'MAKES ONE PROUD AND THANKFUL'

357

observance and faculties for reasoning of one of the flowers of modern culture-as an Oxford Tutor to-day surely is.

·

'A Government, local as well as central, exact, firm, yet responsive to a touch, and absolutely devoted to the good of the people.' 'Absolutely,' again; absolutely unselfish,' 'absolutely devoted to the good of the people.' What good can such extravagant and meaningless eulogy be supposed to do? Concede at once that the Indian Government, from the highest to the lowest, wish well to the Indian people. I assert that most heartily. That does not prevent them permitting famine-stricken people from dying like flies,' does not prevent a cholera visitation in a famine camp from producing worse horrors than a battlefield, does not improve the position of those Indian fellow-Christians of Mr. Hutton's who in Southern India (which he did not visit) are thankful if they can get food once in two days. The nonsense of this sentence is beyond all description' responsive to a touch.' Ask Mr. H. J. S. Cotton, the Commissioner of Assam, what kind of response he found to the touch of mercy wherewith he wished to heal certain suffering Tea Estate coolies.

'Is one which makes one proud and thankful for the British rule.' Mr. Hutton, in saying this, speaks as an Englishman, not as an Indian. What would he say if, in the England he adorns, the Russians had been supreme for one hundred and fifty years, and in all that time not a single Englishman had been allowed to enter the Cabinet, that no popular representation existed, that no Englishman, even if he were in the public service, however great his merits, could rise to the high positions for which his fellows were eligible, that the material condition of his countrymen was year by year growing worse while their intellectual manhood was denied avenues for expansion, that famines became more frequent, that in Oxfordshire in 1901 the population, through famine and other ills, was only half what it ought to be in such case would he have agreed with a Russian University Tutor and Fellow, even if the gentleman were a Curator of the English Institute, who declared that the condition of England was 'one which makes one proud and thankful for the Russian rule?'

Why is it that the 'Mr. Huttons' of England, when visiting India, become the greatest enemies to the Indian people, and constitute the most serious peril to the regaining of the prosperity of India? This is why. Having visited India, though it be for seven weeks only, they are regarded as authorities. I have seen. I ought to know.' This is conceded to them by all who read their writings or who hear their observations; and while such indiscriminate eulogy is uttered, such 'absolute' perfection of rule is described, based on a visit-not to India, but, as I have said elsewhere, on a visit to British Colonies in India, millions die every year of starvation, and the tribute paid to England by the starving people grows greater year by year, the door to the highest employment is barred more and more strongly; but those who suffer are only Indians,' those who testify are our own

priests and prophets. That settles the accuracy of the observations. If Mr. Hutton could but realise the terrible harm he has done by such inconsiderate writing founded on such shallow knowledge, if he could realise that he is making hungry people hungrier still, half-clothed people less clothed, is choking and checking the lawful and loyal ambition of the people of India to serve their own country, I cannot but think that he would be the most miserable of men, and would lose no time in looking at the other side of the shield than on that which has hypnotised him. For he does not want to hurt India. Yet he is wounding her with every word he has written.

As my final word to-day on this subject let me add some lines of poetry which reached me two or three days before I saw Mr. Hutton's 'impressions.' If the writer-a kinsman of my own-had seen Mr. Hutton's concluding remarks—(he had not)—he could not have more aptly answered them than he does throughout these lines :

From night behind to night ahead, no man but runs a weary race,
And if we bitter seem and hard, would you be milder in our place?
Would your strong spirits stand aside, and pray God's will be done
If each slow beat of time that passed did mark the death-cry of a son?
'A son of man who might have lived and known the joys of life,
Lies rotting in the open field, slain in a cruel strife-
A cruel strife with naked hands against the powers three:
The alien Raj, the ceaseless tax, and hopeless misery.

'Now he has fallen by the way, but when the famine lifts

And weak and wan his folk come home, loaded with precious gifts
Of bodies broken by disease, with listless step and slow,
Then will the Raj claim measure full of the tax the dead did owe.
'But you are not of our people, and when you watch them die
Your sorrow is deep, but it passes, while still the people die.
There is home and your full-fed kinsmen the half of the world away,
So you shut your eyes to the horror; you grieve a bit and you pray.
'But you draw your wage unstinted. You stand in the way of men,
You raise your arms to the heavens, and you write with a facile pen
That you are the salt of nations (but the tax on the salt is hard!),
That the gods came down from heaven to bless your perfect guard,

'That the people cannot rule themselves, that you can do it well,
That you have made fair paradise of what would else be hell.
Hell for whom? And heaven for whom? Is that your picture true?
Was the ryot worse in ages past than he is now with you?

