India, Past and Present
The India We Served. By Sir Walter R. Lawrence. With an Allahabad. Rs. 2.).
India in 1926-27. By J. Coatman. (Calcutta : Government of India Central Publication Branch. Rs. 2 or 3s. 13d.) *BEN Sir Walter Lawrence first went to India as a civil servant in 1879, old-fashioned Anglo-Indians—to use the term
in the former sense of Englishmen who made their home in India and not in the new official sense of Eurasians—were already saying that the day of the sahib was ended and that no young British civil servant could ever know from personal experience what the great times were like. Yet the present writer was talking only the other day to a young civil servaiit, borne on leave from India, who said that. Sir Walter Lavireffee himself belonged to the great times. The truth is that the great times are always ending, but never will end, for not only in India but in every country and in every relation of life there is always, room for the sahib. His influence is immeasurable and is independent of time and place. • Of course a British civil servant cannot now administer a district in quite the old paternal way, but if he is a sahib with all the qualities of character and manner that go to the making of a. sahib, if he is the " real thing " and not an imitation, he will find that there is no lack of opportunities even now for Lawrences, whether their name is John, Henry, or Walter.
Sir Walter says that this book would not have been written
but fOr the persistent exhortations of Mr. Rudyard Kipling. It would be graceless, then, not to direct our thanks to Mr. Kipling is well as to Sir Walter, for between them they have given us a great ,plensure. Sir Walter's geniality, his compre- hensive Sympathy, his remarkable memory, and his unfailing sense of fun have combined to produce some of the best stories about India we have ever read. There are hundreds
which we are tempted to quote, but we will pick out only onethat about two stray Englishmen, a deserter from the
Army and a deserter from a ship at Calcutta, who had been roaming the country together and at last came under the cognizance of Sir Walter. The two had paid their way on the' road by giving performances. The sailor played the fiddle and the soldier danced. Thus they reached Kabul. It was surprising that they were not killed by tribesmen, but apparently the Afghans regarded them as mad, and so their lives were sacred. The Muir, hearing of their arrival at Kabul, bade them, give a " command performance." The sailor, describing the incident to Sir Walter, said :— " His- Majesty took a fancy to ..us at once and sent us food and good 'blankets and had us to the Palace the next day. ' I like your loolia," he said, ` and to-morrow "I'll send you a-Mullah, and he will make you into good Mahomedans.' But we said, ' No, we are pucka Christians, and it is no use sending the reverend gent to us.' On this the Amir got angry and called us names, and that very day sent us off down the road to Peshawar."
Very likely these men, with their disreputable record, had no religious scruples, but it was a point of pride with them not to be told by any 'dago, as the sailor would have called
him, what their religion was to be. So they took the risk, a very serious risk, of vowing that they were pucka Christians, just like the English unbeliever in Sir Alfred Lyall's poem, " Theology in Extremis," who preferred death to having any religion dictated to him I Historically the most important part of Sir Walter's book is the analysis- of Lord Curzon's character. This has every mark of truth. It is sincere and carefully considered. Sir Walter holds that Lord Curzon was a great Viceroy and a loyal and affectionate friend, but his defects made it easy to carica- ture him and unfortunately he played up to the caricaturist. Lord Curzon had a mathematically exact mind, fed by a prodigious consumption of relevant facts. He could not tolerate the average man who was unable to produce a policy
as the result of mere study. " It would have ,been better for him and for others," says Sir Walter, " if he had known more of Dickens and less of logic." That seems to us a charm-
ing judgment which Sir Walter's fellow-Dickensians will appreciate. Lord Curzon was like the Indians in this, that he never gave praise for work, however faithfully done, which he regarded as part of a man's duty.
Sir Walter emphasizes two of his suggestions for the future of India. One is that reformers should pay particular atten- tion to the emancipation of women, without whose liberal co-operation reform is not really possible, and the other is that the romantic attachment of Indians to the Royal Family should somehow or other be used as a more powerful connecting link between the two countries.
Mr. F. L. Brayne has done remarkably good work in raising the level of village life in India. As a propagandist he is resourceful and effective. We could wish that he had used some other word than " uplift" in describing his system, as that word has ridiculous associations. If every village in India were to practise what Mr. Blayne teaches—letter agriculture, better household economy, better sanitation, later marriages, and so forth—it would be impossible for a Miss Mayo of the future to write a book by- which. Indians would profess to be affronted. - . • India in 1926-27 is the annual statement prepared for presentation to Parliament by the Director of Public Infor- mation in the Government of India. The great event of the year described was the opening of the New Delhi. The chief blot of the year was the unceasing hostility between- Hindus and Moslems. The 'CurrenCy Act by which the rupee was stabilized at ls. 6d. is carefully discussed and vindicated. This book, like its predecessors, is a valuable work of reference.
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