without the documents before you,
and in this case the documents you want are the country and the people. "
"Precisely. That was why I came straight to you, bringing an open mind
to bear on things. I'm anxious to know what popular feeling in India
is really like y'know, now that it has wakened into political life.
The National Congress, in spite of Dawlishe, must have caused great
excitement among the masses? "
"On the contrary, nothing could be more tranquil than the state of
popular feeling; and as to excitement, the people would as soon be
excited over the 'Rule of Three' as over the Congress. "
"Excuse me, Orde, but do you think you are a fair judge? Isn't the
official Anglo-Indian naturally jealous of any external influences
that might move the masses, and so much opposed to liberal ideas, truly
liberal ideas, that he can scarcely be expected to regard a popular
movement with fairness? "
"What did Dawlishe say about Tommy Rot? Think a moment, old man. You
and I were brought up together; taught by the same tutors, read the same
books, lived the same life, and new languages, and work among new
races; while you, more fortunate, remain at home. Why should I change
my mind--our mind--because I change my sky? Why should I and the
few hundred Englishmen in my service become unreasonable, prejudiced
fossils, while you and your newer friends alone remain bright and
open-minded? You surely don't fancy civilians are members of a Primrose
League? "
"Of course not, but the mere position of an English official gives him
a point of view which cannot but bias his mind on this question. " Pagett
moved his knee up and down a little uneasily as he spoke.
"That sounds plausible enough, but, like more plausible notions on
Indian matters, I believe it's a mistake. You'll find when you come to
consult the unofficial Briton that our fault, as a class--I speak of
the civilian now--is rather to magnify the progress that has been made
toward liberal institutions. It is of English origin, such as it is, and
the stress of our work since the Mutiny--only thirty years ago--has
been in that direction. No, I think you will get no fairer or more
dispassionate view of the Congress business than such men as I can give
you. But I may as well say at once that those who know most of India,
from the inside, are inclined to wonder at the noise our scarcely begun
experiment makes in England. "
"But surely the gathering together of Congress delegates is of itself a
new thing. "
"There's nothing new under the sun When Europe was a jungle half Asia
flocked to the canonical conferences of Buddhism; and for centuries the
people have gathered at Pun, Hurdwar, Trimbak, and Benares in immense
numbers. A great meeting, what you call a mass meeting, is really one of
the oldest and most popular of Indian institutions in this topsy-turvy
land, and though they have been employed in clerical work for
generations they have no practical knowledge of affairs. A ship's clerk
is a useful person, but he is scarcely the captain; and an orderly room
writer, however smart he may be, is not the colonel. You see, the writer
class in India has never till now aspired to anything like command. It
wasn't allowed to. The Indian gentleman, for thousands of years past,
has resembled Victor Hugo's noble:
"'Un vrai sire Chatelain Laisse ecrire Le vilain. Sa main digne Quand il
signe Egratigne Le velin. '
"And the little egratignures he most likes to make have been scored
pretty deeply by the sword. "
"But this is childish and mediaeval nonsense! "
"Precisely; and from your, or rather our, point of view the pen is
mightier than the sword. In this country it's otherwise. The fault
lies in our Indian balances, not yet adjusted to civilized weights and
measures. "
"Well, at all events, this literary class represent the natural
aspirations and wishes of the people at large, though it may not exactly
lead them, and, in spite of all you say, Orde, I defy you to find
a really sound English Radical who would not sympathize with those
aspirations. "
Pagett spoke with some warmth, and he had scarcely ceased when a
well-appointed dog-cart turned into the compound gates, and Orde
rose saying: "Here is Edwards, the Master of the Lodge I neglect so
diligently, come to talk about accounts, I suppose. "
As the vehicle drove up under the porch Pagett also rose, saying with
the trained effusion born of much practice: "But this is also my friend,
my old and valued friend Edwards. I'm delighted to see you. I knew you
were in India, but not exactly where. "
"Then it isn't accounts, Mr. Edwards," said Orde, cheerily.