'Is it heaven for that poor bundle there, who is too weak to walk?
Is it heaven for these vast plains of men too spiritless to talk?
Is it paradise for womenfolk to watch their children dead,
And hear no more the plaintive voice that cried in vain for bread?

'Is it heaven, O angels God-elect? Is it heaven, or is it hell?

IS IT HEAVEN, O ANGELS GOD-ELECT?'

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The publication of the above led to the interchange of the following notes. The Rev. W. H. Hutton wrote:

'I confess I think you strain my words. I do not think that payment for work necessarily (as you seem to imply) prevents a worker from being "absolutely unselfish" in his work. He is paid, in this case (is he not ?) independently of the spirit in which he carries out his duties; and I confess it seemed to me that the Indian Civil servants did their work in an entirely unselfish way.

'And I am inclined to think that you would have conveyed a truer impression of my article if you had quoted the words I used as the limits of my knowledge-"I hope that no one will think that I attach any importance to my impressions' or regard them as necessarily either accurate or permanent."

'Your letter does seem to me to suggest that I regard myself as an authority. "Sure, haven't I seen, and sure I ought to know." I am sure I should never use such an expression as is suggested--" Those who suffer are only Indians."

'But I am sure you do not mean to use my words unfairly, and I thank you for your courtesy. I confess I think the words I used, taken in their context, are justifiable.'

The response was in these terms :-

'I thank you for your note of yesterday's date, and, in reply thereto, have to state that I think it is only due to you that I should make clear the limitations which you point out with respect to the "Impressions" you record. It was farthest from my thought to strain your words in any sense, and in making use of the expression, "Sure, haven't I seen, and sure, I ought to know," I did not so much mean it to apply to you yourself as that, for example, if I were in conversation with one who had read your "Impressions" and I were to put to him a contrary view he would be justified in saying "Mr. Hutton has been to India, he states what he has seen, and I am content with his observations." It is because those observations while, in a sense correct, are also in a sense incorrect, because they leave the impression on the mind of the reader that all's well in India, whereas the now frequent famines indicate all is very far from well, and it is only as the need for the amelioration of the sad and painful condition of things is recognised that the motive power can be found to bring about that amelioration-it is only in this sense, and in no other, that have written concerning your most interesting and, in one sense, valuable impressions in the manner you mention.

'I will make my reference this week either as though it were spontaneous or as coming from you in the way of a mild and friendly protest, as you may think best.'

Mr. Hutton's rejoinder was:—

'Thank you very much for your kind letter. I think it would be quite enough to quote the qualifying words I used about all my impressions; but you would be quite justified in adding that I should not alter what I have written, though I think your use of the words strains their meaning. I must adhere to the view that unselfish work is possible to men who receive pay.'

From London Correspondence in the Amrita Bazar Patrika (Calcutta) and The Hindu (Madras).

CHAPTER X

THE CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE OF THE NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES AND OUDH

Wherein Lord Curzon as Viceroy Differs from his Predecessors.

His Excellency's Estimate of Crop and Cattle Loss in the

1900 Famine.

The Baring-Barbour Inquiry of 1881-82: What has been
Done Since.

What the Agricultural Income was in 1900: A Series of
Calculations.

An Annual Loss of, at least, £40,000,000 in the Agricultural
Income, of £66,000,000 on Agricultural and Non-
Agricultural Income Combined.

An Average Present Income of £1 5s. 1d. against £1 16s. in
1881.

Is there So Great a Loss? or, Was the 1881 Income Over

rated?

Lord Curzon's Reply to Above:

(1) The Happiness and Prosperity of the Helpless
Millions.

(2) Is India Becoming Poorer ?

(3) The Poverty of the Cultivator.

(4) Concluding Words.

The Untrustworthiness of Official Figures: Numerous
Instances of a Shocking Character.

Famine-stricken Bombay declared to show an Average
Increase of 128 lbs. per acre Food Crops, and Madras
98 lbs. !

The Real Yield not Two-thirds of the Estimated Yield.
In Many Parts of the Empire Famine Never Absent.
The Lessons from the North-Western Provinces and Oudh.
Full Details concerning Cultivation and Yield, Cultivators
and their Condition: Low Value Yields Everywhere
-8s. Per Acre Being Very Common.

Seventeen Hundred and Forty Acres Which Yield their
Cultivators 5s. 54d. per Head per Annum.

In all Ordinary Years (says the Collector of Etawah the
Cultivators Live for Four Months on Advances.