Darkest India
by Frederick St. George De Lautour Booth-Tucker · English · Gutenberg #11468 · 300,246 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Darkest India
Author: Frederick St. George De Lautour Booth-Tucker
Release date: March 1, 2004 [eBook #11468]
Most recently updated: October 28, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DARKEST INDIA ***
[Transcriber's note: The spelling irregularities of the original have
been preserved in this etext.]
DARKEST INDIA
BY COMMISSIONER BOOTH-TUCKER
A SUPPLEMENT TO GENERAL BOOTH'S
"IN DARKEST ENGLAND, AND THE WAY OUT."
1891
PREFACE.
The remarkable reception accorded to General Booth's "In Darkest England
and the Way Out," makes it hardly necessary for me to apologise for the
publication of the following pages, which are intended solely as an
introduction to that fascinating book, and in order to point out to
Indian readers that if a "cabhorse charter" is both desirable and
practicable for England (see page 19, Darkest England) a "bullock
charter" is no less urgently needed for India.
In doing this it is true that certain modifications and adaptations in
detail will require to be made. But the more carefully I consider the
matter, the more convinced do I become, that these will be of an
unimportant character and that the gospel of social salvation, which has
so electrified all classes in England, can be adopted in this country
almost as it stands.
After all, this is no new gospel, but simply a resurrection, or
resuscitation, of a too much neglected aspect of the original message
of "peace on earth, good will towards men," proclaimed at Bethlehem. It
has been the glory of Christianity, that it has in all ages and climes
acknowledged the universal brotherhood of man, and sought to relieve the
temporal as well as the spiritual needs of the masses. Of late years
that glory has in some degree departed, or at least been tarnished, not
because the efforts put forth are less than those in any previous
generation, but because the need is so far greater, that what would have
been amply sufficient a few centuries ago, is altogether inadequate when
compared to the present great necessity.
The very magnitude of the problem has struck despair into the hearts of
would-be reformers, many of whom have leapt to the conclusion, that
nothing but an entire reconstruction of society could cope with so vast
an evil, whilst others have been satisfied with simply putting off the
reckoning day and suppressing the simmering volcano on the edge of
which, they dwelt with paper edicts which its first fierce eruption is
destined to consume.
Surely the present plan if at all feasible, is God-inspired, and if
God-inspired, it will be certainly feasible. And surely of all countries
under the face of the sun there is none which more urgently needs the
proclamation of some such Gospel of Hope than does India. That it is
both needed and feasible I trust that in the following pages I shall be
able to abundantly prove.
General Booth has uttered a trumpet-call, the echoes of which will be
reverberated through the entire world. The destitute masses, whom he has
in his book so vividly pourtrayed, are everywhere to be found. And I
believe I speak truly when I say that in no country is their existence
more palpable, their number more numerous, their misery more aggravated,
their situation more critical, desperate and devoid of any gleam of hope
to relieve their darkness of despair, than in India.
And yet perhaps in no country is there so promising a sphere for the
inauguration of General Booth's plan of campaign. Religious by instinct,
obedient to discipline, skilled in handicrafts, inured to hardship, and
accustomed to support life on the scantiest conceivable pittance, we
cannot imagine a more fitting object for our pity, nor a more
encouraging one for our effort, than the members of India's "submerged
tenth."
Leaving to the care of existing agencies those whose bodies are
diseased, General Booth's scheme seeks to fling the mantle of
brotherhood around the morally sick, the destitute and the despairing.
It seeks to throw the bridge of love and hope across the growing
bottomless abyss in which are struggling twenty-six millions of our
fellow men, whose sin is their misfortune and whose poverty is their
crime, who are graphically said to have been "damned into the world,
rather than born into it."
The question is a national one. This is no time therefore for party or
sectarian feeling to be allowed to influence our minds. True for
ourselves we still believe as fully as ever that the salvation of Jesus
Christ is the one great panacea for all the sins and miseries of
mankind. True we are still convinced that to merely improve a man's
circumstances without changing the man himself will be largely labor
spent in vain. True we believe in a hell and in a Heaven, and that it is
our ultimate object to save each individual whom we can influence out of
the one into the other. True that among the readers of the following
pages will be those whose religious creed differs from our's as widely
as does the North Pole from the South.
But about these matters let us agree for the present to differ. Let us
unite with hand and heart to launch forthwith the social life boat, and
let us commit it to the waves, which are every moment engulfing the
human wrecks with which our shores are lined. When the tempest has
ceased to rage, and when the last dripping mariner has been safely
landed we can, if we wish, with a peaceful conscience dissolve our
partnership and renew the discussion of the minor differences, which
divide, distract and weaken the human race, but _not till then._
CONTENTS.
PART I.
IN DARKEST INDIA.
I. Why "Darkest India?"
II. Who are not the Submerged Tenth?
III. The minimum standard of existence
IV. Who are the Submerged Tenth?
V. The Beggars
VI. "The Out of Works"
VII. The Homeless Poor
VIII. The Land of Debt
IX. The Land of Famine
X. The Land of Pestilence
XI. The White Ants of Indian Society
(a) The Drunkard
(b) The Opium Slave
(c) The Prostitute
XII. The Criminals
XIII. On the Border Land
XIV. Elements of Hope
PART II.
THE WAY OUT.
I. The Essentials to success
II. What is General Booth's scheme?
III. The City Colony
IV. The Labour Bureau
V. Food for all--the Food Depôts
VI. Work for all, or the Labour Yard
VII. Shelter for all, or the Housing of the Destitute
VIII. The Beggars Brigade
IX. The Prison Gate Brigade
X. The Drunkards Brigade
XI. The Rescue Homes for the Fallen
XII. "The Country Colony"--"Wasteward ho!"
XIII. The Suburban Farm
The Dairy
The Market Garden
XIV. The Industrial Village
XV. The Social Territory, or Poor Man's Paradise
XVI. The Social City of Refuge
XVII. Supplementary Branches of the Country Colony
Public Works
Off to the Tea Gardens
Land along the Railways
Improved methods of Agriculture
XVIII. The Over-sea Colony
XIX. Miscellaneous Agencies
The Intelligence Department
The Poor Man's Lawyer
The Inquiry Office for missing Friends
The Matrimonial Bureau
The Emigration Bureau
Periodical Melas
XX. How much will it Cost?
XXI. A Practical conclusion
PART I.--IN DARKEST INDIA.
CHAPTER I.
WHY "DARKEST INDIA?"
It is unnecessary for me to recapitulate the parallel drawn by General
Booth between the sombre, impenetrable and never-ending forest,
discovered by Stanley in the heart of Africa, and the more fearfully
tangled mass of human corruption to be found in England. Neither the
existence, nor the extent, of the latter have been called in question,
and in reckoning the submerged at one tenth of the entire population it
is generally admitted that their numbers have been understated rather
than otherwise.
Supposing that a similar percentage be allowed for India, we are face to
face with the awful fact that the "submerged tenth" consists of no less
than _twenty-six millions of human beings_, who are in a state of
destitution bordering upon absolute starvation! No less an authority
than Sir William Hunter has estimated their numbers at fifty millions,
and practically his testimony remains unimpeached.
Indeed I have heard it confidently stated by those who are in a good
position to form a judgement, that at least one hundred millions of the
population of India scarcely ever know from year's end to year's end
what it is to have a satisfying meal, and that it is the rule and not
the exception for them to retire to rest night after night hungry and
faint for want of sufficient and suitable food.
I am not going, however to argue in favor of so enormous a percentage
of destitution. I would rather believe, at any rate for the time being,
that such an estimate is considerably exaggerated. Yet do what we will,
it is impossible for any one who has lived in such close and constant
contact with the poor, as we have been doing for the last eight or nine
years, to blink the fact, that destitution of a most painful character
exists, to a very serious extent, even when harvests are favorable and
the country is not desolated by the scourge of famine.
Nor do I think that there would be much difficulty in proving that this
submerged mass constitutes at least one-tenth of the entire population.
No effort has hitherto been made to gauge their numbers, so that it is
impossible to speak with accuracy, and the best that we can do is, to
form the nearest feasible estimate from the various facts which lie to
hand and which are universally admitted.
Let any one who is tempted to doubt the literal truth of what I say, or
to think that the picture is overdrawn, but place himself at our
disposal for a few days, or weeks, and we will undertake to show him,
and that in districts which are as the very Paradise of India, thousands
of cases of chronic destitution (especially at certain seasons in the
year) such as ought to be sufficient to melt even a heart of stone!
CHAPTER II.
WHO ARE NOT THE SUBMERGED TENTH?
Before passing on to consider of whom the destitute classes actually
consist, it will be well in a country like India to make a few
preliminary remarks regarding the numbers and position of their more
fortunate countrymen who have employment of some sort, and are therefore
excluded from the category.
The entire population of British India, including Ceylon, Burmah, and
the Native States amounts according to the Census of 1881 to about two
hundred and sixty-four millions.
These I would divide into five classes--
1st--The wealth and aristocracy of the country consisting of those
who enjoy a monthly income of one hundred rupees and upwards per
family. According to the most sanguine estimate we can hardly
suppose that these would number more than forty millions of the
population.
2nd.--The well-to-do middle classes, earning twenty rupees and
upwards, numbering say seventy millions.
3rd.--The fairly well off laboring classes, whose wages are from
five rupees and upwards, numbering say at the most one hundred
millions.
4th--The poverty stricken laboring classes, earning less than five
rupees a month for the support of their families. These cannot at
the lowest estimate be less than twenty-five millions.
5th.--The destitute and unemployed poor, who earn nothing at all,
and who are dependent for their livelihood on the charity of others.
These can hardly be less than twenty-five millions, or a little less
than one-tenth of the entire population.
The two hundred and ten millions who are supposed to be earning
regularly from five rupees and upwards per family, we may dismiss
forthwith from consideration. For the time being they are beyond the
reach of want, and they are not therefore the objects of our solicitude.
At some future date it may be possible to consider schemes for their
amelioration.
Indirectly, no doubt, they will benefit immensely by any plans that will
relieve them of the dead weight of twenty-five million paupers, hanging
round their necks and crippling their resources. But for the present we
may say in regard to them, happy is the man who can reckon upon a
regular income of five rupees a month for the support of himself and his
family, albeit he may have two or three relations dependent on him, and
a capricious money lender ever on his track, ready to extort a lion's
share of his scanty earnings. And thrice happy is the man who can boast
an income of ten, fifteen, or twenty rupees a month, though the poorest
and least skilled laborers in England would reckon themselves badly paid
on as much per week.
We turn from these to the workless tenth and to the other tenth who eke
out a scanty hand-to-mouth existence on the borders of that great and
terrible wilderness. But before enumerating and classifying them, there
is one other important question which calls for our consideration.
CHAPTER III.
THE MINIMUM STANDARD OF EXISTENCE.
What may reasonably be said to be the minimum scale of existence, below
which no Indian should be suffered to descend? Fix it as low as you
like, and you will unfortunately find that there are literally
_millions_ who do not come up to your standard.
Pick out your coarsest, cheapest grains, and weigh them to the last
fraction of an ounce. Rigidly exclude from the poor man's bill of fare
any of the relishes which he so much esteems, and the cost of which is
so insignificant as to be hardly worth mentioning, and yet you will find
legions of gaunt, hungry men, women and children, who would greedily
accept your offered regimen to-morrow, if you could only discover the
wherewithal for obtaining the same, and who would gladly _pay for it
with the hardest and most disagreeable description of labour._
Take for instance the prison diet, where the food is given by weight,
and where it is purposely of the coarsest description consistent with
health. That the quantity is insufficient to satisfy the cravings of
hunger I can myself testify, having spent a month inside one of Her
Majesty's best appointed Bombay prisons, and having noted with painful
surprise the eagerness with which every scrap of my own coarse brown
bread, that I might leave over, was claimed and eaten by some of my
hungry, low-caste fellow prisoners!
The clothing and the blankets are also of the very cheapest description.