"Why, no, sir; I heard Mr. Pagett was coming, and as our works were
closed for the New Year I thought I would drive over and see him. "
"A very happy thought. Mr. Edwards, you may not know, Orde, was a
leading member of our Radical Club at Switchton when I was beginning
political life, and I owe much to his exertions. There's no pleasure
like meeting an old friend, except, perhaps, making a new one. I
suppose, Mr. Edwards, you stick to the good old cause? "
"Well, you see, sir, things are different out here. There's precious
little one can find to say against the Government, which was the main of
our talk at home, and them that do say things are not the sort o' people
a man who respects himself would like to be mixed up with. There are no
politics, in a manner of speaking, in India. It's all work. "
"Surely you are mistaken, my good friend. Why I have come all the way
from England just to see the working of this great National movement. "
"I don't know where you're going to find the nation as moves to begin
with, and then you'll be hard put to it to find what they are moving
about. It's like this, sir," said Edwards, who had not quite relished
being called "my good friend. " "They haven't got any grievance--nothing
to hit with, don't you see, sir; and then there's not much to hit
against, because the Government is more like a kind of general
Providence, directing an old-established state of things, than that
at home, where there's something new thrown down for us to fight about
every three months. "
"You are probably, in your workshops, full of English mechanics, out of
the way of learning what the masses think. "
"I don't know so much about that. There are four of us English foremen,
and between seven and eight hundred native fitters, smiths, carpenters,
painters, and such like. "
"And they are full of the Congress, of course? "
"Never hear a word of it from year's end to year's end, and I speak the
talk too. But I wanted to ask how things are going on at home--old Tyler
and Brown and the rest? "
"We will speak of them presently, but your account of the indifference
of your men surprises me almost as much as your own. I fear you are a
backslider from the good old doctrine, Edwards. " Pagett spoke as one who
mourned the death of a near relative.
"Not a bit, Sir, but I should be if I took up with a parcel of baboos,
pleaders, and schoolboys, as never did a day's work in their lives, and
couldn't if they tried. And if you was to poll us English railway
men, mechanics, tradespeople, and the like of that all up and down the
country from Peshawur to Calcutta, you would find us mostly in a tale
together. And yet you'd know we're the same English you pay some respect
to at home at 'lection time, and we have the pull o' knowing something
about it. "
"This is very curious, but you will let me come and see you, and perhaps
you will kindly show me the railway works, and we will talk things over
at leisure. And about all old friends and old times," added Pagett,
detecting with quick insight a look of disappointment in the mechanic's
face.
Nodding briefly to Orde, Edwards mounted his dog-cart and drove off.
"It's very disappointing," said the Member to Orde, who, while his
friend discoursed with Edwards, had been looking over a bundle of
sketches drawn on grey paper in purple ink, brought to him by a
Chuprassee.
"Don't let it trouble you, old chap," 'said Orde, sympathetically. "Look
here a moment, here are some sketches by the man who made the carved
wood screen you admired so much in the dining-room, and wanted a copy
of, and the artist himself is here too. "
"A native? " said Pagett.
"Of course," was the reply, "Bishen Singh is his name, and he has two
brothers to help him. When there is an important job to do, the three go
into partnership, but they spend most of their time and all their money
in litigation over an inheritance, and I'm afraid they are getting
involved, Thoroughbred Sikhs of the old rock, obstinate, touchy,
bigoted, and cunning, but good men for all that. Here is Bishen
Singh--shall we ask him about the Congress? "
But Bishen Singh, who approached with a respectful salaam, had never
heard of it, and he listened with a puzzled face and obviously feigned
interest to Orde's account of its aims and objects, finally shaking his
vast white turban with great significance when he learned that it was
promoted by certain pleaders named by Orde, and by educated natives.
He began with labored respect to explain how he was a poor man with no
concern in such matters, which were all under the control of God, but
presently broke out of Urdu into familiar Punjabi, the mere sound of
which had a rustic smack of village smoke-reek and plough-tail, as
he denounced the wearers of white coats, the jugglers with words who
filched his field from him, the men whose backs were never bowed in
honest work; and poured ironical scorn on the Bengali. He and one of
his brothers had seen Calcutta, and being at work there had Bengali
carpenters given to them as assistants.
"Those carpenters! " said Bishen Singh. "Black apes were more efficient
workmates, and as for the Bengali babu--tchick! " The guttural click
needed no interpretation, but Orde translated the rest, while Pagett
gazed with interest at the wood-carver.
"He seems to have a most illiberal prejudice against the Bengali," said
the M. P.
"Yes, it's very sad that for ages outside Bengal there should be so
bitter a prejudice. Pride of race, which also means race-hatred, is the
plague and curse of India and it spreads far," Orde pointed with his
riding-whip to the large map of India on the veranda wall.
