The Simple Adventures of a Memsahib

by Sara Jeannette Duncan

This being Mr. Batcham’s pronounced opinion, even before he gave his personal attention to the subject of Indian manufactures, his investigations naturally had the effect of heightening it—one might say they were undertaken with that object. They did not heighten it, however, as satisfactorily or as definitely as Mr. Batcham could have wished. After inspecting a cotton factory in Bombay, a woollen factory in Cawnpore, a jute factory in Calcutta, he found that the notes left too much to the imagination; and it would be useless to appeal to the imagination of the House; the House was utterly devoid of it. True, he had seen hundreds of operatives working in miserable nakedness under the unpitying eye of a Eurasian overseer; but then it was certainly very warm, and the overseer had not been sufficiently considerate to kick any of them in Mr. Batcham’s presence. They certainly began early and worked late, but then they ate and slumbered in the middle of the day, chewing betel for casual delectation the rest of the time. Something might possibly be done with that if he were careful to avoid dwelling upon the siesta, and he would be sorry to lay stress upon any trifling amelioration in the condition of these poor wretches. Mr. Batcham pondered long upon the betel-nut, but saw no salvation there. If it could be proved that these miserable beings were compelled to resort to an injurious stimulant to keep their flagging energies up to the incredible amount of labour required of them—and Mr. Batcham had no doubt whatever that this was the case—it might be useful to cite the betel-nut, but there seemed to be a difficulty about proving it. The only tangible deplorable fact that Mr. Batcham had to go upon, was that the pay of a full-grown operative, not a woman or a child, but a man, was represented by the shockingly incredible sum of eight annas—eightpence!—a day! When he heard this Mr. Batcham thought of the colossal wages paid to factory hands in England and shuddered. He was so completely occupied in shuddering over this instance of the rapacity of the Indian manufacturer, that the statement of what it cost the same operative to live according to the immemorial custom of his people—about five shillings a month—entirely escaped his observation. In the stress of his emotion Mr. Batcham failed to notice one or two other facts that would have tended to alleviate it, the fact that a factory operative is paid twice as much as a domestic servant and three times as much as a cooly, though the cost of life weighs no more heavily upon him than upon them. The fact that he often works only two or three months of the year at gunny-bags, and spends the rest of his time in the more leisurely and congenial scratching of his fields, and above all, the fact that in India the enterprises of the foreigner accommodate themselves—not of philanthropy but of necessity—to the customs of the country. It is not the service of the sahib, with his few thousand personal establishments, his few hundred plantations and shops, his few dozen factory chimneys rising along the Hooghly, tainting the sea breeze of Bombay, that can revolutionise their way of life for two hundred and fifty million people with whom custom is religion and religion is more than rice. But Mr. Batcham had no heart to be comforted by such trivialities. He made emotional notes, dwelt upon the “eight anna daily pittance,” and felt a still more poignant private grief that there was no cause for louder sorrow.

At first Mr. Debendra Lal Banerjee was inclined to assure his honourable friend that there was not the slightest need for any beneficent interference with the condition of his humble compatriots, to praise but to deprecate Mr. Batcham’s enthusiasm in the matter, and to point out that the only true and lasting elevation of her Majesty’s most loyal subjects in India must be brought about through that much maligned and little understood body, the Indian Congress. But it was a very, very short time indeed before Mr. Debendra Lal Banerjee found himself in full union with the noble aims of this British benefactor. He had only to learn—and he learned very quickly—that his sympathy would be appreciated, to bestow it with all the gushing fulness of which the Bengali soul is capable, and Mr. Debendra Lal Banerjee’s sympathy was invaluable to Mr. Batcham. It disclosed points of weakness in the Indian factory system that would otherwise have escaped his observation to this day, and suggested interpretations which no simple-minded Briton would have thought of alone. And it divined Mr. Batcham’s dissatisfaction that he could not be more dissatisfied with remarkable accuracy.

In taking measures—Bengali measures—to secure the sympathy of the travelling British M. P. with the grand progressive movement of Bengali patriotism, it is highly advisable to discover as soon as possible whether he has any little “movement” of his own in contemplation which might receive a slight impetus with advantage. It is then generally possible to combine the two, to arrange reciprocal favours, to induce the globe-trotting potentate to take “broader views.” Mr. Debendra Lal Banerjee put the whole of his time, and a vocabulary which no English dictionary could improve, at Mr. Batcham’s disposal, to convince him that this factory grievance was one of the first which the Indian Congress would press upon the ear of the Raj, once it had an official right to make suggestions to that honourable organ. Although Mr. Banerjee quite agreed with Mr. Batcham that it would be inadvisable to wait until that happened, he would like Mr. Batcham to understand how close the interests of the British manufacturer lay to the bosom of the Indian Congress—though of course Mr. Banerjee designated them as the wrongs of the native operatives. In the meantime, however, his honourable friend was naturally restless, naturally desired to lend his own helping hand to the cause he had at heart. Mr. Banerjee was overcome by the sublimity of Mr. Batcham’s devotion, and suggested a little evidence acquired personally. If it were possible for Mr. Batcham to converse with any of these unfortunate people!

“It’s the terrible disadvantage of not knowing the language!” responded Mr. Batcham, in a tone which suggested that the language ought to be supplied to Members of Parliament. “I have conversed with ’em through another man, but it was very unsatisfactory. Couldn’t get anything definite. The fact is, Mr. Banerjee, the other man was an Anglo-Indian, and I’ve no doubt the poor wretches suffered from a sort of unconscious intimidation!”

Mr. Banerjee shook his head. The head had a black silk hat on it, and shook as impressively as it might have done in Lombard street or Westminster. “I fear,” said Mr. Banerjee, “that it is unhappily but too probable.” Then he raised his eyebrows in a sadly submissive way, took out his pocket handkerchief and used it in a manner which suggested—very respectfully—a general deprecation of Anglo-Indians. Mr. Banerjee must have used it, I think, for this purpose. I doubt whether he is even yet sufficiently deteriorated by our civilisation to take out his handkerchief seriously.

“Above all things,” added Mr. Banerjee, thrusting his fat hand into the breast of his tightly-buttoned frock coat, and wrapping himself up in the situation, “above all things it is indispensable that your evidence shall be unbiased in every particular. There is no doubt, I deplore to tell you, that here in India the poor and the needy amongst us will sometimes be wrongly influenced by the fear of being deprived of the staff of life. I have even known cases where, under unjust and reprehensible intimidation, perjury”—Mr. Banerjee’s tone suggested, “I hardly expected you to believe it!”—“has been committed!”

“Dear me, I dare say,” said Mr. Batcham, “that happens everywhere.”

But Mr. Banerjee had more than sentimental reflections upon the moral turpitude of his fellow Aryans to contribute to the difficulty of his honourable friend. He had given his honourable friend’s difficulty the very fullest attention. He had chased it through the most private labyrinth of his mind, where he had come into sudden and violent contact with Ambica Nath Mitter. And in the joyful shock of collision with Ambica Nath Mitter, Debendra Lal Banerjee had said to himself, “Why didn’t I think of him before?”

“There is a very intelligent young man in my office,” said Mr. Banerjee, “who was formerly employed as clerk in a jute mill here. I think he would most willingly obtain for you any grievances you may require.” Mr. Banerjee spoke absent-mindedly, reflecting upon the qualifications of Ambica for the task.

“The statement of them,” corrected Mr. Batcham.