Of course it must be remembered too, that the food and materials being
bought in large quantities, are obtained at contract prices which are
considerably less than the usual retail rates in the bazaar. And yet
notwithstanding these facts it costs the Bombay Government on an average
Rs. 2/4 per month for each prisoner's food, and close upon Rs. 2 a year
for clothing, besides the cost of establishment, police guard, hospital
expenses and contingencies. Altogether according to the figures given in
the Jail Report of 1887 for the Bombay Presidency, including all the
above mentioned items, I find that the average monthly cost to
Government for each prisoner is a little over Rs. 6 a head.
Now it is a notorious, though almost incredible, fact, that in many
parts of India, men will commit petty thefts and offences on purpose to
be sent to jail, and will candidly state this to be their reason for
doing so. Many Government Officials will, I am sure, bear me out in
this. Here we have men who are positively so destitute that they are not
only prepared to accept with thankfulness the scanty rations of a jail,
but are willing to sacrifice their characters and endure the ignominy of
imprisonment and the consequent loss of liberty and separation from home
and family, because there is absolutely no other way of escape! In
Ceylon the jail is familiarly known among this class as their "_Loku
amma_", or "_Grandmother_"!
India has no poor law. There is not even the inhospitable shelter of a
workhouse, to which the honest pauper may have recourse. Hence with tens
of thousands it is literally a case of "steal or starve." I suppose that
nine-tenths of the thefts and robberies, besides a large proposition of
the other crimes committed in India, are prompted by sheer starvation,
and until the cause be removed, it will be in vain to look for a
diminution of the evil, multiply our police and soldiery as we will.
But I am digressing. My special object in this chapter is to show the
minimum amount which is necessary for the subsistence of our destitute
classes.
Another very interesting indication of the minimum cost of living in the
cheapest native style, consistent with health, and a very moderate
degree of comfort, is furnished by the experience of our village
officers to whom we make a subsistence allowance of from eight to twelve
annas per week. This with the local gifts of food which they collect in
the village enables them to live in the simplest way, and ensures them
at least one good meal of curry and rice daily, the rest being locally
supplied.
Here is the account of one of our Native Captains as to how he used to
manage with his allowance of eight annas a week. I have taken it down
myself from his own lips.
"When in charge of a village corps, I received with others my weekly
allowance. When I was alone I used to get 10 annas, and when there
were two of us together we got eight annas each. This was sufficient
to give us one good meal of kheechhree (rice and dal) every day,
with a little over for extras, such as firewood, vegetables, oil and
ghee.
"We had two regular cooked meals daily, one about noon and the other
in the evening. Besides this we also had a piece of bajari bread
left over from the previous day, when we got up in the morning.
"For the morning meal we used to beg once a week uncooked food from
the villagers. They gave us about eight or nine seers, enough to
last us for the week.
"It was a mixture of grains, consisting ordinarily of bajari,
bhavtu, kodri, jawar and mat. These we got ground up into flour. It
made a sort of bread which is known as Sângru and which we liked
very much. With it we would take some sâg (vegetables) or dâl. This
was our regular midday meal.
"Including the value of the food we begged, the cost of living was
just about two annas a day for each of us. We could live comfortably
upon this.
"The poorer Dhers in the villages seldom or never get kheechhree
(rice and dal). They could not afford it. Most of them live on
"ghens" (a mixture of buttermilk and coarse flour cooked into a sort
of skilly, or gruel) and bhavtu or bajari bread, or "Sângru." The
buttermilk is given to them by the village landowners, in return
for their labour. They are expected for instance to do odd jobs, cut
grass, carry wood, &c. The grain they commonly get either in harvest
time in return for labour, or buy it as they require it several
maunds at a time. Occasionally they get it in exchange for cloth.
Living in the cheapest possible way, and eating the coarsest food, I
don't think they could manage on less than one annas' worth of food
a day."
One of our European Officers, Staff Captain Hunter, who has lived in the
same style for about four years among the villagers of Goojarat, and who
has been in charge of some 30 or 40 of our Officers, confirms the above
particulars. He says that on two annas a day it is possible to live
comfortably, but that one anna is the minimum below which it is
impossible to go in order to support life even on the coarsest sorts of
food.
He tells me that the weavers have assured him that when husband and
wife are working hard from early to late, they cannot make more than
four annas profit a day by their weaving, since the mills have come into
the country and then they have to pay a commission to some one to sell
their cloth for them, or spend a considerable time travelling about the
country finding a market for it themselves. A piece of cloth which would
fetch nine rupees a few years ago, is now only worth three and a half or
four rupees.
Bearing in mind, therefore, the above facts, I should consider that if
India's submerged tenth are to be granted, even nothing better than a
"bullock charter," the lowest fraction which could be named for the
minimum claimable by all would be one anna a day, or two rupees a month
for each adult. As a matter of fact, I have no hesitation in saying,
that there are many millions in India who do not get even half this
pittance from year's end to year's end, and yet toil on with scarcely a
murmur, sharing their scanty morsel with those even poorer than
themselves, until disease finds their weakened bodies an easy prey, and
death gives them their release from a poverty-stricken existence; which
scarcely deserves the name of "life."
CHAPTER IV.
WHO ARE THE SUBMERGED TENTH?
By classifying and grading the various orders that constitute Indian
Society according to their average earnings, and by considering their
minimum, standard of existence, I have sought to prepare the way for a
more careful investigation of those who actually constitute the Darkest
India, which we are seeking to describe. I have narrowed down our
inquiry to the fifty millions, or whatever may be their number, who are
either absolutely destitute, or so closely on the border-land of
starvation as to need our immediate sympathy and assistance.
Strictly speaking it is with the former alone, the absolutely destitute,
numbering as I have supposed some twenty-five millions, that we are at
present concerned. I have, however, found it impossible to exclude some
reference to the poverty-stricken laboring classes, earning less than
five rupees a month for the support of each family, inasmuch as they are
probably far more numerous than I have supposed, and their miseries are
but one degree removed from those of the utterly destitute. Indeed we
scarcely know which is the most to be pitied, the beggar who, if he has
nothing, has perhaps at least the comfort that nobody is dependent on
him, or the poor coolie who with his three or four rupees a month has
from five to eight, or more, mouths to fill! _Fill_ did I say? They are
_never_ filled! The most that can be done in such cases is to prolong
life and to keep actual starvation at bay, and that only it may be for a
time!
Nevertheless, I have restricted the term "Submerged Tenth" to the
absolutely destitute, whom I now proceed to still further analyse.
In doing so I have been obliged to include several important classes
who happily do not exist in England, or who are at any rate so few in
number, or so well provided for, as not to merit special attention. I
mean the beggars, the destitute debtors, and the victims of opium,
famine, and pestilence, without whom our catalogue would certainly be
incomplete.
Including the above we may say that the Indian Submerged Tenth consist
of the following classes:--
I. The Beggars, excluding religious mendicants.
II. The out-of-works,--the destitute, but honest, poor, who are
willing and anxious for employment, but unable to obtain it.
III. The Houseless Poor.
IV. The Destitute Debtors.
V. The Victims of Famine and Scarcity.
VI. The Victims of Pestilence.
VII. The Vicious, including
(a) Drunkards.
(b) Opium eaters.
(c) Prostitutes.
VIII. The Criminals, or those who support themselves by crime.
They are alike in one respect, that if they were compelled to be solely
dependent upon the proceeds of their labor, it would be impossible for
them to exist for a single month.
It is these who constitute the problem which we are endeavouring to
solve. Here is the leprous spot of society on which we desire to place
our finger. If any think, that it is not so big as we imagine, we will
not quarrel with them about its size. Let them cut down our figures to
half the amount we have supposed. It will still be large enough to
answer the purpose of this inquiry, and should surely serve to arrest
the attention of the most callous and indifferent! About its existence
no one can have the smallest doubt, nor as to the serious nature of the
plague which afflicts our society. As to the character of the remedy,
there may be a thousand different opinions but that a remedy is called
for, who can question?
CHAPTER V.
THE BEGGARS.
One of the chief problems of Indian Society is that of beggary. India is
perhaps the most beggar-beridden country to be found. Nor would it be
possible under present circumstances to pass any law forbidding beggary.
In the absence of a poor-law, it is the last resource of the destitute.
True it is a plague spot in society and a serious reflection both on our
humanity and civilisation, to say nothing of our religious professions,
to tolerate the continued existence of the present state of things.
And yet I see no reason why the problem should not be firmly and
successfully handled in the interests alike of the beggars themselves
and those who supply the alms.
A short time ago I was visiting a Mahommedan gentleman in the Native
quarter of Bombay. It was in the morning before he went to business, and
I happened to hit upon the very time when the beggars made their usual
rounds. I should think upwards of fifty men and women must have called
during the few minutes that I was there. In fact it seemed like one
never-ending string of them reaching down both sides of the street. Some
sang, or shouted, to attract notice; others stood mutely with appealing
eyes, wherever they thought there was a chance of getting anything. Many
received a dole, while others were told to call again. I could not but
be struck by the courteous manner of my host to them, even when asking
them to pass along.
On the opposite side of the road some food, or money, I forget which,
was being distributed to a hungry crowd by another hospitable merchant.
Evidently the supply was limited, and it was a case of first come first
served. The desperate struggle that was going on amongst that little
crowd of some fifty or sixty people was pitiful to behold.
Now the present system, while better than nothing, is fraught with many
serious objections, with which I am sure my Indian readers will agree.
1. The weakest must inevitably go to the wall. It is the strong
able-bodied lusty beggar who is bound to get the best of it in
struggles such as I have above described, although he is just the
one who could and ought to work and who least needs the charity. He
is able also to cover more ground than the weak and sickly. To the
latter the struggle for existence is necessarily very severe, and
while needing and deserving help the most they get the least.
2. This unsystematic haphazard mode of helping the poor is bound to
be attended with serious inequalities; while some get more than is
either good, or necessary, others get too little, and for the
majority even supposing that on two or three days of the week they
succeeded in getting a sufficiency, the chances are that on four or
five they would not get nearly enough. It would be interesting to
know the total amount of food thus distributed and the number of
mouths that claim a share.
3. Of course in the case of any rise in the price of grains, the
position of the beggar is specially painful, as it is upon him that
the weight of the scarcity first falls.
4. Again the present system is a distinct encouragement to fraud. It
is impossible for the givers of charity to know anything about the
characters of those to whom they give. Thus much of their generosity
is misapplied, and the most pitiable cases escape notice, either
because they have not so plausible a tale, or because they have not
the requisite "_cheek_" for pushing their claims.
5. While the generous are severely taxed, the less liberal get off
scot free. They cannot give to all and therefore they will give to
nobody. Some beggars are frauds, therefore they will help none. They
have been taken in once, therefore they do not mean to be taken in
again.
6. Finally the Indian army of beggars is continually increasing, and
will sooner or later have to be dealt with. Private charity will
soon be unable to cope with its demands, and humanity forbids that
we should leave them to starve.
I return therefore to the question, can we not seize this opportunity,
in the common interests of both beggars and be-begged, for dealing
vigorously with the difficulty, and for mitigating it, if we cannot at
one stroke entirely remove it?
I am very hopeful that this can be done, and that now certain classes
of beggars. But in any case I think we may fairly view the problem in a
spirit of hopefulness.
Roughly speaking the beggars may be divided into four classes:--
(a) The blind and the infirm.
(b) Those who take them about and share the proceeds of their
begging.
(c) The able bodied out-of-works, and
(d) The religious mendicants.
Passing over the last of these for obvious reasons, I would confine
myself to the first three classes. But I must not anticipate. The scheme
for their deliverance is fully described in a later portion of this
book, and for the present I would only say that they constitute a very
important section of India's submerged tenth and no plan would be
perfect that did not take them fully into account.
It is true that this does not form a part of General Booth's original
scheme. But the reason for this is patent. In England vagrancy is
forbidden. There is a poor law in operation and there are work-houses
provided by the State. In India there is nothing of the kind, save a law
for the _compulsory emigration_ of European vagrants, who are deported
by Government and not allowed to return. For Natives there is no choice
save the grim one between _beggary, starvation,_ and _the jail._ To
obtain the shelter of the last of these they must leave their family,
sacrifice their liberty, and commit some offence. Therefore the honest
out-of-works are driven by tens of thousands to lives of beggary, which
too often pave the way for lives of imposture and crime.
