—ASSAM PLANTERS
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Your issue of June nth contained a letter from the pen of Mr. Mulk Raj Anand under the title of " Two leaves and a bud." Your next issue of June 18th contained no letter from anyone of the hundreds of people in England, retired planters or anyone else who do know Assam and its tea plantations, informing your readers of the untruth of the statements made and as. I feel they cannot be allowed to remain unrhAllenged, I am writing these lines for which I trust you will find room in your paper.
As regards the first paragraph I would emphasise there is no virtual slavery in Assam. Whatever were the conditions thirty to forty years ago these may be wiped off the slate. The times have changed so completely that to suggest there is the slightest suggestion of slavery or anything approaching slavery, existing in Assam now is pure myth.
The next paragraph goes ont to say " the recommendation of the Royal (Whitly) Commission on Indian Labour, inspired by the evidence of the ghastly conditions prevailing in Assam. (issued long after 1925)," &c., &c., Neither before nor at the same time as, nor since the Whitley Commission have ghastly conditions been prevailing in Assam.
The writer went home in the same ship as Mr. Whitley after the completion of his work as chairman of the Labour Com- mission. Quite by chance Mr. and Mrs. Whitley on one occasion came and sat opposite myself during the afternoon tea hour. Mr. Whitley not knowing who I was conversed with me, and discovered that I was an Assam tea planter. He then and there, without any solicitation from myself, gave _the Assam Planting Community remarkably high praise for the manner in which the labour on, the gardens was looked after, and said that he had no fault to find with the European- managed estates which it has been his lot to visit. Mr. Whitley is dead and so cannot be referred to. Nevertheless the above statement is a fact. Mr. Rees' estimate that the labour forces are " exploited, starved, cheated, dirty, diseased " can come only from one who knows nothing of the true facts. The statement is untrue. The coolies are neither exploited nor starved nor cheated,.nor are they dirty, except the dirty ones who will be dirty anywhere. The diseased are put into hospital and looked after by both European and Indian medical officers. The so-called complacent directors are quite capable of exposing the untruths contained in the letter referred to.
Assam is not a distant land, far off the beaten track. Twenty- four hours railway journey from Calcutta takes a traveller into the centre of Assam. The labourers may get up and go away if they do not like it. There is nothing to prevent them. They practically all have savings which they send home. They could buy tickets and go if their lot was so undesirable.—I am, Sir,
yours faithfully, L. J. Gomm. Mona. barie T, E., Mijikojan P.O., Assam.
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