I HAVE not yet mentioned the one matter of all the grievous matters that came under his observation in India, about which Mr. Batcham was particularly grieved. So bitterly, so loudly, and so persistently did he grieve about this, that one might almost have thought he came out for the purpose, absurd as it may seem. I cannot do better than describe it in Mr. Batcham’s own terms as “the grinding of the faces of the poor, through our culpable neglect in failing to provide India with the humane limitations of a Factories Act.” For years past English labour had been thus happily conditioned, and who could measure the benefit to the toiling millions on whose behalf the law had been made! It was incalculable. As a matter of fact the only result of its operation, which could be computed with accuracy, was to be found in the out-turn of the mills. There Mr. Batcham knew to a yard how valuable the Factories Act was to the operatives; but this was not a view of the question upon which he dwelt much in India. While he was with us indeed all practical considerations were swallowed up, for Mr. Batcham, in the contemplation of the profundity of our iniquity in allowing the factories of this country pretty much to manage their own affairs. He did not even permit himself to consider that the enormous product of Indian looms, together with the cheapness of the cost of production, was having a prejudicial effect upon the market. He certainly never mentioned it. His business was with the poor, the down-trodden, the victims of the rapacity of the capitalist, as much among her Majesty’s subjects on India’s coral strand as in the crowded tenements of Manchester or Birmingham. His duty towards these unfortunates was plain, and heaven forbid that he should think of anything but his duty!

And so Mr. Batcham lamented high and low over the woes of the unprotected factory “hand” in India. He began his lament as soon as ever he was informed—though he knew it before—that protection did not exist; on the face of it, oppression must then be rampant. He himself was in the trade, he knew the temptations of the capitalist, and he would not go so far as to say that, if a wise and just law did not prevent him, the exigencies of the market would never lead him to be—inconsiderate—toward his employÉs. Reflect then upon the result of almost unlimited power in the hands of the Indian manufacturer!

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.

“The statement of them—precisely, yes. Young Mitter has had all facilities for observing the oppression in the factories, and I have no doubt it made a deep impression upon his excellent heart. He speaks English also fairly well. I will send him to you.”

“I should like very much to see Mr. Mitter,” Mr. Batcham remarked. “Mitter, you said?”

“It will not be necessary to remember his name. Call him ‘Baboo’; he will answer to plain ‘Baboo.’ I am sure he will remember well about the oppressions.”

“I should be even better pleased,” said Mr. Batcham, “if he brought two or three of the oppressed with him.”

“I think he could also do that,” replied Mr. Banerjee without hesitation.

Then Mr. Banerjee went away and explained Mr. Batcham’s difficulty to Ambica Nath Mitter. Considering how discreetly Mr. Banerjee explained it, the sympathetic perception shown by Ambica Nath Mitter was extraordinary. It might possibly be explained by the fact that they both spoke Hindustani. At all events, Mr. Banerjee dismissed the young man of the excellent heart with the comfortable feeling that Mr. Batcham’s difficulty would be solved quite inexpensively.

Two days after, Ambica presented himself at the residence of the Brownes, accredited to Mr. Batcham by Mr. Debendra Lal Banerjee. Mr. Browne had gone to office, Mrs. Browne had gone to shop. Mr. Batcham, ruddy and expansive in the thinnest of flannels, occupied a large portion of the small veranda alone. The time was most fortuitous, and Mr. Batcham received Mr. Banerjee’s labour with an agreeable sense of freedom for the most searching investigations. Having well breakfasted, digested the morning paper, and fully smoked moreover, Mr. Batcham was in the mood for the most heartrending revelations.

Ambica was a prepossessing young man, Mr. Batcham thought. His lustrous long black hair was brushed smoothly back from a forehead that insisted on its guilelessness. His soft brown eyes were timid but trustful, and his ambient tissues spread themselves over features of the most engagingly aquiline character. He was just at the anti-protuberant stage of baboo-dom, there was no offence in his fatness. He wore spotless muslin draperies dependent from either shoulder, and his pen behind his ear. In his rear were three others much like himself, but less savoury, less lubricated, less comfortable in appearance. They impressed one as less virtuous too, but this was purely the result of adversity.

Mr. Batcham began by asking “Mr. Mitter” to sit down, which Mr. Mitter did with alacrity. Never in his life had Mr. Mitter been asked to sit down by a sahib before. Then Mr. Batcham took out his note-book and pencil, and said impressively to Mr. Mitter that above all things these men must understand that they were to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth with regard to the matters upon which he was about to question them. Then he questioned them.