That the problem is capable of being successfully solved, if wisely
handled, has been proved by the Bavarian experiment of Count Rumford
quoted by General Booth in an appendix to his book. True that in that
case the Government lent their authority, their influence and the public
purse to the carrying out of the Count's plan of campaign.
This we do not think that public opinion would permit of in India, even
if Government should be willing to undertake so onerous a
responsibility. Nor do I believe that there is any necessity for it. The
circumstances are a good deal different to those in Bavaria, and will be
better met by the proposals which I have elsewhere drawn up.
Anyhow it is high time that something should be done, and that on an
extensive scale and of such a drastic nature as to deal effectually with
the question.
I can easily imagine that some may fear lest in dealing with the system
we should wound the religious susceptibilities of the people. Begging
has come to be such a national institution and is so much a part and
parcel of the Indian's life and religion, that any proposal to
extinguish the fraternity may cause in some minds positive regret. To
such I would say that we do not propose to _extinguish_ but to _reform_,
and with this one hint I must beg them, before making up their minds, to
study carefully the proposals detailed in Chapter VII of Part II.
CHAPTER VI.
"THE OUT-OF-WORKS."
I should question whether there is a single town or country district in
India which does not present the sad spectacle of a large number of men,
willing and anxious to work, but unable to find employment. Moreover, as
is well known, they have almost without exception families dependent
upon them for their support, who are necessarily the sharers of their
misfortunes and sufferings. There is one district in Ceylon, where
deaths from starvation have been personally known to our Officers, and
yet the country appears to be a very garden of Eden for beauty and
fertility.
In the early years of our work I remember begging food from a house, and
learning afterwards that what they had given us was positively the last
they had for their own use. Needless to say that it was hastily
returned. During the same visit a cry of "Thief, thief!" was raised in
the night. We learnt next morning that the robbery had been committed by
a man whose wife and child were starving. It consisted of rice, and the
thief was discovered partly by the disappearance of the suspected
person, and partly by the fact that in his house was found the exact
quantity which had been stolen, whereas it was known that on the
previous day he had absolutely nothing whatever in his house! He had
left it all for his starving wife and child, and had himself fled to
another part of the country, probably going to swell the number of
criminals or mendicants in some adjoining city.
I quote these instances as serving to show the impossibility of judging
merely from outside appearances in regard to the existence or
non-existence of destitution of the most painful character, which it is
often to the interest of the local landlords to whitewash and conceal.
It is only on looking under the surface that such can in many cases be
discovered. It has been the actual living among the people that has made
it possible for us to obtain glimpses of their home life, such as could
not otherwise have been the case.
But let me enumerate a few of the classes among whom the Indian
"Out-of-works" are to be found. I do not mean of course to imply that
the entire castes, or tribes, or professions, referred to, constitute
them. Far from it. A large proportion are comparatively well off, and
though entangled almost universally in debt, are included among the 210
millions with whom we are not now concerned. None the less it will be
admitted, I believe, that it is from these that the ranks of destitution
are chiefly recruited. I call attention to this fact, because it helps
in a large measure to remove the religious difficulty which might at
first sight appear likely to stand in the way of our being commissioned
by the Indian public to undertake these much-needed reforms. They are
almost without exception of either no caste, or of such low caste, that
religiously speaking they may justly be regarded as "no man's land." The
higher castes and the respectable classes are mostly able to look after
themselves, and will not therefore come within the scope of our scheme.
And yet on the threshold of our inquiry we are confronted with an
important and increasing class, of "out-of-works" who are being turned
out of our educational establishments, unfitted for a life of hard
labour, trained for desk service, but without any prospect of suitable
employment in the case of a great and continually increasing majority. I
do not see how it will be possible for us to exclude or ignore this
class in our regimentation of the unemployed. Certainly our sympathies
go out very greatly after them. But beyond registering them in our
labour bureau, and acting as go-betweens in finding employment for a
small fraction of them, I do not see what more can be done. However, the
majority of them have well-to-do relations and friends to whom they can
turn, and except in cases of absolute destitution will not fall within
the scope of the present effort.
Passing over these we come to the poorest classes of peasant proprietors
who, having mortgaged their tiny allotments to the hilt, have finally
been sold up by the money-lender. Add to these again the more
respectable sections of day-laborers. Then there are the destitute among
the weavers, tanners, sweepers and other portions of what constitute the
low-caste community. Out of these take now the case of the weaver caste,
with whom we happen to be particularly familiar, as our work in Gujarat
is largely carried on among them. Since the introduction of machinery,
their lot has come to be particularly pitiable. In one district it is
reckoned that there are 400,000 of them. Previous to the mills being
started, they could get a comfortable competence, but year by year the
margin of profit has been narrowed down, till at length absolute
starvation is beginning to stare them in the face, and that within
measurable distance.
To the above we may add again the various gipsy tribes, who have no
settled homes or regular means of livelihood. Finally, there are the
non-religious mendicants, the religious ones being considered as not
coming within the scope of our present effort, being provided for in
charitable institutions of their own.
Representatives of nearly all the above abound in our cities, and when
both town and village destitutes come to be reckoned together, I do not
think it will be too serious a view to take of their numbers, to reckon
the absolutely workless as numbering at least 25 or 26 millions.
CHAPTER VII.
THE HOMELESS POOR.
On this question I do not propose to say much, not because there is not
much that could be said, but because in a climate like India it is a
matter of secondary importance as compared with food. The people
themselves are comparatively speaking indifferent to it. The "bitter
cry" of India if put into words would consist simply of "Give us food to
fill our stomachs. This is all we ask. As for shelter, we are content
with any hovel, or willing to betake ourselves to the open air. But food
we cannot do without."
And yet, looked at from the point of view either of a moralist, a
sanitarian, or a humanitarian, the question is one which calls for
prompt consideration and remedial action. For instance, according to the
last Government census, the average number of persons inhabiting each
house in the city of Bombay is no less than 28. The average for the
entire Presidency is six. But then it must be remembered that the great
majority of the houses of the poor in the agricultural district consist
of one-roomed huts, in which the whole family sleep together.
In the cities the overcrowding has become so excessive, and the
accomodation available for the poor is so inadequate, costly and
squalid, as to almost beggar description. Considerations of decency,
comfort and health are largely thrown to the winds. A single unfurnished
room, merely divided from the next one by a thin boarding, through which
everything can be heard, will command from five to thirty rupees a
month, and even more, according to its position, in Bombay.
The typical poor man's home in India consists as a rule of a
single-storeyed hut with walls of mud or wattle, and roof of grass,
palm-leaf, tiles, mud, or stones, according to the nature of the
country. One or two rooms, and a small verandah, are all that he
requires for himself and his family.
In the cities the high price of the land makes even this little
impossible. Take for instance Bombay. Here the representative of the
London lodging-house is to be found in the form of what are called
"chawls," large buildings, several storeys high, divided up into small
rooms, which are let off to families, at a rental of from three rupees a
month and upwards. Very commonly the same room serves for living,
sleeping, cooking, and eating. There being as a rule no cooking place,
the cheap earthen "choola" serves as a sufficient make-shift, and the
smoke finds its exit through the door or window best it can.
For hundreds, probably thousands, in every large city, even this poor
semblance of a home does not exist. Those who manage somehow or other to
live on nothing a month, cannot certainly afford to pay three rupees, or
even less, for a lodging. Whilst, no doubt, many of the submerged, tenth
are not absolutely houseless, inasmuch as they are often able to share
the shelter of some relation or friend, it cannot be doubted that a very
large percentage of them might say, "Foxes have holes, and the birds of
the air have nests," but we "have not where to lay our heads."
Of the homeless poor there are two classes. The more fortunate find
shelter in those of the Dharamsalas, Temples and Mosques which contain
provision for such purposes. It must be remembered, however, that a
large number of such institutions are reserved for certain favored
castes, and are not therefore available for the out-caste poor. For the
rest, the uncertain shelter of verandahs, porticoes, market-places,
open sheds, and, in fine weather, the road-way, esplanade, or some shady
tree, have to suffice.
As already said, I am quite willing to admit that this question of
shelter for the poor is of secondary importance as compared with that of
their food-supply. And yet is it nothing to us that millions of the
Indian poor have no place that they can call "home," not even the meagre
shelter of the one-roomed hut with which they would gladly be content?
Is it nothing to us that superadded to the sufferings of hunger, they
have to face the sharp and sometimes frosty air of the cold weather with
scarcely a rag to their backs, and no doors, windows, or even walls to
keep off the chilly wind? Is it nothing to us that in the rainy season
they have to make their bed on the damp floor or ground, though to do so
means a certain attack of fever? Is it nothing to us that under such
circumstances the houseless poor should be converted into a dismal
quagmire in which moral leprosy, more terrible than its bodily
representative, should thrive and propagate itself? Certainly if the
Indian destitute are to have a "bullock charter" granted to them, it
will be necessary that it should sooner or later include suitable and
decent shelter as well as food.
True, the problem is a vast one but this is no reason why it should be
looked upon as insoluble, or left to grow year by year still vaster and
more uncontrollable.
What we propose ourselves to undertake in this will be found elsewhere
(see Part II Chapter VI). It must be remembered, moreover, that if our
efforts to deal with the workless masses in finding them employment
should prove successful this will in itself help to remove much of the
existing evil. And by directing labor into channels where it can be the
most profitably employed, we shall help to disembarrass those channels
which have at present got choked up with an excess of it.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE LAND OF DEBT.
One of the darkest shadows on the Indian horizon is that of debt. A
drowning man will snatch at a straw, and it would surely be inhuman for
us to find much fault with the unhappy creatures who constitute the
submerged tenth for borrowing their pittance at even the most exorbitant
rates of interest in the effort to keep their heads above water.
I have no desire here to draw a gloomy picture of the Indian Shylock. In
some respects I believe him to be a decided improvement on his European
and Jewish representative. It was only a short time ago that I read a
blood-curdling description of the London money-lender, which put any
Indian I have ever come across altogether into the shade.
Nevertheless, Shylock flourishes in India as perhaps in no other country
under the sun. His name is Legion. He is ubiquitous. He has the usual
abnormal appetite of his fraternity for rupees. But strange to say he
fattens upon poverty and grows rich upon the destitute. Whereas in other
regions he usually concentrates his attention upon the rich and
well-to-do classes, here he specially marks out for his prey those who
if not absolutely destitute live upon the border-land of that desolate
desert, and makes up by their numbers for what they may lack in quality.
He gives loans for the smallest amount from a rupee and upwards,
charging at the rate of half an anna per month interest for each rupee,
which amounts to nearly 38 per cent. per annum. As for payment, he is
willing to wait. Every three years, a fresh bond is drawn up including
principal and interest. Finally, when the amount has been sufficiently
run up, whatever land, house, buffalo, or other petty possessions may
belong to the debtor are sold up, usually far below their real value.
I remember one case, which came before me when I was in Government
service, where the facts were practically undisputed, in which a
cultivator was sued for 900 rupees, principal and interest, the original
debt being only ten rupees worth of grain borrowed a few years
previously. Ultimately it was compromised for about 100 rupees. This is
by no means an exceptional case.
Of course it may be said in favour of the money-lender that he is
obliged to charge these high rates, to cover the extra risk, and that as
a rule, he is generally prepared to forego half his legal claim when
the time for payment comes. I am aware also that the subject has long
occupied the earnest attention of Government, and that in some parts of
the country enactments have been introduced for the relief of poor
debtors. But these are only local and the evil is universal. A judicial
Solon is sadly needed who shall rise up and boldly face the evil. The
extortions of usurers have led to revolutions before now, and it seems
high time for an enlightened Government to do something on a large scale
for the abatement of the evil, if only by an absolute refusal to enforce
any such usurious contracts.
