Letters to the Editor
[In that The which we view of the length of many of the leltcrs which we receive, we would again remind correspondents we often cannot give space for long letters and that short ones are generally read with more attention.
length consider most suitable is about that of one of our paragraphs on " News of the Week."—Ed. SPECTATOR.] THE COLOUR BAR [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sin,—Some thirteen years ago two thousand British soldiers had come alive through those terrible marches from Kut, on which thousands of their comrades had perished—as tens of thousands of unhappy Armenians had perished—at the hands of their pitiless Turkish captors and " drovers." These two thousand eventually reached Smyrna, where they were received by the British head of the American College into its capacious buildings. Among these strangers was a number of Indian officers ; doctors, I think, chiefly. Some of these, together with a few English non-corns. and privates came and had tea with us in our chaplaincy house. The Indians to whom I talked spoke in the highest terms of the British Government, but they complained somewhat bitterly of the social aloofness of British commissioned officers. There was no colour bar apparent on the side of the non-commissioned officers and men. Things have markedly changed from the days when sometimes aristocratic British officers brought home Indian Begums whom they had married. The colour bar has indeed become less surmountable since that time. My wife and daughters waited on these Indian guests, but they would never have allowed their wives and daughters to be introduced to an Englishman. The insults (not intentional), social ostracism, and contempt shown by Indians to men of British birth they may excuse on grounds of obedience to their religion : the only answer to whiCh is that of Lucretius : Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum." But none the less, their own action deprives them of any ground for complaint of an aloofness which is small indeed compared with their Croydon. (formerly Chaplain at Smyrna, Turkey).
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