One hundred years ago
WE have received three or four letters complaining that we have not noticed Lord Salisbury's blunder at Edinburgh in calling Mr Dadabhai Nourojee a 'black' man. It is not our business to report speeches, and we avoided com- ment deliberately, holding it the duty of every publicist to minimise, not ex- aggerate, an accidental expression like- ly to offend distant subjects of the Empire. That, however, is clearly not the opinion of Liberals, who are doing the Empire all the injury they can in order to injure Mr Gladstone's rival. Lord Salisbury was clearly in the wrong in not keeping guard over his lips, for though natives of India always describe themselves as black — kala admi — they are not black, but only dark; and they so instinctively feel the superiority of whiteness, that to be called black affronts them. They do not even like uncoloured photographs, because in them they come out so nearly black. Mr Nourojee, as a Parsee, is an Asiatic and a Fire-worshipper, and therefore not likely to be the most acceptable candi- date in a London district; but he is no darker in complexion than many Ita- lians, or, indeed, many Englishmen.
The Spectator, 15 December 1888
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