But I have only mentioned the subject, because it plays a specially
important part in the present depressed condition of the submerged
masses. In the following pages I hope among other things to be able to
cast some rays of light into this valley of the shadow of debt, if not
of death.
CHAPTER IX.
THE LAND OF FAMINE.
Any review of Darkest India would be incomplete without some mention of
the widespread and calamitous famines which periodically devastate the
country and which reappear from time to time with terrible certainty.
In a country where so large a proportion of the population is
agricultural, and where the poor are almost entirely paid in kind, the
failure of a single crop means the most terrible scarcity and privation
for those who even in time of plenty live at best but a hand-to-mouth
existence. And when the failure is repeated famine faces the
poverty-stricken masses, and they are frequently swept off by thousands.
In the terrible Madras famine of 1877 to 1878, several millions
perished, in spite of the relief works and charitable agencies which
hastened to their assistance. When the census of 1881 came to be taken,
it was found that in this part of India, instead of the population
having largely increased, as was everywhere else the case, there had
been a diminution of two per cent as compared with the census of 1871.
It may be said that such famines are not frequent and we are thankful to
admit that this is so. Yet scarcely a year passes without some part of
India suffering severely from partial droughts. Only last year hundreds
of poor starving wretches, crowded into Bombay from Kattiyawar, and were
for weeks encamped on the Esplanade, an abject multitude, dependent on
the charity of the rich. And yet it was "no famine" that had driven them
hundreds of miles from their homes, but "_only_ a scarcity."
At the same time famine prevailed in the Ganjam District to an extent
which would probably have been utterly discredited, had not the Governor
of Madras proceeded personally to the spot, and reported on the terrible
state of affairs. No less than 30,000 persons were thrown upon
Government for their support. In the same year through a fortnight's
delay in the break of the monsoon, there were grain riots at
Trichinopoly and Tanjore, several merchants stores being broken into,
through a rise in the price of food. Happily a subsequent fall of rain
averted the impending calamity, prices fell and order was restored.
Now to deal radically with famines it is necessary to meet them half
way, and not to wait till they are upon us in all their stupendous
immensity. It must be remembered that, as in the above instances, the
present condition of things is such, that the mere threatening of famine
is sufficient to send up the prices of food at a bound, to famine rates.
The chief victims of famine are the very classes who have been here
described as constituting the "submerged tenth." In ordinary times "the
wolf" is always "at the door" but at these calamitous periods there is
no door to keep him out, and he is master of the situation. Now General
Booth's scheme proposes to deal with him promptly and remove him to such
a safe distance, as shall make his inroads almost impossible.
By leaving these destitute classes in their present miserable condition,
we prepare for ourselves a gigantic and impossible task when the evil
day of famine at last overtakes us. By facing the difficulty at the
outset, and meeting it midway, we make our task much easier. Time is in
our favour. True, the people are hungry, but they are not dying. We can
afford to let them drift a few weeks, months, or even years longer,
while we are putting our heads and hearts together to devise for them
some way of deliverance commensurate with the immensity of their needs.
But to resign oneself to the present condition of things as inevitable
seems to me almost as heartless as to fold our hands helplessly at a
time of absolute famine. To deafen our ears to the immediate distresses
of the submerged tenth may be less criminal in degree but not in kind.
To those who feel paralysed by the vastness of the problem I would say
"Study General Booth's Way Out and the adaptation of it to India which I
have endeavoured to sketch in the following pages."
Here at least is a plan, perhaps not a perfect one, but still definite,
tangible and immediately possible. Improve upon it as much as you like.
Help us to remedy its defects by all means. But whatever you do, don't
stand by as an indifferent spectator. Put your own individual shoulder
to the wheel. Help us with your sympathy, prayers and substance to make
the effort, and should failure ensue, you will at least have the
satisfaction of realising that you have helped others to make an honest
determined effort for dealing with a gigantic evil that involves the
welfare, if not the existence of millions.
CHAPTER X.
THE LAND OF PESTILENCES.
Happily a description of English destitution does not call for any
reference to plagues, such as those which annually or at least
periodically, devastate India, and that with such certainty that their
presence has come to be regarded, almost with indifference, as a matter
of course, or at least of necessity. Indeed we suppose that some would
even look upon it as a Divinely ordained method for reducing the
population. True, that in Europe the matter is regarded in a very
different light. Public opinion has made its voice heard. Medical
science has exerted itself, and not in vain. The laws of sanitation are
better known, and are enforced upon the entire community by severe legal
enactments. And above all, Christianity has taught the rich to say of
the poor "He is my brother," and to provide for him the medical care and
attention that would otherwise not be within his reach.
What is possible in Europe is no doubt possible in India. Much has
already been done, and our Government is fully awake to the importance
of the subject, and will be able, year by year, to institute further
improvements in this respect.
With this, however, we are not directly concerned. My object in
referring to the subject is to point out--
1. That it is almost invariably from among the submerged tenth, with
whom we propose to deal that these fearful plagues usually have their
origin. Pestilence may indeed be said to take up its abode among them.
Destitution is as it were the egg from which pestilence is hatched.
There are brooding seasons when it may for a time disappear from sight.
But it is there all the same and we know it. If we are to eradicate the
evil, we must deal effectually with its cause. And this is the special
object of General Booth's scheme.
True, it may be possible to keep this deadly enemy at bay by multiplying
our hospital fortresses and putting into the field medical legions armed
with the latest discoveries of science. But the requisite paraphernalia
is too expensive for a country like India; and who does not know that
well-fed bodies, and healthy homes are better safeguards against disease
than all the most costly medicines that could be provided by the British
pharmacopoeia? If therefore we are able to deal radically with
destitution we shall at the same time strike an effective blow at the
pestilences which are at present such a scourge to India.
2. Again I would like to remind my readers of another fact, and in this
aspect of the question, all classes of the community are bound to be
interested. If pestilence begins its deadly work among the destitute, it
can never be reckoned on to stop there. Indeed pestilence may be
regarded as _Nature's revenge_ on society for the neglect of the poor.
Once the cholera fiend has broken loose, it is impossible to tell whom
he is going to select for his victims. The rich, the fair, the learned,
the young, the strong, are often the first objects of his attention. He
manifests a reckless disregard of social position. The distinctions of
caste and rank, of beauty or learning, are not for him. And even as I
write he may be preparing his invisible hordes of bacilli for fresh
invasions, more terrible than those that have ever swept down from the
mountains of Afghanistan. While we are spending millions upon
strengthening our North-Western Frontiers against a foe who may never
exist, save in our imagination, can we dare to neglect the more terrible
enemy who defies all Boundary Commissions, who overleaps the strongest
fortresses, and who laughs to scorn the largest cannon that ever capped
our walls?
3. Finally there is one very sad shade in this part of our picture of
darkest India. If on the one hand pestilence may be said to somewhat
thin the ranks of the destitute by decreasing the number of mouths
requiring to be fed, it must be remembered on the other hand that it
continually recruits them both by sweeping away so many of the
breadwinners, and by frequently paralysing many of those who are left,
and preventing them from earning what they otherwise might. How often do
we hear of even public institutions having to be closed, and of
thousands being thrown out of work by the panic which ensues at such
times.
I have sought to confine myself to a matter-of-fact description of this
gloomy subject, and to avoid anything that could be construed into mere
sensationalism. And yet deaf must be the ears, and hard must be the
hearts, that can be insensible to the cries of agony that yearly ascend
from thousands and tens of thousands of homes. In a recent Government
report, I find that from cholera alone in one year there were reported
no less than 300,000 deaths; and yet the year was not remarkable for any
exceptional outbreak. Still more terrible and regular are the ravages of
the various malarial fevers, that sweep away millions yearly to a
premature grave, often just in the prime of life, when they are most
needed by the country. That a very large percentage of these deaths are
directly connected with destitution, and that pestilence frequently but
finishes the work commenced by months and years of starvation, is too
notorious to require proof. It is a melancholy picture, and yet without
it our review of Darkest India would be necessarily incomplete.
CHAPTER XI.
THE WHITE ANTS OF INDIAN SOCIETY.
Hitherto our description of the Submerged Tenth has concerned those who
may be styled principally the children of misfortune, and who in their
struggle for existence have resort to means which are indeed desperate
in their nature, but against which no moral objection can be raised.
General Booth next calls attention to another great section of the
Submerged Tenth who have found a temporary shelter or asylum in the
temple of Vice,--those who either trade upon the sins of society, or are
the miserable victims of those sins. The unlawful gratification of the
natural appetites has ever been the snare by which millions have been
deluded to damnation. If it were possible to combat this tendency in
human nature by mere legal enactments, it would have been done long ago.
But though much has been done in this way to hold vice in check, and to
prevent it from openly parading itself in public as it otherwise would,
yet it has chiefly been by the chains of religion that the monster has
been bound, and even his legal shackles have mostly been manufactured at
the anvils of the religious public. Take for instance the wholesale
prohibition of intoxicating liquor by the Mahommedan religion, or again
the strong Temperance movement that has more lately been established
among Christians. The former has no doubt accomplished what would never
have been done by means of legal enactments, while the latter has first
educated the public on the Temperance question and has thus prepared the
way for prohibitory legislation of a more stringent character.
In dealing with this portion of the Submerged Tenth there can be no
doubt that the religious and moral appeals of the Salvation Army
Officers will serve to stimulate and enforce wholesale reformation. By
substituting the attractions of our public meetings, we shall do much to
counteract those of the liquor den and other factories of pollution and
destitution,--for it is as such that we may regard the places where
drunkards, opium-eaters, prostitutes, fornicators, and the other hideous
satellites of Vice are manufactured wholesale, whether with or without
the shelter of a license. A large proportion of those who are engaged in
vice as a trade openly profess to do so as a means of subsistence, and
because it enables them to eke out what is in nine cases out of ten but
a scanty subsistence, and what is almost invariably accompanied by the
most terrible penalties Nature can inflict on those who outrage her
ordinances. Many are heartily sick of the trade, but can see no way of
escape. In dealing with destitution we shall open for these a door of
hope. The deserters from the ranks of those who trade in vice will help
us to deal more effectively with those who still cling to the profession
on account of its profits.
In dealing with the panderers to the vices of society we shall largely
diminish the numbers of its victims. It has been said that sinning is
very much a matter of temptation, and in reducing those temptations, as
we believe General Booth's scheme will largely tend to do, we shall be
able to reduce in quantity, if we cannot hope to cause altogether to
cease, the frightful holocaust of human victims that is annually offered
up at this dark shrine.
_(a) The Drunkards._
I will take the question of the Drunkard first, for it is itself a
prolific root of all kinds of evil. The gradual breaking up of religious
restraints, the increasing facilities for obtaining at smallest cost
the most fiery and dangerous liquors, the added suffering entailed on
any drinking habits that may be formed by the tropical heat of India,
all serve to accentuate the gravity of the evil in this country. Add to
this a consideration of the distressing poverty, the chronic hunger, the
dull monotony, unrelieved by hope of amendment, in which myriads of the
people of India fight out the battle of life; reflect how these must
crave for the boon of forgetfulness and eagerly grasp at the wretched
relief which drunkenness may bring. Nor can we throw the responsibility
altogether upon the individual, if it be true that prior to contact with
Western nations, the Hindoos were largely a temperate and even an
abstinent people. We are in an especial manner bound to consider whether
there can be found any alleviation or remedy for a disaster which, if we
have not actually created, we have at least suffered to spring up
unheeded and unchecked in our very midst.
It is notorious that the large cities of India are crowded with shops of
the kind thus described by Mr. Caine, late M.P., in his "Picturesque
India":
"The wide and spacious shops in front of which are strewn broken
potsherds, and whose contents are two or three kegs and a pile of
little pots; are the liquor-dealer's establishments. The groups of
noisy men seated on the floor are drinking ardent spirits of the
worst description absolutely forbidden to the British soldiers, but
sold retail to natives at three farthings a gill."