"See! I begin with the North," said he. "There's the Afghan, and, as
a highlander, he despises all the dwellers in Hindoostan--with the
exception of the Sikh, whom he hates as cordially as the Sikh hates him.
The Hindu loathes Sikh and Afghan, and the Rajput--that's a little lower
down across this yellow blot of desert--has a strong objection, to put
it mildly, to the Maratha who, by the way, poisonously hates the Afghan.
Let's go North a minute. The Sindhi hates everybody I've mentioned. Very
good, we'll take less warlike races. The cultivator of Northern India
domineers over the man in the next province, and the Behari of the
Northwest ridicules the Bengali. They are all at one on that point.
I'm giving you merely the roughest possible outlines of the facts, of
course. "
Bishen Singh, his clean cut nostrils still quivering, watched the large
sweep of the whip as it traveled from the frontier, through Sindh, the
Punjab and Rajputana, till it rested by the valley of the Jumna.
"Hate--eternal and inextinguishable hate," concluded Orde, flicking the
lash of the whip across the large map from East to West as he sat down.
"Remember Canning's advice to Lord Granville, 'Never write or speak of
Indian things without looking at a map. '"
Pagett opened his eyes, Orde resumed. "And the race-hatred is only a
part of it. What's really the matter with Bishen Singh is class-hatred,
which, unfortunately, is even more intense and more widely spread.
That's one of the little drawbacks of caste, which some of your recent
English writers find an impeccable system. "
The wood-carver was glad to be recalled to the business of his craft,
and his eyes shone as he received instructions for a carved wooden
doorway for Pagett, which he promised should be splendidly executed and
despatched to England in six months. It is an irrelevant detail, but in
spite of Orde's reminders, fourteen months elapsed before the work was
finished. Business over, Bishen Singh hung about, reluctant to take his
leave, and at last joining his hands and approaching Orde with bated
breath and whispering humbleness, said he had a petition to make. Orde's
face suddenly lost all trace of expression. "Speak on, Bishen Singh,"
said he, and the carver in a whining tone explained that his case
against his brothers was fixed for hearing before a native judge
and--here he dropped his voice still lower till he was summarily stopped
by Orde, who sternly pointed to the gate with an emphatic Begone!
Bishen Singh, showing but little sign of discomposure, salaamed
respectfully to the friends and departed.
Pagett looked inquiry; Orde, with complete recovery of his usual
urbanity, replied: "It's nothing, only the old story, he wants his case
to be tried by an English judge--they all do that--but when he began
to hint that the other side were in improper relations with the native
judge I had to shut him up. Gunga Ram, the man he wanted to make
insinuations about, may not be very bright; but he's as honest as
daylight on the bench. But that's just what one can't get a native to
believe. "
"Do you really mean to say these people prefer to have their cases tried
by English judges? "
"Why, certainly. "
Pagett drew a long breath. "I didn't know that before. " At this point a
phaeton entered the compound, and Orde rose with "Confound it, there's
old Rasul Ali Khan come to pay one of his tiresome duty calls. I'm
afraid we shall never get through our little Congress discussion. "
Pagett was an almost silent spectator of the grave formalities of
a visit paid by a punctilious old Mahommedan gentleman to an Indian
official; and was much impressed by the distinction of manner and fine
appearance of the Mohammedan landholder. When the exchange of polite
banalities came to a pause, he expressed a wish to learn the courtly
visitor's opinion of the National Congress.
Orde reluctantly interpreted, and with a smile which even Mohammedan
politeness could not save from bitter scorn, Rasul Ali Khan intimated
that he knew nothing about it and cared still less. It was a kind of
talk encouraged by the Government for some mysterious purpose of its
own, and for his own part he wondered and held his peace.
Pagett was far from satisfied with this, and wished to have the old
gentleman's opinion on the propriety of managing all Indian affairs on
the basis of an elective system.
Orde did his best to explain, but it was plain the visitor was bored
and bewildered. Frankly, he didn't think much of committees; they had
a Municipal Committee at Lahore and had elected a menial servant, an
orderly, as a member. He had been informed of this on good authority,
and after that, committees had ceased to interest him. But all was
according to the rule of Government, and, please God, it was all for the
best.
