A PROBLEM OF EMPIRE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 108, 8 May 1909, Page 13

A PROBLEM OF EMPIRE.

The prevailing note of Calcutta ib a smell— and «a very strong smell (writes Robert L. Jefferson, F.R.G.S., in the Manchester Chronicle). It is called the Indian smell, and the like of it is met in no other part of the world. I am acquainted with the Russian smell, the Chinese smell, and the Egyptian smell; they are distinct types of smells, and not really unpleasant when one gets used to them. The Calcutta smell is, however, very pungent, very penetrating, and prevails everywhere. A congested Bengali population, with a fondness for coconut oil, is the main causa of it. Calcutta smells like bad seaweed. Calcutta at the present time is not a pleasant place to dwell in. Apart from its climate — which the white residents call infernal-— the attitude of the Bengali towards the white folk is not nearly so nice as it used to be. Once upon a time the Bengali was suave, polite, obsequious.. But tilings are different now. A few years ago the Indian Government said that the black man was quite as good as the white man, and woe betide the white who dared to lay a finger on the black mini. And the Bengali accepted the dictum with great unction. Once upon a time hi salaamed the Sahib — now ho endeavours to hunch him off the pavement. He will deliberately squirt the red juice of the betelnut on the white dresses of the mem-sahibs, and grin joyously at the exploit. On the Maidan. he will hold his Swandeshi meetings, denounce the iniquities of the British Raj, and importune his countrymen to boycott British goods. If native goods' cannot be obtained in. substitution, then German goods, or anybody's goods, rather than British, should be bought. In the bazaar, hard by the teeming Harrison-road, the contempt and hatred of the British is openly expressed. Sedition, in talk and in written pamphlet, is the inspiriting daily brain feast of the young Bengali, be he babu or coolie. In these circumstances Calcutta, the capital of the Indian Empire, and residential city of the Viceroy of the Emperor, is not exactly an abode of joy. Latterly a few heads have been broken, and a few of the most belligerent of the agitators have been locked up. One or two attempts have been made to assassinate officials of the ruling race, bombs have been thrown, and armed demonstrations organised. Seditious newspapers have been seized by the authorities, and examples made ot their editors, but if tho truth be known, we are no nearer to the pacific settlement of the Bengali trouble than we were when Lord Curzon. divided the Presidency into two separate provinces. Out of the season Calcutta is very hot, very humid, and a notorious feverspot. Only those Europeans who cannot afford' to go to the hills, or those whose businesses compel them fouremain, are to be found in its steamy confines. In the season Calcutta is tolerable if one will only not work hard, and will take life with Oriental philosophy and calmness. If one happens to be in the vice-regal circle one can, I believe, have a very god time, and even those who are rigidly kept outside that charmed circle — and I refer to the merchants, or those who are engaged in commerce of any sort — -manage to exist fairly comfortably. Comprising a mere handful of whites, when compared with the native population, the Europeans naturally hang closely together, but while, in the bulk, ■ so British and so thoroughly united by the common bond of race, cliqueism of a most virulent type permeates all classes. Thus we find the British residents divided up into several separate and distinct phases cf society. Tho merchant class is by itself ; the Civil Service, the military, and the court all possess distinct and rigid barriers of demarcation. No merchant can hope to cross the threshold of the military or Civil Service clubs. The merchant, on the other hand, will not tolerate the_ piesence of a Civi) servant in his. It' is only in relation to the native that all are of a common thought and of united attitude — .and that thought and attitude nre grimly, tolerant and firmly masterful. In hundreds of small and petty ways the tension between Bengali and British is daily shown. With such a scanty European population, the bulk of the executive work of the city is necessarily performed by natives. The hotel may have only one, or, at the most, two, Europeans — the manager and his assistant — the rest of the staff is native. In the offices of the merchants only the very heads of the establishment are European. In every department of activity, the European is merely administrative, the native* is executive. Thus it has come abour- that the prevailing unrest has eaten into the former loyalty of the native servant, and in place of the obedience and almost slavish deference which once existed, there is now indifference, sullenness, and often open disobedience. In the course of a long stay in the capital of India, I saw a good deal of the merchant class, and everywhere the complaint was the same. The Bengali babu had lost all his former alacrity, and all his loyal adherence to the wishes of his Sahib. To believe the word of the Bengali of to-day is to court disaster. The Oriental dislike of the vuromantic truth is exploited 1.0 the f.:ll. To mislead and deceive, no matter in how petty a manner, is considered _ a triumph of Bengali latter-day jnannfcis. Your body-servant deceives you ; the shopkeeper deceives you;' the cabdriver, the policeman, the peon, the porter, and the veiy hotel clerk — all seem combined to make your way difficult and your life one of constant worry, [f you ask for letters at your hotel, you are informed that none have arrived, although they may stare you in the face from the rack behind the balm's head. The policeman will direct you wrongly ; the driver of the tikka gharri will drive anywhere but in the right direction, and then grinningly inform you he has misunderstood. As an example of this most extraordinary attitude on the part of the native, the following instance is worth recording. I received through the agency of the Post Office a cablegram from England, asking me to reply immediately to a former telegram. I had received no such wire, and hastened to the offices of the shipping agency through which my code wires should come. "Have you any telegrams for me?" I asked the>',babu. "We have received no telegrams for the Bahib." "Do you Know my name?" "We know not the sahib's name." "Then how do you know you have received no telegrams for me?" "Because we have received no telegrams for the s'lhib." I demandoc' ?t ceo the European managpr. This %•<*.?& man informed me a telegram had be'ii received for me two days previously, and had been sent to my hotel, where the babu fiad informed the peon that I had left for Rangoon a week ago. I then received my wire. On the streets of Calcutta, the sleek Bengali, his brown skin and black hair glistening with coconltt oil, his teeth and lips slobbering red with betel nut juice, swings gaily along, oftentimes hand in hand with companions, and makes no attempt to give the European passage. lie may push and hustle, but j tho whita man must cither prt out into ' the roadway, or stand the rubk of being

mulcted in a heavy fine for daring to assault a Bengali — and the interpretation of an assault in Calcutta is a touch. This is no fanatical picture. It is a f At. The "liberty and equality" which have been given to our "black brother" has unfortunately been misunderstood and misinterpreted. Like most Orientals, he has mistaken kindness for weakness ; and this Uengali, than whom none in all India should b» more grateful for British protection, seems bent on biting the hand which has fed him.