Mr. Caine goes on to say that in the city of Lucknow, with a population
of some 300,000 inhabitants, there were in 1889 thirty distilleries of
native spirits and 200 liquor-shops. The Government exchequer receipts
from spirits in the North-West Provinces amount to nearly £600,000,
having doubled themselves during the last seven years. This means that
in round numbers £1,000,000 worth of native spirits is sold in these
provinces per annum.
Now consider first that as a rule with rare exceptions a native of
India who uses the fiery country liquors drinks for no other purpose
than to become intoxicated. They are manufactured with a view to this,
and not as in Europe to provide a thirst-quenching potation. Mr. Caine
says: "The people of India, unlike other people, only drink for the
purpose of getting drunk, and if we make them drunken we destroy them
more rapidly than by war, pestilence and famine."
Nothing is clearer than that a rapidly increasing multitude in this
country, once remarkable for its sobriety and thrift, are rushing
headlong into the disastrous vice of intemperance and its attendant
horrors, almost without check. Something must be done. We cannot
cold-bloodedly abandon them to a gospel of despair.
_(b) The Opium Slaves._
Darker still perhaps is the dreadful night, and more sickening the
miasma, which lies around the opium creeks, multiplying and increasing
and slowly sucking down into their slimy depths thousands upon thousands
of those who dare to seek momentary relief from sorrow in its lethal
stream. Mr. Caine thus describes an opium den in Lucknow:--
"Enter one of the side rooms. It has no windows and is very dark,
but in the centre is a small charcoal fire whose lurid glow lights
up the faces of nine or ten human beings, men and women, lying on
the floor. A young girl some fifteen years of age has charge of each
room, fans the fire, lights the opium pipe, and holds it in the
mouth of the last comer, till the head falls heavily on the body of
his or her predecessor. In no East-end gin palace, in no lunatic or
idiot asylum, will you see such horrible destruction of God's image
in the face of man, as appears in the countenances of those in the
preliminary stage of opium drunkenness! Here you, may see some
handsome young married woman, nineteen or twenty years of age,
sprawling, on the ground, her fine brown eyes flattened and dull
with coming, stupor; and her lips drawn convulsively back from her
glittering white teeth. Here is a young girl sitting among a group
of newly arrived customers singing some romance. As they hand round
the pipes there is a bonny little lad of six or seven watching his
father's changing face with a dreadful indifference.
"At night these dens are crowded to excess, and it is estimated that
there are upwards of twelve thousand persons in Lucknow enslaved by
this hideous vice. An opium sot is the most hopeless of all
drunkards. Once in the clutches of the fiend, everything gives way
to his fierce promptings. His victims only work to get more money
for opium. Wife, children, home, health, and life itself are
sacrificed to this degrading passion."
If twelve thousand for Lucknow be a fair estimate, can we put the
figures for the whole country at less than 100,000?
Still there is a deeper depth. In the same city, says Mr. Caine, there
are ninety shops for the sale of Bhang and Churras. "Bhang," says the
same writer, "is the most horrible intoxicant the world has ever
produced. In Egypt its importation and sale is absolutely forbidden, and
a costly preventive service is maintained to suppress the smuggling of
it by Greek adventurers. When an Indian wants to commit some horrible
crime such as murder, he prepares himself for it with two annas' worth
of Bhang."
_(c) Prostitution._
In the all but impenetrable shades and death-breathing swamps of this
social forest, lie and suffer and rot probably not less than one hundred
thousand prostitutes. Multitudes of these are dedicated to such a life
in childhood, given over to it, in some cases by their parents and not
unfrequently kept in connection with the temples. Thousands are searched
for and persuaded and entrapped by old women, whose main business it is
to supply the market. We know of at least one village where beautiful
children, who have been decoyed or purchased from their parents by
these prostitute-hunters, are taken to be reared and trained for the
profession. In Bombay there is actually a caste in which the girls are
in early childhood "married to the dagger," or, in other words,
dedicated to a life of prostitution. In some of the cities old men are
employed as touts to secure customers for the women, who remain in their
haunts, thus seducing and leading into vice crowds of lads and young men
who might otherwise have escaped.
Such suffering, shame, cruelty, and wreckage belong to this crime that
one's heart bleeds to think of the tens of thousands doomed, not by
their own choice, but by the wicked greed of unnatural parents or the
crafty cunning of wicked decoys to such a gehenna, without the least
power to extricate themselves from its torment and its shame.
With so much pity left upon the earth to weep over human woes, with so
much courage still to hack and hew a path through grim forests and
morasses of suffering, there must, and shall, be found "a way out."
CHAPTER XII.
THE CRIMINALS.
The most recent report of the Indian Government informs us that there
are now no less that 737 Jails in British India (exclusive of Native
Territory), with an average population of 75,922 prisoners. In the
course of last year in the Bombay Presidency alone no less than 76,000
criminals were convicted, while 152,879 were placed on trial before the
various courts. In the whole of India the number of annual convictions
amount to upwards of one million, while the number who appear before the
Court are at least twice as numerous. Again, there are also immense
numbers of offences committed yearly, in which the Police are unable to
get any clue, the offenders having succeeded in eluding altogether the
vigilance of the Law. For instance a celebrated outlaw has only recently
been apprehended in Central India after several years of successful and
daring robbery, arson, mutilation and murder. Indeed in many parts of
India there are predatory tribes and communities of thieves who have to
be perpetually under Police surveillance, and who are brought up from
their infancy to thieving as a profession.
We desire to plead the cause of the voiceless multitude who occupy our
Indian Jails. The fact that they are voiceless,--that they have no means
of voicing their claims, their wrongs and their rights (for they, too,
_have_ rights), only adds to their danger. How can a criminal hope for
redress? What chance has he of being heard? Who will listen? What
advocate will plead his cause? Ah, if he happen to be rich, it is true,
he will have many friends! But as a rule the criminal is poor. Often he
has to choose between crime and starvation. For himself he might prefer
to starve, but the sight of his emaciated wife and aged parents,--with
whom, criminal though he be, he is as a rule ready to share his last
crust,--the clamour of his hungry children, all this drives him to
desperation and to a life of crime. He can only give voice to his
sorrows and his needs by some fresh act of lawlessness. Hence the
occasional outbursts of mutiny, and the murders of jail warders, which
from time to time reach the newspapers and shock the public ear.
And here I would desire to call attention to the fact that though crime
must be vigorously dealt with and punished, at the same time the
tendency of punishment is not to _reform_, but to _harden._ Who does not
know that the _worst criminals_ are those who have been _longest in
Jail_? Instead of _getting better_ they _grow daily worse_,--more adept
in committing crime and eluding detection,--more careless as to its
consequences.
Equally futile would be the offer of a wholesale pardon. A singular
illustration of this occurred in 1887, when in honour of Her Majesty's
Jubilee in the Bombay Presidency alone, no less than 2,465 prisoners
were released out of a total of 6,087. Yet the Government report goes on
to show that within a few months of their release the Jails were fuller
than ever!
What, then, is to be done? Punishment hardens the criminal, pardon
encourages crime, while the hearts of the offenders remain the same!
Here steps in the Salvation Army. Its methods and meetings, however
distasteful to the educated and refined, have a special attraction for
these dangerous classes. Its Officers are accustomed to handle them with
superhuman love and patience, as well as with a tact and adroitness
such as has often elicited the admiration and praise of those who have
no sympathy with our creed or ways of work.
We have all over the world fearlessly invaded these criminals in their
lowest haunts and dens, in the teeth of the warnings of the Police; we
have braved their fiercest fury when, urged on by publicans, maddened
with drink, misled by all sorts of infamous lies, and winked at or
patronised by the Police and Magistrates, they have wreaked on us the
utmost cruelties. We have invariably weathered the storm, though often
at the cost of health and even life itself. And in the end as a rule the
Roughs, Criminals and Dangerous Classes have become our warmest friends
and vigorous supporters. From amidst them we have rescued and reformed
some of the noblest trophies of Divine grace. This has been done all
over the world. It has been done in India and Ceylon. In a later part of
this book we have given a glimpse of this most interesting and important
portion of our work. Independent witnesses testify to its reality.
Government officials assure us of their warmest sympathy, and in not a
few cases aid us with their influence and subscriptions. In Ceylon the
Government has treated us most handsomely, throwing open their prisons
for our Officers to visit and hold meetings among the prisoners,
assisting us in the expenses of our Home with a monthly grant of Rs.
100, and encouraging the criminal classes to take advantage of the
opportunity thus afforded them for reforming their lives.
The common reason given for refusing such assistance elsewhere is that
Government cannot interfere with the religion of the prisoners. But in
Ceylon the majority of the prisoners are Buddhists, Hindoos and
Mahommedans, and what has been found to work so well there can surely be
tried with equal success elsewhere! Government does not hesitate all
over India to assist religious bodies in their endeavours to _educate_
the people, and they may therefore well countenance and help forward, as
they might so easily do, our efforts to reach and reform the criminal
classes on precisely the same grounds, offering similar advantages to
any Hindoo or Mahommedan Associations that might afterwards be formed
for the same purpose. At present the Indian criminal has no friend to
lend him a helping hand. Prison officials in various places have
personally informed me that they are distressed at being able to do
nothing for criminals, who, having lost their character and being
abandoned by their friends, have no alternative but to return to their
old associates. If our example causes others to rise up and make efforts
for reaching and reforming these classes, who would not rejoice? At
present it is a sad fact that throughout India the native criminals are
debarred from all opportunities of being reached by the softening
influences of religion. The Europeans have their Chaplains,--the
Natives are allowed to have no one to minister to their souls' needs, or
to bring to bear upon them those moral influences which might, and we
know often would, lead to their reform. There seems no reason whatever
why the following rules, which have been drawn up by the Ceylon
Government, should not be adopted likewise in India:--
General Rules made by His Excellency the Governor, acting under the
advice of the Executive Council for the Government of Prisons, for
the guidance of the prison officers, _under and by authority of
Section_ 26 _of the Prisons Ordinance_, 1887.
226. Ministers of religion and religions instructors shall be
entitled to visit prisoners under commitment for trial and prisoners
undergoing sentence after trial, and to give religious and moral
instructions to those who are willing to receive the same on Sundays
and other days in which prisoners are usually allowed freedom from
work, between the hours of eight in the morning and four in the
afternoon.
227. Such ministers or other persons shall be allowed access at all
times (but between the hours specified) to all prisoners who shall
be certified by the medical officers of the prison to be seriously
ill.
228. In prisons where such an arrangement can conveniently be made,
a suitable room shall be set apart where religious instruction can
be afforded to prisoners and the rites of religion administered.
229. If, under the directions of Government, Christian services be
held in any Jail, on Sundays and on other days when such services
are performed, all Christian criminal prisoners shall attend the
same unless prevented by sickness or other reasonable cause--to be
allowed by the Jailor--or unless their service is dispensed with by
the Superintendent. No prisoner, however, shall be compelled to
attend any religious instruction given by the ministers or religious
instructor of a church or persuasion to which the prisoner does not
belong.
230. It shall be lawful for the Superintendent in charge of any
prison to prohibit any particular minister or instructor visiting
any prisoner in such prison, if it shall appear to him that such
minister or instructor is an improper or indiscreet person, or
likely to have improper communication with the prisoner, provided
that such Superintendent shall without delay communicate his reason
for doing so, to the Inspector General for report to Government.
231. No books or printed papers shall be admitted into any prison
for the use of the prisoners, except by permission of the
Superintendent, and the jailor shall keep a catalogue of all books
and printed papers admitted into the prison.
232. It shall be the duty of the minister or instructor admitted to
visit any prison, to communicate to the jailor any abuse or
impropriety in the prison which may come to his knowledge, on pain
of being prohibited from visiting the prison.
CHAPTER XIII.
ON THE BORDER LAND.