"What an old fossil it is! " cried Pagett, as Orde returned from seeing
his guest to the door; "just like some old blue-blooded hidalgo of
Spain. What does he really think of the Congress after all, and of the
elective system? "
"Hates it all like poison. When you are sure of a majority, election
is a fine system; but you can scarcely expect the Mahommedans, the most
masterful and powerful minority in the country, to contemplate their own
extinction with joy. The worst of it is that he and his co-religionists,
who are many, and the landed proprietors, also, of Hindu race, are
frightened and put out by this election business and by the importance
we have bestowed on lawyers, pleaders, writers, and the like, who have,
up to now, been in abject submission to them. They say little, but
after all they are the most important fagots in the great bundle of
communities, and all the glib bunkum in the world would not pay for
their estrangement. They have controlled the land. "
"But I am assured that experience of local self-government in your
municipalities has been most satisfactory, and when once the principle
is accepted in your centres, don't you know, it is bound to spread, and
these important--ah--people of yours would learn it like the rest. I see
no difficulty at all," and the smooth lips closed with the complacent
snap habitual to Pagett, M. P. , the "man of cheerful yesterdays and
confident tomorrows. "
Orde looked at him with a dreary smile.
"The privilege of election has been most reluctantly withdrawn from
scores of municipalities, others have had to be summarily suppressed,
and, outside the Presidency towns, the actual work done has been badly
performed. This is of less moment, perhaps--it only sends up the
local death-rates--than the fact that the public interest in municipal
elections, never very strong, has waned, and is waning, in spite of
careful nursing on the part of Government servants. "
"Can you explain this lack of interest? " said Pagett, putting aside the
rest of Orde's remarks.
"You may find a ward of the key in the fact that only one in every
thousand of our population can spell. Then they are infinitely more
interested in religion and caste questions than in any sort of politics.
When the business of mere existence is over, their minds are occupied by
a series of interests, pleasures, rituals, superstitions, and the like,
based on centuries of tradition and usage. You, perhaps, find it hard to
conceive of people absolutely devoid of curiosity, to whom the book, the
daily paper, and the printed speech are unknown, and you would describe
their life as blank. That's a profound mistake. You are in another
land, another century, down on the bed-rock of society, where the family
merely, and not the community, is all-important. The average Oriental
cannot be brought to look beyond his clan. His life, too, is more
complete and self-sufficing, and less sordid and low-thoughted than you
might imagine. It is bovine and slow in some respects, but it is never
empty.
You and I are inclined to put the cart before the horse, and to
forget that it is the man that is elemental, not the book. 'The corn and
the cattle are all my care, And the rest is the will of God. ' Why should
such folk look up from their immemorially appointed round of duty and
interests to meddle with the unknown and fuss with voting-papers. How
would you, atop of all your interests care to conduct even one-tenth
of your life according to the manners and customs of the Papuans, let's
say? That's what it comes to. "
"But if they won't take the trouble to vote, why do you anticipate that
Mohammedans, proprietors, and the rest would be crushed by majorities of
them? "
Again Pagett disregarded the closing sentence.
"Because, though the landholders would not move a finger on any purely
political question, they could be raised in dangerous excitement by
religious hatreds. Already the first note of this has been sounded by
the people who are trying to get up an agitation on the cow-killing
question, and every year there is trouble over the Mohammedan Muharrum
processions.
"But who looks after the popular rights, being thus unrepresented? "
"The Government of Her Majesty the Queen, Empress of India, in which, if
the Congress promoters are to be believed, the people have an implicit
trust; for the Congress circular, specially prepared for rustic
comprehension, says the movement is 'for the remission of tax,
the advancement of Hindustan, and the strengthening of the British
Government. ' This paper is headed in large letters-'MAY THE PROSPERITY
OF THE EMPIRE OF INDIA ENDURE. '"
"Really! " said Pagett, "that shows some cleverness. But there are
things better worth imitation in our English methods of--er--political
statement than this sort of amiable fraud. "
"Anyhow," resumed Orde, "you perceive that not a word is said about
elections and the elective principle, and the reticence of the Congress
promoters here shows they are wise in their generation. "
"But the elective principle must triumph in the end, and the little
difficulties you seem to anticipate would give way on the introduction
of a well-balanced scheme, capable of indefinite extension. "
"But is it possible to devise a scheme which, always assuming that
the people took any interest in it, without enormous expense, ruinous
dislocation of the administration and danger to the public peace, can
satisfy the aspirations of Mr. Hume and his following, and yet safeguard
the interests of the Mahommedans, the landed and wealthy classes, the
Conservative Hindus, the Eurasians, Parsees, Sikhs, Rajputs, native
Christians, domiciled Europeans and others, who are each important and
powerful in their way? "
Pagett's attention, however, was diverted to the gate, where a group of
cultivators stood in apparent hesitation.
