Mr. Clutterbuck's Election

by Hilaire Belloc

For many centuries the ruby mines of Anapootra had been worked as the property of that native State. And when the administration of the valley was taken over by Great Britain the exploitation of the mines very naturally followed. From April 1 of the year 1905 they had become, along with certain other possessions of the State, a portion of the public domain.

The traditional methods by which their wealth had hitherto been exploited were wholly insufficient. A community of some hundreds of natives, working upon a complex, co-operative system, living in a miserable state of poverty and degradation, had paid, from immemorial time, a fixed percentage of their output to their Sovereign; and the humanitarian faddism of Sir Charles Finchley—whose appointment was one of the few mistakes of Lord Curzon's viceroyalty—had permitted this system to endure during the first few years of our occupation. But it was obvious that so primitive an arrangement could not endure. In 1910 there was but one question before the new Lieutenant-Governor; whether it would be more profitable to establish a direct exploitation of these mines by the Crown, or to concede that exploitation for a term of years to some company which, under expert advice and with long experience of the business, might secure a higher profit to the State. It was only after deep thought and the full consideration of every detail, that the Lieutenant-Governor decided upon the latter course and signed a concession to a private company for a term of fifteen years.

He further determined—and it was the act of a strong man—to avoid the disadvantages of public competition with its accompaniment of ill-informed and often unpatriotic criticism, of questions in the House of Commons, and of all the paraphernalia of ignorance and cant.

He made the concession boldly to a company of his own choice, and though he was not particularly concerned with the persons involved so long as the company itself was in his opinion honest and efficient, he was none the less delighted to learn that so great a financier as the Duke of Battersea had guaranteed its position and security—nay, was himself, in his capacity of the Anglo-Moravian Bank, the principal shareholder in the new venture.

It is ill work excusing any man so talented and honest, so devoted to the public service, as the late Lieutenant-Governor of Anapootra, but the criticism to which he has been subjected makes that task necessary, however painful.

The concession signed was, upon the face of it, just such a document as political puritans at home, ignorant as they are of local conditions, would pounce upon in their desire to vent their ill-informed suspicion of their own countrymen. The rent to be paid by the company was but a quarter of that originally paid by the native workers, and less than a tenth of that which official estimates of the yield under modern methods had contemplated. Moreover, no rent was to be paid before 1915, the fourth year of the concession, and there were to be rebates in case the company should come upon weak pockets or the supply should fall below a certain level in the interval for which the concession was granted. Those of my readers who are acquainted with the details of finance will at once perceive that these advantages were no more than what was necessary to tempt a private venture and the risk of private capital. But if any not acquainted with large financial operations should have lingering doubts, it is enough to add that the Lieutenant-Governor of Anapootra had been so scrupulously careful of the public interest as to resign his post and to terminate a great pro-consular career in order to accept the directorship of the new company where he could overlook its action and check its contributions to the exchequer. He was determined that no sacrifice upon his part should be spared in his zeal for the public fortune.

He did more: he persuaded the chief Government expert upon the mines to throw up his secure place, the prospect of his pension—everything, and to take at a somewhat increased salary the position of Consulting Engineer to the new Company.

He did yet more. He, a man suffering from a grave internal disease,[8] underwent, in the height of the hot season, the long journey to England in order to impress upon the Secretary of State[9] the prime importance of secrecy. He risked what was dearer than life to him—his very honour—for a venture which would ensure riches to England, and would bring enlightenment and modern progress to one far forgotten corner of the Indian world.

In a word, he left nothing undone which a sensitive and scrupulous gentleman should do to preserve the interests of his country, and in all this action he sought no fame, he permitted not a word to appear in the public Press; he went so far—it was quixotic upon his part—as to deny all rumours until the plan was complete. And though the fame of the Anapootra Valley has since widely increased through the lucrative operations of the new company, and the wide dispersion of its shares among the public, its former Lieutenant-Governor has to this day successfully prevented his name from being connected with the history of that great new asset in our commercial system.

Other nations have public servants perhaps better trained in a technical sense than are ours, but no nation can boast a body of men who will thus obscurely and without reward sacrifice themselves wholly in the public service and be content to remain unknown.