Besides the 25,000,000 who constitute the actual destitute and criminal
population, we estimate that at a very low computation there are
25,000,000 who are on the border-land, who are scarcely ever in a
position to properly obtain for themselves and for their families the
barest necessities of existence. I do not say that they are wholly
submerged, but they pass a sort of amphibious existence, being part of
the time under water and part of the time on land,--some part of their
life being spent in the most abject poverty, and some part of it in
absolute starvation--positively for the time submerged, and liable at
any moment to be lastingly engulfed. These are the classes whose income
never rises above five rupees a month, while more frequently it is under
four rupees.
On one farm, concerning which we have detailed information, where the
rent of the land is unusually low, the soil good and well irrigated,
where loans can be got at a merely nominal interest, the cultivators,
with the additional help of occasional cooly work, did not average in
their earnings four rupees a month, some having to keep a family on
three and a half, while if a bullock died, or a plough had to be
procured, it meant positive hunger and increased indebtedness to supply
those needs.
The fact is that in many districts there is not only an increase of
population to be sustained by a constantly narrowing area of cultivated
land, but the land itself is deteriorating through the unendurable
pressure put upon it. As the forests grow more distant through being
used up for timber and fuel, wood becomes dearer. The manure which ought
to go upon the land is therefore by necessity consumed for fuel. The
ground in consequence becomes impoverished. As the struggle for
existence becomes fiercer, the people are unable to let their land
periodically lie fallow, so the crops grow lighter. Again, the ryot is
not only unable properly to feed himself, but his bullocks share a
similar fate. The feeble animals can only draw a plough which merely
scratches the surface of the ground. Furthermore, as the population
increases the land is divided into smaller and smaller holdings. The
struggle against the advancing tide of adversity cannot be maintained.
Inch by inch the tide rolls up, pushing the border-landers closer and
closer upon the black rocks of famine, to escape which they at length
plunge into the sea amongst the submerged millions, who, weary and
bitter and despairing, or with blind submission to the iron hand of
fate, have grown hopelessly and miserably indifferent.
Now, it is notorious that millions live thus on the border-land. Granted
that after the harvest border-landers may for a time get two good meals
a day. Yet as the reserve store dwindles down and long before
harvest-time comes round, again, they get but one, and that frequently a
scanty one. They do live, multitudes of them, it is true, amidst
conditions that seem to us impossible. But how many of them die on this
one meal a day, there is nobody to chronicle. But if we do nothing
beyond rescuing a considerable mass of the totally submerged, we shall
considerably ameliorate the condition of these border-landers.
By rendering independent of charity thousands who now depend upon the
gifts of the more fortunate, by making large tracts of land productive
which at present lie waste, by enlarging the stream of emigration, and
partially draining the morass of crime, it is absolutely certain that
the conditions of life will become more favourable for the
border-landers. New markets will be created both for produce and labour,
which will tend to relieve the congested condition of the land now under
cultivation.
The land at present is like a good, but overworked and under-fed horse,
which, under this double adversity of overwork and under-feeding, dies
and leaves his poor owner, who was entirely dependent upon his earnings,
a pauper. It is a condition of things which is bad, and bound of
necessity to grow only worse and worse, till the willing horse drops
under his load, and his master falls from poverty to destitution. Once
enable the man to temporarily decrease his horse's labour and
permanently increase its food supply, that horse will regain its
strength, and by its increased strength become able to do double the
amount of work, increase its master's earnings, and so in time enable
him not only to properly feed his horse, but also to properly feed
himself.
Now close to hand there is an unemployed horse available which will
afford the relief, for want of which the overworked horse is dying. The
unoccupied and waste lands, waste labour, and waste produce, constitute
the ideal unemployed horse, on whose back we would put part of the
burden of maintaining the life and feeding the mouths of the Nation.
This idle and hitherto useless horse will immediately become useful and
productive, and will enable its under-fed companion, not only to be
relieved of part of its burden, but also to get sufficient food, and
grow once more plump and strong. Thus the man, or nation, that lived,
however miserably, yet still lived, on the labour of the one famished
over-worked horse, will then be able to get a decent living, since there
will be two strong well-fed horses to work for them, instead of a single
broken-down one.
It is simply impossible within the limits of this chapter to trace out
the whole process. Enough to say that as a rule, to which of course
there are exceptions, one man's prosperity means some one else's
prosperity. Suppose I am a beggar. I wear practically no clothing. The
little I have is what somebody else has cast off. I have no home. I
sleep in the street. I get very little food, and that I do not pay for.
I produce nothing. My children, if I have any, are wastrels like myself.
But I am lifted out of this beggary, I become a productive worker. I get
a home, wear clothes, buy food, educate my children. Not only have I
improved my own circumstances, but I have helped to improve the
circumstances of others. Builders, shopkeepers, food-producers, all
profit by my redemption.
Now, if not one wastrel only, but 1,000,000 such are raised, a mighty
impetus is given to industry of every kind, and the border-landers,
instead of being driven on the black rocks by the tide of adverse
surroundings, begin to drive back the tide, and conquer the earth, and
subdue it, till the border-landers will be border-landers no longer, and
the dreadful days of hunger will live only in the stories of famine and
want, which the grey old man will tell to his happy and prosperous
grandchildren, and ten thousand links of love between emigrant sons and
home-staying fathers will bind the fertile plains of Ceylon, Burmah,
Africa, and other countries to the populous shores of India.
CHAPTER XIV.
ELEMENTS OF HOPE.
The picture which I have endeavoured to paint in the foregoing pages is
dark enough to strike despair into the hearts of the most sanguine. And
if there were indeed no way of escape for these victims of sin and
misfortune, we might well prefer to draw a veil over the sad scene, and
to bury in the ocean of forgetfulness, the very recollection of this
earthly purgatory.
But there are elements of hope in the consideration of this problem,
which should prevent us from regarding it despair.
1. In the first place, supposing that we are correct in computing this
human wastage at from twenty-five to twenty-six million souls, this
would represent only some five million families. It is true that looked
at even in this light the number is vast. But surely it is not
impossible for India to make sufficient and suitable provision for them
within her own borders, to say nothing of the "regions beyond" if
reasonable thought and effort were put forth in dealing with the
problem.
2. Again, as regards the _numbers_, it will be found _easier_ to deal
with these great national problems in bulk than piecemeal, and their
very size will give them an impetus when once they are fairly set in
motion. It will be found as easy to dispose of 1,000 people as of a
hundred, and of 50,000 as of a thousand, if they be properly organised.
Indeed, for many reasons it is easier. The larger the community, the
more work they at once provide for each other. Once let this social ball
be set rolling on a large scale, and we may believe that it will soon
get to move of its own weight.
3. Again, it is not an indiscriminate system of largely extended charity
that we propose to provide. Our object is to find work for these
workless multitudes, and such work as shall more than pay for the very
humble pittance the Indian destitute requires. He must be a poor
specimen of a human being who cannot fairly earn his anna or two annas a
day, and our brains must be poor addled affairs, if in this great vast
world of ours we cannot find that amount of work for him to do. It is
all nonsense to talk about over-population, when the world is three
parts empty and waiting to be occupied.
4. While we are piercing the bowels of the earth in search of gold,
minerals and coal, there lies at our very door a mine of wealth which it
is simple folly for us to ignore. True, the shaft has become choked with
the rubbish of despair, vice and crime, which will take time, trouble
and untiring patience to dig through. But it needs no prophet to foresee
that beneath this rubbish are veins of golden ore which will amply repay
our utmost efforts to open up. The old adage that "labour is wealth,"
and that a nation's riches consist in its hardy sons and daughters of
toil, will yet be proved true. Treat this human muck-heap even as you
would ordinary sewage or manure, and who does not know that the very
same putrefying mass of corruption which if allowed to remain near our
doors would breed nothing but fever, cholera, and the worst forms of
disease and death, when removed to a little distance, will double and
treble the ordinary fertility of the soil and produce crops that will
increase the wealth of the entire nation?
And knowing this can we be so blind, even to our selfish interests, as
to treat this human waste in a manner that we should deem the very
height of imprudence and folly in dealing with the other sort? Can we
shut our eyes to the fact that there are moral diseases, more terrible
in their nature, and more fatal to a nation's life, than the bodily
ones, against which we are so anxious to guard, even at the most lavish
expenditure of the public purse? And shall we, in dealing with this
moral sewage, neglect even the most ordinary precautions that we
consider necessary in dealing with the conservancy of our cities?
If on the other hand the problem be boldly and wisely faced, I am
convinced that in India, as in England, General Booth's most sanguine
prophecies will be realised, our most pestilential marshes shall be
drained, our moral atmosphere purified, prosperity take the place of
destitution, and hope that of despair. The millstone that hangs around
our national neck, so that we can barely keep our heads above water,
even when there is not a ripple upon its surface, and that always
threatens to engulf us in perdition at the first symptoms of a
storm,--this millstone shall be converted into an unsinkable life-buoy,
that shall not only support itself upon the crest of the highest waves,
but shall help to keep afloat the entire national body. What is now an
eyesore shall become an adornment, and what is now a cause of weakness
shall be a source of strength, bulwark of protection and mine of wealth
to all India. How this can be done we have sought in the following pages
to unfold, adhering carefully to the programme marked out by General
Booth, and suggesting only such additions and alterations as the
circumstances of the case appear to necessitate.
PART II.--THE WAY OUT.
CHAPTER I.
THE ESSENTIALS TO SUCCESS.
General Booth prefaces his scheme for the deliverance of the submerged
by laying down briefly the essentials to success. I cannot do better
than quote from his own words.
(1) "You must _change the man_, when it is his character and conduct
which constitute the reasons for his failure in the battle of life. No
change in circumstances, no revolution in social conditions, can
possibly transform the nature of man. Some of the worst men and women in
the world, whose names are chronicled by history with a shudder of
horror, were whose who had all the advantages that wealth, education and
station could confer, or ambition could obtain.
"The supreme test of any scheme for benefiting humanity lies in the
answer to the question; what does it make of the individual? Does it
quicken his conscience, does it soften his heart, does it enlighten his
mind? Does it, in short, make a true man of him? Because only by such
influences can he be enabled to lead a human life. You may clothe the
drunkard, fill his purse with gold, establish him in a well furnished
house, and in three, six, or twelve months, he will once more be on the
"Embankment," haunted by delirium tremens, dirty, squalid and ragged.
(2) "The remedy, to be effectual, must _change the circumstances_, when
they are the cause of his wretched condition, and lie beyond his
control.
(3) "Any remedy worthy of consideration must be on _a scale commensurate
with the evil_, which it proposes to deal with. It is no use trying to
bale out the ocean with a pint pot. There must be no more philanthropic
tinkering, as if this vast sea of human misery were contained in the
limits of a garden pond.
(4) "Not only must the scheme be large enough, but it _must be
permanent._ That is to say, it must not be merely spasmodic coping with
the misery of to-day, but must go on dealing with the misery of
to-morrow and the day after, so long as there is misery left in the
world with which to grapple.
(5) "But while it must be permanent, it must also be _immediately
practicable_, and capable of being brought into instant operation with
beneficial results.
(6) "The indirect features of the scheme must not be such as to produce
injury to the persons whom we seek to benefit. Mere charity for
instance, while relieving the pinch of hunger, demoralises the
recipient. It is no use conferring sixpenny worth of benefit on a man,
if at the same time we do him a shillings worth of harm.
(7) "While assisting one class of the community, it must not seriously
interfere with the interest of another.
"These are the conditions by which I ask you to test the scheme I am
about to unfold. They are not of my making. They are the laws which
govern the work of the philanthropic reformer just as the laws of
gravitation, of wind and of weather govern the operation of the
engineer. It is no use saying we could build a bridge across the Tay, if
the wind did not blow. The engineer has to take into account the
difficulties, and make them his starting point. The wind will blow,
therefore the bridge must be made strong enough to resist it. So it is
with the social difficulties, which confront us. If we act in harmony
with these laws we shall triumph. But if we ignore them, they will
overwhelm us with destruction, and cover us with disgrace."
CHAPTER II.
WHAT IS GENERAL BOOTH'S SCHEME?
His object is to supply the destitute with food, shelter and clothing,
to provide them with work and to set them on their feet for making a
fresh start in life.