"Here are the twelve Apostles, by Jove--come straight out of Raffaele's
cartoons," said the M. P. , with the fresh appreciation of a newcomer.
Orde, loth to be interrupted, turned impatiently toward the villagers,
and their leader, handing his long staff to one of his companions,
advanced to the house.
"It is old Jelbo, the Lumherdar, or head-man of Pind Sharkot, and a very
intelligent man for a villager. "
The Jat farmer had removed his shoes and stood smiling on the edge of
the veranda. His strongly marked features glowed with russet bronze, and
his bright eyes gleamed under deeply set brows, contracted by lifelong
exposure to sunshine. His beard and moustache streaked with grey swept
from bold cliffs of brow and cheek in the large sweeps one sees drawn
by Michael Angelo, and strands of long black hair mingled with the
irregularly piled wreaths and folds of his turban. The drapery of stout
blue cotton cloth thrown over his broad shoulders and girt round his
narrow loins, hung from his tall form in broadly sculptured folds,
and he would have made a superb model for an artist in search of a
patriarch.
Orde greeted him cordially, and after a polite pause the countryman
started off with a long story told with impressive earnestness. Orde
listened and smiled, interrupting the speaker at times to argue and
reason with him in a tone which Pagett could hear was kindly, and
finally checking the flux of words was about to dismiss him, when Pagett
suggested that he should be asked about the National Congress.
But Jelbo had never heard of it. He was a poor man and such things, by
the favor of his Honor, did not concern him.
"What's the matter with your big friend that he was so terribly in
earnest? " asked Pagett, when he had left.
"Nothing much. He wants the blood of the people in the next village, who
have had smallpox and cattle plague pretty badly, and by the help of
a wizard, a currier, and several pigs have passed it on to his own
village. 'Wants to know if they can't be run in for this awful crime.
It seems they made a dreadful charivari at the village boundary, threw a
quantity of spell-bearing objects over the border, a buffalo's skull and
other things; then branded a chamur--what you would call a currier--on
his hinder parts and drove him and a number of pigs over into Jelbo's
village. Jelbo says he can bring evidence to prove that the wizard
directing these proceedings, who is a Sansi, has been guilty of theft,
arson, cattle-killing, perjury and murder, but would prefer to have him
punished for bewitching them and inflicting smallpox. "
"And how on earth did you answer such a lunatic? "
"Lunatic! --the old fellow is as sane as you or I; and he has some ground
of complaint against those Sansis. I asked if he would like a native
superintendent of police with some men to make inquiries, but he
objected on the grounds the police were rather worse than smallpox and
criminal tribes put together. "
"Criminal tribes--er--I don't quite understand," said Pagett.
"We have in India many tribes of people who in the slack anti-British
days became robbers, in various kind, and preyed on the people. They are
being restrained and reclaimed little by little, and in time will become
useful citizens, but they still cherish hereditary traditions of
crime, and are a difficult lot to deal with. By the way what about the
political rights of these folk under your schemes? The country people
call them vermin, but I suppose they would be electors with the rest. "
"Nonsense--special provision would be made for them in a well-considered
electoral scheme, and they would doubtless be treated with fitting
severity," said Pagett, with a magisterial air.
"Severity, yes--but whether it would be fitting is doubtful. Even those
poor devils have rights, and, after all, they only practice what they
have been taught. "
"But criminals, Orde! "
"Yes, criminals with codes and rituals of crime, gods and godlings of
crime, and a hundred songs and sayings in praise of it. Puzzling, isn't
it? "
"It's simply dreadful. They ought to be put down at once. Are there many
of them? "
"Not more than about sixty thousand in this province, for many of the
tribes broadly described as criminal are really vagabond and criminal
only on occasion, while others are being settled and reclaimed. They are
of great antiquity, a legacy from the past, the golden, glorious
Aryan past of Max Muller, Birdwood and the rest of your spindrift
philosophers. "
An orderly brought a card to Orde, who took it with a movement of
irritation at the interruption, and banded it to Pagett; a large card
with a ruled border in red ink, and in the centre in schoolboy copper
plate, Mr. Dma Nath. "Give salaam," said the civilian, and there
entered in haste a slender youth, clad in a closely fitting coat of grey
homespun, tight trousers, patent-leather shoes, and a small black velvet
cap. His thin cheek twitched, and his eyes wandered restlessly, for the
young man was evidently nervous and uncomfortable, though striving to
assume a free and easy air.
