Mr. Jasper realized that the question was inane, but his eagerness was great to draw the man before him into conversation. There was a distinguished look in the man’s face which promised much. He proved by no means disinclined to talk; indeed, seemed urged by a strange zeal for conversation that night, as one who has been in prison, or somewhere long and far from his kind.
“I came here, not out of vulgar curiosity, but striving to understand,” Mr. Jasper said.
“And how do you like our great brown Mother India?”
“She does not feed her children.”
“That is true. Mother India must come back to the table of the world and learn how things are served by the younger peoples—the sharper-eyed, quicker-handed peoples. You have heard the story, no doubt, that India had once great and profitable industries. Her commercial systems were founded upon mutual service, not upon competition. Then the East India company and England came. ‘Mother India, you are quite absurd,’ said England, and she took away all the mutual benefit industries, and reorganized them again in the true English way. ‘We shall show you how, Mother India,’ she said. India must have been inept, because England never gave them back.”
Both men were smiling. “Then you think India famines are the result of British rule?” the man from Syracuse observed.
“If I told you that, it would be right for me to explain why I think so. That would take some time, and the night is very hot.”
“I came to Rydamphur to learn the truth. Somehow, I believe I shall succeed—if you will tell me what you can, sir.” The stranger’s eyes brightened.
“Discussing the matter seriously, it is well to begin with Macaulay’s sentence. ‘The heaviest of all yokes is the yoke of a stranger.’”
“You are not an Englishman?” Mr. Jasper asked.