Part 21

An orderly brought a card to Orde, who took it with a movement of irritation at the interruption, and handed it to Pagett: a large card with a ruled border in red ink, and in the centre in school-boy copper-plate, _Mr. Dina Nath_. “Give salaam,” said the civilian, and there entered in haste a slender youth, clad in a closely fitting coat of gray 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 honour 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 honour 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 honour to say a word for him to the present incumbent of your honour’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. Dina Nath was slow to particularise. 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 good-bye 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 sympathising 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 be 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 trade, 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 labour 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 realise 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 hang 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 waggon 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 lyre-like 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 Sind 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 good-bye.

“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 went to the Sind and Sialkote Bank to-morrow 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. Better consult the merchants and chambers of commerce in Cawnpore, Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta. But though these bodies would like, as Reggie puts it, to make Government sit up, it is an elementary consideration in governing a country like India, which must be administered for the benefit of the people at large, that the counsels of those who resort to it for the sake of making money should be judiciously weighed and not allowed to overpower the rest. They are welcome guests here, as a matter of course, but it has been found best to restrain their influence. Thus the rights of plantation labourers, factory operatives, and the like, have been protected, and the capitalist, eager to get on, has not always regarded Government action with favour. It is quite conceivable that under an elective system the commercial communities of the great towns might find means to secure majorities on labour questions and on financial matters.”

“They would act at least with intelligence and consideration.”

“Intelligence, yes; but as to consideration, who at the present moment most bitterly resents the tender solicitude of Lancashire for the welfare and protection of the Indian factory operative? English and native capitalists running cotton mills and factories.”

“But is the solicitude of Lancashire in this matter entirely disinterested?”

“It is no business of mine to say. I merely indicate an example of how a powerful commercial interest might hamper a Government intent in the first place on the larger interests of humanity.”

Orde broke off to listen a moment. “There’s Dr. Lathrop talking to my wife in the drawing-room,” said he.

“Surely not; that’s a lady’s voice, and if my ears don’t deceive me, an American.”

“Exactly; Dr. Eva McCreery Lathrop, chief of the new Women’s Hospital here, and a very good fellow forbye. Good morning, Doctor,” he said, as a graceful figure came out on the verandah; “you seem to be in trouble. I hope Mrs. Orde was able to help you.”

“Your wife is real kind and good; I always come to her when I’m in a fix, but I fear it’s more than comforting I want.”

“You work too hard and wear yourself out,” said Orde, kindly. “Let me introduce my friend, Mr. Pagett, just fresh from home, and anxious to learn his India. You could tell him something of that more important half of which a mere man knows so little.”

“Perhaps I could if I’d any heart to do it, but I’m in trouble, I’ve lost a case, a case that was doing well, through nothing in the world but inattention on the part of a nurse I had begun to trust. And when I spoke only a small piece of my mind she collapsed in a whining heap on the floor. It is hopeless!”

The men were silent, for the blue eyes of the lady doctor were dim. Recovering herself, she looked up with a smile half sad, half humorous. “And I am in a whining heap too; but what phase of Indian life are you particularly interested in, sir?”

“Mr. Pagett intends to study the political aspect of things and the possibility of bestowing electoral institutions on the people.”

“Wouldn’t it be as much to the purpose to bestow point-lace collars on them? They need many things more urgently than votes. Why, it’s like giving a bread-pill for a broken leg.”

“Er—I don’t quite follow,” said Pagett uneasily.

“Well, what’s the matter with this country is not in the least political, but an all-round entanglement of physical, social, and moral evils and corruptions, all more or less due to the unnatural treatment of women. You can’t gather figs from thistles, and so long as the system of infant marriage, the prohibition of the remarriage of widows, the lifelong imprisonment of wives and mothers in a worse than penal confinement, and the withholding from them of any kind of education or treatment as rational beings continues, the country can’t advance a step. Half of it is morally dead, and worse than dead, and that’s just the half from which we have a right to look for the best impulses. It’s right here where the trouble is, and not in any political considerations whatsoever.”

“But do they marry so early?” said Pagett, vaguely.

“The average age is seven, but thousands are married still earlier. One result is that girls of twelve and thirteen have to bear the burden of wifehood and motherhood, and, as might be expected, the rate of mortality both for mothers and children is terrible. Pauperism, domestic unhappiness, and a low state of health are only a few of the consequences of this. Then, when, as frequently happens, the boy-husband dies prematurely, his widow is condemned to worse than death. She may not re-marry, must live a secluded and despised life, a life so unnatural that she sometimes prefers suicide; more often she goes astray. You don’t know in England what such words as ‘infant-marriage, baby-wife, girl-mother, and virgin-widow’ mean; but they mean unspeakable horrors here.”

“Well, but the advanced political party here will surely make it their business to advocate social reforms as well as political ones,” said Pagett.

“Very surely they will do no such thing,” said the lady doctor, emphatically. “I _wish_ I could make you understand. Why, even of the funds devoted to the Marchioness of Dufferin’s organisation for medical aid to the women of India, it was said in print and in speech that they would be better spent on more college scholarships for men. And in all the advanced parties’ talk—God forgive them—and in all their programmes, they carefully avoid all such subjects. They will talk about the protection of the cow, for that’s an ancient superstition—they can all understand that; but the protection of the women is a new and dangerous idea.” She turned to Pagett impulsively:

“You are a member of the English Parliament. Can you do nothing? The foundations of their life are rotten—utterly and bestially rotten. I could tell your wife things that I couldn’t tell you. I know the life—the inner life that belongs to the native, and I know nothing else; and, believe me, you might as well try to grow golden-rod in a mushroom-pit as to make anything of a people that are born and reared as these—these things are. The men talk of their rights and privileges. I have seen the women that bear these very men, and again—may God forgive the men!”

Pagett’s eyes opened with a large wonder. Dr. Lathrop rose tempestuously.

“I must be off to lecture,” said she, “and I’m sorry that I can’t show you my hospitals; but you had better believe, sir, that it’s more necessary for India than all the elections in creation.”

“That’s a woman with a mission, and no mistake,” said Pagett, after a pause.

“Yes; she believes in her work, and so do I,” said Orde. “I’ve a notion that in the end it will be found that the most helpful work done for India in this generation was wrought by Lady Dufferin in drawing attention—what work that was, by the way, even with her husband’s great name to back it!—to the needs of women here. In effect, native habits and beliefs are an organised conspiracy against the laws of health and happy life—but there is some dawning of hope now.”

“How d’you account for the general indifference, then?”

“I suppose it’s due in part to their fatalism and their utter indifference to all human suffering. How much do you imagine the great province of the Punjab, with over twenty million people and half a score rich towns, has contributed to the maintenance of civil dispensaries last year? About seven thousand rupees.”

“That’s seven hundred pounds,” said Pagett quickly.

“I wish it was,” replied Orde; “but anyway, it’s an absurdly inadequate sum, and shows one of the blank sides of Oriental character.”

Pagett was silent for a long time. The question of direct and personal pain did not lie within his researches. He preferred to discuss the weightier matters of the law, and contented himself with murmuring: “They’ll do better later on.” Then, with a rush, returning to his first thought:

“But, my dear Orde, if it’s merely a class movement of a local and temporary character, how d’you account for Bradlaugh, who is at least a man of sense, taking it up?”