"Your honor may perhaps remember me," he said in English, and Orde
scanned him keenly.
"I know your face somehow. You belonged to the Shershah district I
think, when I was in charge there? "
"Yes, Sir, my father is writer at Shershah, and your honor gave me a
prize when I was first in the Middle School examination five years ago.
Since then I have prosecuted my studies, and I am now second year's
student in the Mission College--"
"Of course: you are Kedar Nath's son--the boy who said he liked
geography better than play or sugar cakes, and I didn't believe you. How
is your father getting on? "
"He is well, and he sends his salaam, but his circumstances are
depressed, and he also is down on his luck. "
"You learn English idioms at the Mission College, it seems. "
"Yes, sir, they are the best idioms, and my father ordered me to ask
your honor to say a word for him to the present incumbent of your
honor's shoes, the latchet of which he is not worthy to open, and who
knows not Joseph; for things are different at Shershah now, and my
father wants promotion. "
"Your father is a good man, and I will do what I can for him. "
At this point a telegram was handed to Orde, who, after glancing at it,
said he must leave his young friend whom he introduced to Pagett, "a
member of the English House of Commons who wishes to learn about India. "
Orde had scarcely retired with his telegram when Pagett began:
"Perhaps you can tell me something of the National Congress movement? "
"Sir, it is the greatest movement of modern times, and one in which all
educated men like us must join. All our students are for the Congress. "
"Excepting, I suppose, Mahommedans, and the Christians? " said Pagett,
quick to use his recent instruction.
"These are some mere exceptions to the universal rule. "
"But the people outside the College, the working classes, the
agriculturists; your father and mother, for instance. "
"My mother," said the young man, with a visible effort to bring
himself to pronounce the word, "has no ideas, and my father is not
agriculturist, nor working class; he is of the Kayeth caste; but he had
not the advantage of a collegiate education, and he does not know
much of the Congress. It is a movement for the educated
young-man"--connecting adjective and noun in a sort of vocal hyphen.
"Ah, yes," said Pagett, feeling he was a little off the rails, "and what
are the benefits you expect to gain by it? "
"Oh, sir, everything. England owes its greatness to Parliamentary
institutions, and we should at once gain the same high position in
scale of nations. Sir, we wish to have the sciences, the arts, the
manufactures, the industrial factories, with steam engines, and other
motive powers and public meetings, and debates. Already we have a
debating club in connection with the college, and elect a Mr. Speaker.
Sir, the progress must come. You also are a Member of Parliament and
worship the great Lord Ripon," said the youth, breathlessly, and his
black eyes flashed as he finished his commaless sentences.
"Well," said Pagett, drily, "it has not yet occurred to me to worship
his Lordship, although I believe he is a very worthy man, and I am not
sure that England owes quite all the things you name to the House of
Commons. You see, my young friend, the growth of a nation like ours
is slow, subject to many influences, and if you have read your history
aright"--
"Sir. I know it all--all! Norman Conquest, Magna Charta, Runnymede,
Reformation, Tudors, Stuarts, Mr. Milton and Mr. Burke, and I have
read something of Mr. Herbert Spencer and Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall,'
Reynolds' 'Mysteries of the Court,' and"--
Pagett felt like one who had pulled the string of a shower-bath
unawares, and hastened to stop the torrent with a question as to what
particular grievances of the people of India the attention of an elected
assembly should be first directed. But young Mr. Dma Nath was slow to
particularize. There were many, very many demanding consideration. Mr.
Pagett would like to hear of one or two typical examples. The Repeal of
the Arms Act was at last named, and the student learned for the first
time that a license was necessary before an Englishman could carry a
gun in England. Then natives of India ought to be allowed to become
Volunteer Riflemen if they chose, and the absolute equality of the
Oriental with his European fellow-subject in civil status should be
proclaimed on principle, and the Indian Army should be considerably
reduced. The student was not, however, prepared with answers to Mr.