Perhaps it is unnecessary to go into Mr. Batcham’s questions. They were put with the fluency and precision of a man of business. Ambica Nath Mitter understood them perfectly, and explained them admirably. They elicited exactly what Mr. Batcham wanted to know. His fat, red hand trembled with avidity as he set down fact after fact of the most “painful” description—or possibly it was agitated by an indignation which Mr. Batcham doubtless could not wholly suppress. And, indeed, the recital of the wrongs which these three miserable men had suffered under the cruel hand of the tyrannical sirdar,^[85] and the indifferent eye of the callous sahib, would have moved an even less susceptible heart than that of a British manufacturer in the same line of business. One had been beaten with stripes—he showed Mr. Batcham the weal on his shoulder, and Mr. Batcham touched it, for the sake of the dramatic effect of saying so afterwards. Another had been compelled to work four hours a day overtime for a week without a pice of extra pay; the third had humbly begged for a day’s leave to attend the burning of his grandmother, and when he returned had been abruptly and unjustly dismissed—the sahib had said he wished to see his face no more. It was useless to complain; the factory sahibs would cut their wages, and the other sahibs did not care. They were all poor men; they could not buy the law. At this point Mr. Batcham grew quite feverish. He unbuttoned his shirt-collar, and interspersed his notes with interjection-points. “This is better,” he said to himself—“I mean worse, than I expected.” The interview took a long time—quite three-quarters of an hour—but Mr. Batcham was distinctly of the opinion that it had not been misspent. And when Mr. Batcham closed his note-book, and said to Mr. Mitter that this was a very sad state of things, but that would do for the present, his three down-trodden Indian fellow-subjects knelt weeping and kissed the uppers of Mr. Batcham’s broad British boots, invoking the secular blessings of heaven upon this “protector of the poor.” Mr. Batcham had to shuffle his feet under his chair so suddenly that he nearly dislocated one of his knees. “Don’t!” said he, “pray don’t, not on any account!” And he raised them with his own hands, very nearly mingled his tears with theirs, and immediately afterwards made a most dramatic note of it.

Mr. Batcham had not breakfasted the next morning in fact, he was looking at his watch and wondering why the Brownes were always so confoundedly late with their meals when his bearer came up and inquired whether the sahib would see again the three “admi”^[86] he had seen the day before, they waited below in the compound. Breakfast was still ten minutes off, and Mr. Batcham said he would go down. He went down, received the men with affability, and learned through his English-speaking bearer that they had been the victims of great injustice at the hands of Ambica Nath Mitter. This one, it seemed, had persuaded them to come to the sahib and leave work for the day on the promise not only of paying them their day’s wages, but of making the matter right with the sirdar at the factory. Instead of which, he had paid them only half a day’s wages, and when they returned that morning they found themselves dismissed. Therefore, knowing the heart of the sahib that it was full of mercy, they had come to cast themselves at his feet. They were all poor men, a very little would satisfy them—two rupees each perhaps.

“That’s six rupees!” said Mr. Batcham seriously, “two rupees each would keep you for nearly a month in idleness. You can get employment much sooner than that.” Mr. Batcham knitted his philanthropic brow. “I’ll see you after breakfast,” he said, as the kitmutgar came to announce it.

The question of his duty in the matter of the six rupees so agitated Mr. Batcham that he consulted young Browne about it at the breakfast-table, and that is the reason why it is I, and not Mr. Batcham, who recount his experience with Ambica Nath Mitter to the public. Young Browne heard his guest politely and sympathetically through before he ventured to express an opinion. Even then he deferred it. “I’ll have a look at your factory-wallahs,” said young Browne. Presently he sent the bearer for them, who came up with two. The other, he said, had been taken with a sudden indisposition and had gone away.

Young Browne put up his eye-glass—he sometimes wore an eye-glass, it was the purest affectation—and looked at the victims of British oppression in India as they stood with their hands behind them in acute discomfort, twining and untwining their dusty toes. As he looked, a smile appeared under the eye-glass, which gradually broadened and broadened until it knocked the eye-glass out, and young Browne laughed until the tears came into his eyes. “It’s too good!” said young Browne brokenly. “It’s too good!” and laughed again until Mr. Batcham’s annoyance became serious and obvious and it was necessary to explain.

“I don’t know what these men may have learned incidentally about jute,” said he wiping his eyes, “but that’s not their occupation, Mr. Batcham, I—I happen to know their faces. They’re both umidwallahs in Watson and Selwyn’s, indigo people, next door to our place.”

“Dear me, are you sure?” asked Mr. Batcham with a judicial contraction of his eyebrows. “What is an umidwallah?”

“Umid means hope—a man of hope. They come and ask to work in the office as a favour, and don’t get any pay, expecting to be taken on in case of a vacancy. These scoundrels have been in Watson and Selwyn’s for the last year. I venture to state they’ve never been inside a jute mill in their lives.”

“Tumera kam, k’on hai?”^[87] asked young Browne mockingly of one baboo.

The baboo cast down his eyes nervously and said, “Wasson Sewwin company kapas, sahib,”^[88] and the other to the same question made the same answer. They were crushed and sorrowing baboos suffering under a cruel blow of fate. Why should it have been granted to only one of them to conclude to be indisposed at the right moment?

I am afraid the savage Anglo-Indian instinct arose in young Browne and caused him to tease those baboos a little that morning. It was very wrong of him doubtless, and then it led to the destruction of a number of Mr. Batcham’s most interesting notes, which is another regrettable fact. But the only person who really suffered was Ambica Nath Mitter. Mr. Batcham, of course, thought it his duty to inform Mr. Debendra Lal Banerjee of the whole unfortunate affair, and Mr. Debendra Lal Banerjee, in a white heat of indignation, which lasted several days, dismissed Ambica.

“How could I repose further trust in a man like that!” said Mr. Banerjee to Mr. Batcham. Besides, privately, Mr. Banerjee thought Ambica grasping. Mr. Banerjee had entirely intended that out of the five rupees Ambica received from him, the “factory-wallahs” should be paid in full.