THE CHURCH ASSEMBLY AND OVERSEAS SETTLEMENT
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—May I express the hope that if the Church Assembly, which meets this week, takes up the question of Overseas Settlement it will deal with that matter as it affects English people in India ?
Each year that I was in India the domiciled English and Anglo-Indians of the Punjab elected me as their President, and as their President I had to look into their problems pretty carefully. Many became domiciled for the purpose of working under the English Government in India. They got better pay than they might have got if they returned in England, whilst Government found it cheaper getting men on the spot than to get men specially out from England. When they reached the age of fifty-five they in many cases, when able to do so, returned to England.
There was, however, not the same need for them to return to England in the old days, as their boys brought up in India had many openings in Government service. But when the Reform Scheme was introduced it was undesirable for them any longer to remain in a domiciled position. I had to do with scores of young men who had no desire to remain in that domiciled position. Government, whilst agreeing that it would be best for them to get out of India, did not help them to do so, and that led to this result :- Young Englishmen, imperfectly educated, because England took so little interest in their education, are struggling with Indians in small subordinate posts to earn their bread and butter—they not wanting to remain in India and Indians not wanting to have their competition. I have spoken on this subject to about 100,000 people in England during the last year or two, because I am anxious that it should be realized that until England understands her countrymen in India racial friction is likely to continue.
With regard to colonization, young Englishmen in India have shown much interest in that subject, but when they approached the Dominion authorities for financial help, they, whilst sympathetic to them in their difficulties, had to tell them that they were not able to help them financially. They may next apply to the French, or the Germans, or the Russians, and England may gain the reputation of being an absent- minded nation which, whilst much given to helping other countries, has lost the capacity of attending to her own duties. Perhaps the Church Assembly will take this matter up and save England from the discredit of leaving her countrymen stranded in India to become derelicts in an Eastern land.—!
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