Pagett's mildest questions on these points, and he returned to vague
generalities, leaving the M. P. so much impressed with the crudity of
his views that he was glad on Orde's return to say goodbye to his "very
interesting" young friend.
"What do you think of young India? " asked Orde.
"Curious, very curious--and callow. "
"And yet," the civilian replied, "one can scarcely help sympathizing
with him for his mere youth's sake. The young orators of the Oxford
Union arrived at the same conclusions and showed doubtless just the
same enthusiasm. If there were any political analogy between India and
England, if the thousand races of this Empire were one, if there were
any chance even of their learning to speak one language, if, in short,
India were a Utopia of the debating-room, and not a real land, this
kind of talk might be worth listening to, but it is all based on false
analogy and ignorance of the facts. "
"But he is a native and knows the facts. "
"He is a sort of English schoolboy, but married three years, and the
father of two weaklings, and knows less than most English schoolboys.
You saw all he is and knows, and such ideas as he has acquired are
directly hostile to the most cherished convictions of the vast majority
of the people. "
"But what does he mean by saying he is a student of a mission college?
Is he a Christian? "
"He meant just what he said, and he is not a Christian, nor ever will
he be. Good people in America, Scotland and England, most of whom would
never dream of collegiate education for their own sons, are pinching
themselves to bestow it in pure waste on Indian youths. Their scheme
is an oblique, subterranean attack on heathenism; the theory being that
with the jam of secular education, leading to a University degree, the
pill of moral or religious instruction may he coaxed down the heathen
gullet. "
"But does it succeed; do they make converts? "
"They make no converts, for the subtle Oriental swallows the jam and
rejects the pill; but the mere example of the sober, righteous, and
godly lives of the principals and professors who are most excellent and
devoted men, must have a certain moral value. Yet, as Lord Lansdowne
pointed out the other day, the market is dangerously overstocked
with graduates of our Universities who look for employment in the
administration. An immense number are employed, but year by year the
college mills grind out increasing lists of youths foredoomed to
failure and disappointment, and meanwhile, trades, manufactures, and the
industrial arts are neglected, and in fact regarded with contempt by our
new literary mandarins in posse. "
"But our young friend said he wanted steam-engines and factories," said
Pagett.
"Yes, he would like to direct such concerns. He wants to begin at the
top, for manual labor is held to be discreditable, and he would never
defile his hands by the apprenticeship which the architects, engineers,
and manufacturers of England cheerfully undergo; and he would be aghast
to learn that the leading names of industrial enterprise in England
belonged a generation or two since, or now belong, to men who wrought
with their own hands. And, though he talks glibly of manufacturers, he
refuses to see that the Indian manufacturer of the future will be the
despised workman of the present. It was proposed, for example, a few
weeks ago, that a certain municipality in this province should establish
an elementary technical school for the sons of workmen. The stress of
the opposition to the plan came from a pleader who owed all he had to a
college education bestowed on him gratis by Government and missions.
You would have fancied some fine old crusted Tory squire of the last
generation was speaking. 'These people,' he said, 'want no education,
for they learn their trades from their fathers, and to teach a workman's
son the elements of mathematics and physical science would give him
ideas above his business. They must be kept in their place, and it was
idle to imagine that there was any science in wood or iron work. ' And he
carried his point. But the Indian workman will rise in the social scale
in spite of the new literary caste. "
"In England we have scarcely begun to realize that there is an
industrial class in this country, yet, I suppose, the example of men,
like Edwards for instance, must tell," said Pagett, thoughtfully.
"That you shouldn't know much about it is natural enough, for there are
but few sources of information. India in this, as in other respects, is
like a badly kept ledger--not written up to date. And men like Edwards
are, in reality, missionaries, who by precept and example are teaching
more lessons than they know. Only a few, however, of their crowds of
subordinates seem to care to try to emulate them, and aim at individual
advancement; the rest drop into the ancient Indian caste groove. "
"How do you mean? " asked Pagett.
"Well, it is found that the new railway and factory workmen, the fitter,
the smith, the engine-driver, and the rest are already forming separate
hereditary castes. You may notice this down at Jamalpur in Bengal,
one of the oldest railway centres; and at other places, and in other
industries, they are following the same inexorable Indian law. "
"Which means? " queried Pagett.