With a view to this he proposes to call into existence, a threefold
organisation, consisting of self-helping and self-sustaining
communities, governed and disciplined on the principles of the Salvation
Army. These he calls "Colonies", and divides into
(1) The City Colony,
(2) The Country Colony, and
(3) The Over-sea Colony.
All these are to be linked together and to be interwoven with and
dependent on each other. In the City Colony a series of agencies will be
established for gathering up and sifting the destitute. Thence they will
be passed on to the Country Colony and subsequently many of them will be
sent to Colonies across the sea.
Now this triple organisation can be brought into existence, on the
largest possible scale in India under circumstances peculiarly favorable
to the success of the scheme.
Our country is not of limited extent like England. It covers an immense
area and includes a conglomeration of nationalities, such as we find in
Europe, with the special advantage of being united under a single, and
that a friendly Government.
Then again there is the fact that, though the influx from the country
to the cities has commenced, yet it has not at present got beyond
manageable proportions, so that it is possible for us, if awake to the
emergency, to rise up and divert the stream into more desirable
channels.
If instead of waiting for a further irruption of village Goths and
Vandals, (which is only a matter of time, and which will soon overwhelm
our City labour market and compel the attention of our civil
authorities,) we anticipate the event and meet them half way by opening
up fresh channels for them, more in harmony with their own taste and
preference, we shall not only confer an inestimable boon upon them, but
shall turn them into a source of strength and revenue for the country,
and shall with them people tracts which are at present barren and
fruitless, but which are only waiting to be occupied and which in many
cases have only to be restored to the prosperity that they formerly
enjoyed.
Finally we have the great advantage of a people already trained to
husbandry from their youth, and accustomed to the very co-operative
system of farming which General Booth advocates, where payments are
mostly to be made in kind rather than in cash, and where the exchange of
goods will largely supersede transactions in money, a strong but
paternal government regulating all for the general good.
CHAPTER III.
THE CITY COLONY.
The first portion of General Booth's threefold scheme consists of the
City Colony.
This may aptly be compared to a dredger, which, gathers up all the silt
of a harbour, and carries it out to sea, leaves it there and then
returns to repeat the operation. If such an operation is necessary in a
harbour, and if without it the best anchorages in the world would often
get choked with rubbish and become useless, how doubly important must it
be in the case of the human wastage that abounds in every large Indian
City.
Should a single ship strike on an unknown rock, we hasten to mark it
down in our charts, or erect over the spot a lighthouse as a warning to
others. Should it sink where it is likely to hinder the traffic, we set
our engineers to work to remove it, even though it may be necessary to
blow it to atoms.
And yet it is a notorious fact that our cities abound with rocks over
which there is no lighthouse,--that every channel is obstructed with
sunken vessels, and that there are not a few tribes of pirates who
fatten on the human wreckage. But we fold our hands in despair, and
allow bad to grow worse, till the problem daily becomes more enormous,
desperate and difficult to deal with.
Now General Booth's scheme proposes to establish a dredger for every
harbour, a lighthouse for every rock, an engineer for keeping clear
every channel. It may be too much to expect that there will be no
wrecks, but they will be fewer, and that surely is something! We do not
say that there will be no accidents, but there will be willing hands
held out to deliver. We cannot hope to abolish failures, mistakes,
shortcomings and weaknesses of various sorts, but we shall do our best
to anticipate and provide for them? We are sure there will be
difficulties and disappointments to encounter, but we shall meet them in
the confidence that God is on our side, that He is intensely interested
in the efforts which He Himself has inspired us to undertake and that
ultimate victory is bound to crown our efforts.
And now I would give a brief description of this great City Dredger,
explaining its component parts in the chapters that are to follow. We
cannot promise that the entire machine will get into working order at
once. We are anxious to start it immediately and to complete it as soon
as possible. But on the public will largely depend the question as to
how long it will take us to get it afloat and finished. Its simplicity,
practicability, and universality are to me at the same time its chief
charms, and its credentials to success. It is only part of a larger
scheme with which it is entwined. But it is an important, perhaps the
most important part and will continue to exercise over the entire effort
the controlling head and the inspiring heart without which the whole
apparatus will be as motionless as a machine without steam, or a body
without life.
The following are the various branches of the City Colony--
(1) The Regimentation of Labor.
(2) Food for all--Food Depôts.
(3) Work for all--Labor yards.
(4) Shelter for all.
(5) The household Salvage Corps.
(6) The Prison Gate Brigade.
(7) The Drunkard's Home.
(8) The Rescue Home for fallen women.
(9) The poor man's Metropole.
(10) The Emigration Bureau.
To these no doubt will in course of time be added many other branches.
In the meantime this is in itself a sufficiently extensive programme for
some years to come. How we propose to elaborate each of the above, will
be found in the following pages.
CHAPTER IV.
THE LABOR BUREAU.
One of the most painful sights with which modern civilisation presents
us is the enormous and increasing wastage of valuable human labor. The
first step towards remedying this gigantic and alarming evil will be to
ascertain its extent. This we propose to do by means of our Labor
Bureau. Here all classes of out-of-works will be welcomed, from the
respectable well educated intelligent youths, who are being poured out
of our colleges by thousands, to the most squalid specimen of a Lazarus
that lies at our gates desiring to be fed with the crumbs that fall from
our tables. All will be sorted out, sifted and regimented, or organised,
into distinct corps, which will in time no doubt develope into legions.
The Bureau will not, however, stop short with simply ascertaining the
extent of the evil which exists. It will at the same time turn its
attention to the examination and regimentation of the channels which
already exist for the absorption of that labor. For while it is true
that there are vast quantities of unutilised labor, and that the present
supply of labor greatly exceeds the demand, it is also true that for
want of suitable arrangements for bringing together capital and labor,
the capitalist also frequently loses time and money, either in searching
for labor which he cannot get, or in resorting to labor of an inferior
quality, where labor of a superior quality would bring in much larger
returns.
Into the pre-existing channels it would be the first aim of our Labor
Bureau to pour the labor supply of the country. And experience would
probably enable us to widen, deepen and lengthen these channels in such
a manner as would prove profitable to both employers and employed, as
well as to the nation at large.
When, however, this had been done, it is alas! only too certain that we
should still have left upon our hands a vast amount of surplus labor,
for which we should next proceed to dig out new and profitable channels.
The problem no doubt bristles with difficulties, but that is no reason
why we should sit down before it and fold our hands in despair.
Once upon a time, aye for hundreds of years, the waters of the Cauvery
were poured in one useless torrent into the sea, sweeping past great
tracts of thirsty land, which craved its waters, but could not reach
them. At the present moment scarcely a drop of that river reaches the
ocean. Its course has been diverted into a thousand channels, and so
fertilising are its waters that the rich alluvial deposits which they
bear render the use of manure unnecessary. And yet for centuries these
possibilities were unrecognised and suffered to go to waste.
Is not this a fitting picture of the huge river of labor that winds its
course through arid plains of want and poverty and starvation, which it
is capable of fertilising and converting into a modern Paradise? True
that on its banks and in its immediate neighbourhood are strips of
luxuriant vegetation. But those only show up in painful relief the utter
barrenness of the "region beyond." Why should the dwellers upon the
banks be allowed to monopolise and appropriate that which they cannot
even utilise, and that which is often a source of positive danger,
annoyance and loss to them? Why should not channels be devised for these
human waters, by means of which they should be distributed, so as to be
put to the utmost possible use?
This social problem is no doubt the "white elephant" of society. Cannot
we devise a "kheddah" for capturing the entire herd wholesale? Perhaps
after all we shall find it easier and quicker to catch and tame the
herd, than to set snares and pitfalls for individual ones and twos. Ah,
you say, many have tried and failed. That is because they have not
studied the habits of the animal. Besides it is by means of failure that
the grandest successes have ultimately been achieved. See how skilfully
that "mahaut" manages his huge yet obedient servant. And cannot we point
already in our own ranks to elephants more wonderful that have been
tamed and mastered by the goad of love?
It is the successes of the past that encourage General Booth to face the
problem in the spirit of hopefulness that breathes through every page of
"Darkest England." And if the genius of man has been able to tame the
strongest of animals, such as elephants,--the fiercest, such as
lions,--the swiftest, such as horses, and the dullest, such as the
ass,--why should we despair of reducing to order this chaotic mass of
labor, and of turning that which at present constitutes a danger that
threatens the very existence of society into a source of safety, of
wealth and power? At any rate this is the object that will be kept
steadily in view by our Labor Bureau.
All persons will be able to register names at our Bureau. If they are
destitute and willing to go to our yards, they will be sent there and
given work suitable to their caste, or profession. If on the other hand
they are not in need of such assistance, being supported by their
friends, we shall simply register their names and do our best to find
suitable work for them, though it would of course be distinctly
understood by them that we undertook no responsibility in regard to
this. A small fee will be charged, in proportion to the nature of the
case. This would serve to cover the expenses of the Bureau, which would
I am sure meet a long felt want.
Employers of labour would benefit almost more even than the men
employed, as we should always be able to supply them at a short notice
with any description and number of "hands" that they might require, and
they would be saved the expense, delay, and uncertainty of having to
advertise.
For instance I know of millowners who complain that they cannot get
labourers who will stay, and that their work suffers from the flotsam,
jetsam character of those whom they employ working for a few weeks and
then leaving. This we should be able to remedy.
Indeed after a short time we might reasonably expect that in recognising
the great convenience thus afforded them, millowners and other great
employers of labour, including very possibly the Government and the
Railway Companies would refuse to employ any who had not registered
themselves at our Bureau.
Again it would doubtless be a great satisfaction to employers in cases
where a reduction of establishment became necessary, to feel that they
could hand over to us those with whose services they were dispensing,
knowing that every effort would be made to make suitable provision for
them.
The labour register would contain columns in which would be entered the
various kinds of employment for which the applicant was willing or
suited, and the minimum pay which he was prepared to accept, so that we
should be able to ascertain exactly how many out-of-works there were of
each particular class. We should also enter in a separate register those
who had accepted an inferior position, in the hopes of being able to
better themselves subsequently.
In connection with our registers we should keep a character roll. Copies
of certificates would be filed, and notes made in regard to
unsatisfactory characters, so that in course of time we should be able
to give some sort of a guarantee in regard to those whom we sent out. In
the case of any one being reported to us as unsatisfactory, we should
still, however, give him another chance by redrafting him into our
Labour Yards, or by giving him some sort of inferior employment, more
immediately under our own surveillance, till he had regained his
character.
Among other things we might undertake to supply servants to European
families. A register of such would be very useful both to masters and
servants. For instance in the case of lost "chits" we could supply
certified copies of the original.
There is another class to whom I should think the establishment of such
an agency will be particularly welcome. Our cities swarm with educated
young men unable to find employment. Although we cannot include them
among our destitute classes, we believe that without turning aside from
our main object, we could do a great deal to help them.
If our scheme grows to the proportions and with the rapidity which we
anticipate, this would in itself absorb large numbers of them. And where
we could do no more we could obtain a moral influence over them and they
would come within the scope of the Advice and Intelligence Bureaux which
are described elsewhere. Constituting as they do the cream of the youth
of India, full of ardent, though often misdirected, enthusiasm, we
should be able to help mould them into happy, independent, prosperous
and loyal citizens, who would be a bulwark to the State, instead of
leaving them to simmer in their present unfortunate circumstances. "To
dig" they don't know, and "to beg" they are ashamed.
They would in their turn I believe give an important impetus to our
scheme and might constitute themselves its fervent apostles helping it
to sweep from end to end of India in less time than it is possible for
us to conceive.
CHAPTER V.
FOOD FOR ALL--THE FOOD DEPÔTS.
In England, owing to the severity and uncertainty of the weather, the
food and shelter questions go hand in hand. This is not the case in
India, where the shelter is not so important as the food, and there is
no such urgency in dealing with the former as with the latter. For
instance during nine months out of twelve it is not such a very great
hardship to sleep in the open air in most parts of India. I have myself
done it frequently and so have many of our Officers. It is true that we
should not like it as a regular thing, and still less perhaps, if driven
to it by absolute want. Still I am perfectly prepared to admit that the
circumstances are totally different to that of England, and that the
question of shelter is of secondary importance as compared with food.