"It means that the rooted habit of the people is to gather in small
self-contained, self-sufficing family groups with no thought or care for
any interests but their own--a habit which is scarcely compatible with
the right acceptation of the elective principle. "
"Yet you must admit, Orde, that though our young friend was not able to
expound the faith that is in him, your Indian army is too big. "
"Not nearly big enough for its main purpose. And, as a side issue, there
are certain powerful minorities of fighting folk whose interests an
Asiatic Government is bound to consider. Arms is as much a means of
livelihood as civil employ under Government and law. And it would be
a heavy strain on British bayonets to hold down Sikhs, Jats, Bilochis,
Rohillas, Rajputs, Bhils, Dogras, Pathans, and Gurkhas to abide by the
decisions of a numerical majority opposed to their interests. Leave the
'numerical majority' to itself without the British bayonets--a flock of
sheep might as reasonably hope to manage a troop of collies. "
"This complaint about excessive growth of the army is akin to another
contention of the Congress party. They protest against the malversation
of the whole of the moneys raised by additional taxes as a Famine
Insurance Fund to other purposes. You must be aware that this special
Famine Fund has all been spent on frontier roads and defences and
strategic railway schemes as a protection against Russia. "
"But there was never a special famine fund raised by special taxation
and put by as in a box. No sane administrator would dream of such
a thing. In a time of prosperity a finance minister, rejoicing in
a margin, proposed to annually apply a million and a half to the
construction of railways and canals for the protection of districts
liable to scarcity, and to the reduction of the annual loans for public
works. But times were not always prosperous, and the finance minister
had to choose whether he would bang up the insurance scheme for a year
or impose fresh taxation. When a farmer hasn't got the little surplus
he hoped to have for buying a new wagon and draining a low-lying field
corner, you don't accuse him of malversation, if he spends what he has
on the necessary work of the rest of his farm. "
A clatter of hoofs was heard, and Orde looked up with vexation, but his
brow cleared as a horseman halted under the porch.
"Hello, Orde! just looked in to ask if you are coming to polo on
Tuesday: we want you badly to help to crumple up the Krab Bokhar team. "
Orde explained that he had to go out into the District, and while the
visitor complained that though good men wouldn't play, duffers were
always keen, and that his side would probably be beaten, Pagett rose to
look at his mount, a red, lathered Biloch mare, with a curious lyrelike
incurving of the ears. "Quite a little thoroughbred in all other
respects," said the M. P. , and Orde presented Mr. Reginald Burke, Manager
of the Siad and Sialkote Bank to his friend.
"Yes, she's as good as they make 'em, and she's all the female I possess
and spoiled in consequence, aren't you, old girl? " said Burke, patting
the mare's glossy neck as she backed and plunged.
"Mr. Pagett," said Orde, "has been asking me about the Congress. What is
your opinion? " Burke turned to the M. P. with a frank smile.
"Well, if it's all the same to you, sir, I should say, Damn the
Congress, but then I'm no politician, but only a business man. "
"You find it a tiresome subject? "
"Yes, it's all that, and worse than that, for this kind of agitation is
anything but wholesome for the country. "
"How do you mean? "
"It would be a long job to explain, and Sara here won't stand, but you
know how sensitive capital is, and how timid investors are. All this
sort of rot is likely to frighten them, and we can't afford to frighten
them. The passengers aboard an Ocean steamer don't feel reassured when
the ship's way is stopped, and they hear the workmen's hammers tinkering
at the engines down below. The old Ark's going on all right as she is,
and only wants quiet and room to move. Them's my sentiments, and those
of some other people who have to do with money and business. "
"Then you are a thick-and-thin supporter of the Government as it is. "
"Why, no! The Indian Government is much too timid with its money--like
an old maiden aunt of mine--always in a funk about her investments. They
don't spend half enough on railways for instance, and they are slow in
a general way, and ought to be made to sit up in all that concerns
the encouragement of private enterprise, and coaxing out into use the
millions of capital that lie dormant in the country. "
The mare was dancing with impatience, and Burke was evidently anxious to
be off, so the men wished him goodbye.
"Who is your genial friend who condemns both Congress and Government in
a breath? " asked Pagett, with an amused smile.
"Just now he is Reggie Burke, keener on polo than on anything else,
but if you go to the Sind and Sialkote Bank tomorrow you would find Mr.
Reginald Burke a very capable man of business, known and liked by an
immense constituency North and South of this. "
"Do you think he is right about the Government's want of enterprise? "
"I should hesitate to say.