The time will come when we shall be obliged to face and deal with it. If
our scheme meets with the success that we anticipate, having first
satisfied the gnawings of these hunger-bitten stomachs, we shall
certainly turn round and think next what we can do to provide them with
decent homes for themselves and their families.
But we can safely afford to defer the consideration of this question for
the present, in order to throw all our time and energy into the solution
of the infinitely more urgent and important problem of a regular and
sufficient food supply for these destitutes.
At present as I have already pointed out, they are dependent solely on
the help of relations and friends and on the doles of the charitable;
or on the proceeds of vice and crime. The insufficiency of these to meet
the needs of the case I have also, I believe, proved to demonstration.
Therefore one of the first parts of our City programme will be the
establishment of cheap food depôts, at which food of various kinds will
be supplied at the lowest possible cost price. These depôts will be
dovetailed in with other parts of our scheme, which have yet to be
described, and the one will help to support the other.
It may be objected that if we undertake to sell food at lower than the
ordinary market rates, we shall interfere with the legitimate operations
of trade. But to this we would answer that the same objection would be
still more true in regard to charitable doles, which are given for
nothing. And further, we shall fix our prices with a view to covering
the actual cost of the food, so that there will not be any probability
of our interfering with ordinary market rates. Besides, should there be
any very serious difficulty of the kind, we could always make a rule
limiting the food sold at these depôts to those who came under the
operation of the other branches of our social reform.
At the outset it would probably be wisest to avoid all caste
complications by confining ourselves entirely to uncooked food, leaving
the people to do their own cooking, but it is very probable that before
long we should be forced to undertake the preparation of cooked food. We
should of course pay due regard in this respect to the customs of the
various castes, religions and nationalities concerned. To a Hindoo for
instance it would be extremely disagreeable to eat out Of the same dish
as others, while Mahommedans, as one said to me the other day, only
enjoy the meal the more, when others are sitting round the platter.
These, however, are subordinate details which would largely settle
themselves as we went along. Food in some shape or form, the destitute
must have, good in quality and sufficient in quantity, and if they
prefer it uncooked this will save us trouble, whereas if cooking becomes
necessary we shall have another industry for the employment of many
hands. Meanwhile the fact that nearly every native of the poorer castes,
be it man, woman, or even child, knows how to cook their own food, is
likely to be of no little help in settling the question of the food
supply.
CHAPTER VI.
WORK FOR ALL, OR THE LABOUR YARD.
But it may next be asked, what we shall do in the case of those who have
no money with which to buy their food, even at the reduced rates we
would propose? To this we would reply that such will be expected to
perform a reasonable amount of work, in return for which they will be
given tickets entitling them to obtain food from the depôts just
referred to.
In order to do this we shall establish labour yards, where we shall
provide work of a suitable character for the destitute. This will
involve very little expense, as sheds of a cheap description will answer
our purpose, there being no necessity for providing against the
inclement weather which adds so greatly to the expense and difficulty of
carrying on such operations in England.
Whatever may be the produce of this cheap labour, we shall be careful to
sell it rather above than below the ordinary market rates, so as to
avoid competing with other labour. Moreover, we shall direct our
attention from the first to manufacturing chiefly those articles which
are likely to be of service to us in other branches of our scheme, so
that the labour of the destitute will go chiefly towards supplying their
own wants and those of the persons who are engaged in prosecuting the
work.
For instance, supposing that a number of the destitute were employed in
making coarse cloth, baskets, mats, or cow-dung fuel, these could be
retailed at a nominal figure to those who presented our labour tickets
at our food depôts.
The most encouraging feature in the establishment of labour yards is
that nearly every Indian has been brought up from childhood to some
trade. You can rarely meet the most ignorant and uneducated Native
without finding that he is thoroughly expert at some kind of handicraft.
In brigading the poor we should be careful to make the best use of this
knowledge by putting each as much as possible to the trade with which he
was most familiar.
The following industries, the majority of them directly connected with
various branches of our work, could be started at once and would need
scarcely any outlay to begin with.
1. _The Potters Brigade_--Would furnish us with the earthenware, for
which we should from the first have a very large demand. The
Household Salvage Brigade would require some thousands of pots to
start with and in connection with our food depôts we should be able
to dispose of thousands more.
2. _The Weavers Brigade_--This would give employment for a large
number of skilled hands. Their first object would be to supply the
kinds of clothes, blankets, &c., which would be most suitable for
the use of the submerged tenth. In catering for their wants we
should avoid, however, anything _prisony_, or _workhousey_, or
charity-institutiony in appearance. As our numbers increased we
should find plenty of work for our weavers, at any rate for many
years to come without entering into any sort of competition either
with the market or the mills.
3. _The Basket Brigade_--Would supply us with all sorts of cheap
baskets, for which we should have a constant demand.
4. _The Mat Making Brigade_--Would find employment for many more
hands in supplying us with mats for sleeping and household purposes.
5. _The Fuel Brigade_--Here we have an industry which requires no
skill. There would be two branches of it--the woodchoppers and the
Oopala makers. For the latter women and children could be largely
employed both in the collection of the cow-dung and in the
preparation of it for use as fuel.
6. _The Tinners Brigade_--Will be kept busy making receptables and
badges for the Salvage Brigade, and also probably emblems for the
Labor Bureau.
7. _The Ropemakers Brigade_--Will furnish employment to a number
more and the results of their labour will find an ample market in
our various colonies.
8. _The Tanners Brigade_--Will supply all our departments with such
leather as may be required for various purposes, and among other
things will be attached to.
9. _The Shoemakers Brigade_--Who will be employed in patching up the
old shoes collected by our Household Salvage Brigade and in making
new ones for our consumption.
10. _The Tailors Brigade_--Will supply uniform and clothing of all
kinds. For these we have already a very considerable demand, which
would increase year by year.
11. _The Carpenters Brigade_--Would have plenty to do in providing
seats for our Barracks, office essentials, boxes, and household
furniture for our colonies. They would be linked with
12. _The Building Brigade_--For whom we shall find ample employment
in the erection of our Labour Sheds, Shelters and Farms.
13. _The Masons Brigade_--Would also be attached to the previous
one, and would become an important feature in our Labour Department.
14. _The Brick Makers Brigade_--Would supply us with all the bricks
and tiles that we might require. Here again it is easy to see that,
without trenching in the least on the outside public, we should
create and support an important industry which would soon absorb
hundreds if not thousands of hands.
15. _The Painters Brigade_--Would undertake the painting and
whitewashing of our buildings, carts, tinware, &c.
16. _The Dyers Brigade_--Would find employment in dyeing our cloth,
or the various sorts of thread we might require for the use of our
weavers.
17. _The Dhobees Brigade_--Although among our community we should
encourage every one to be his own dhobee, yet from the first we
should have plenty of washing to employ a considerable number of
hands.
18. _The Umbrella Makers Brigade_--Would find considerable scope in
repairing the old frames collected by our Household Salvage Brigade;
while the Sewing Brigade would work the covers.
19. _The Paper-makers Brigade_--Would also be supplied with plenty
of material by the Household Salvage Brigade, and would keep our
printing establishment supplied with whatever paper they might
require. Already we consume a considerable quantity, and this would
be enormously increased by the development of our scheme.
20. _The Book-binders Brigade_--Would furnish us with our registers
for the Regimentation Bureau, besides doing our other miscellaneous
work of a similar description.
21. _The Brass Brigade_--Would supply Our colonies with the various
kinds of brazen vessels we should be likely to require. For these in
process of time there would be a large demand.
22. _The Net-making Brigade_--Would make nets for fishing purposes.
33. _The Hawkers Brigade_--There could be no possible objection to
our disposing of our goods in this way at the ordinary market rates
supposing that we were in a position to manufacture more than we
required for our own consumption.
24. _The Barbers Brigade_--Would also be a necessary addition to our
forces, and would find plenty of scope for their skill among the
unwashed multitudes who would compose our labour legions.
Such are some of the occupations which might at once be set on foot. To
these would no doubt be added many other sorts of handicraft, as our
numbers and experience increased, and fresh opportunities opened up
around us.
CHAPTER VII.
SHELTER FOR ALL, OR THE HOUSING OF THE DESTITUTE.
A considerable portion of General Booth's book is devoted to the
description of shelters, improved lodgings and suburban villages for the
poor. As elsewhere remarked this question is not of such vital
importance for India as for England, though the dealing with it is
simply a question of time.
We would therefore simply refer our readers to the admirable proposals
embodied in General Booth's book. It is possible that there may be some
who will desire that immediate steps should be taken for the preparation
of similar quarters for the poor in our terribly over-crowded Indian
cities. It is in any case extremely likely that the question will be
forced upon us at an early date by the people themselves.
But I have thought it best to narrow down the scheme as much as possible
to those things which seem of the most absolute and immediate urgency,
and I have therefore divested it as much as possible of all that could
reasonably be dispensed with.
Still I see no reason why each city should not have its "Poor Man's
Metropole," as well as its model dwellings and suburban villages, for
the working classes. I would have these, moreover, as purely oriental as
possible with a careful avoidance of anything that might be European in
their appearance and arrangements. There should be tanks for bathing,
and washing purposes, gardens, recreation grounds for the children,
proper conveniences for cooking, and quarters in which they would not be
herded together like cattle, but given the decencies of life, so
necessary and helpful to the encouragement of cleanliness and morality.
Another point would be the absolute absence of anything in the shape of
mere "charity" about any of the buildings. Everybody would be made to
feel happy and at home, and their self-respect would be cultivated by
arranging for suitable charges to be made, payment being taken either in
cash or labour.
However, these are only hints that are thrown out, to show that we are
fully awake to the importance of this subject, and in order that friends
who are interested in the question may feel free to communicate their
wishes and give us their advice.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BEGGARS BRIGADE.
I now come to a special element of both hope and difficulty in the
solution of our Indian Social problem,--The Beggars. Here we have the
lowest stratum of the submerged tenth, excluding from them the religious
mendicants with whom we are not now concerned. I have classified them as
follows:--
1. The blind and infirm.
2. Those who help them and share the proceeds of their begging.
3. Able-bodied out of works.
Now I propose to deal with them in a way which will not call for
Legislation. In the first place it is most improbable that Government
would interfere with beggary, even if asked to do so. Certainly no such
interference would be possible without assuming the responsibility of
the entire pauper population, involving an expenditure of many million
pounds. In the second place any such interference would in all
likelihood be extremely distasteful to the native public. In the third
place I believe the question can be better dealt with in another way.
I propose to cut diamond with diamond, to set a thief to catch a thief,
to make a beggar mend a beggar. In other words my plan is to _reform_
the system rather than _abolish_ it. To the radical reformer who would
sweep out the whole "nuisance" at one stroke, this may be a
disappointment. But I believe that this feeling will be diminished, if
not entirely removed, when he has made himself familiar with the
following scheme.
Of course if the Upas tree could be uprooted and banished from our
midst,--if with a wave of his magic wand some sorcerer could make it
disappear, so much the better. But this is impossible. We should require
an axe of gold to cut down the tree; and this we do not possess. If a
rich and powerful Government shrinks from the expense of such an
undertaking, we may well be excused for doing the same.
But after all supposing that you can transform your Upas tree into a
fruit-bearing one, will not this be even better than to cut it down?
Such things are done every day before our very eyes in nature. The stock
of the crab-apple can be made to bear quinces, and a mango tree that is
scarcely worth the ground it occupies, can be made to yield fruit which
will fetch four annas a piece!
What is done in the garden is possible in human nature. And God will yet
enable us to graft into this wretched and apparently worthless Upas
stock, a bud which in coming years shall be loaded with fruit that shall
be the marvel of the world. This human desert shall yet blossom as the
rose, this wilderness shall become a fruitful garden, and the waste
places be inhabited.
Surely then, better even than the _annihilation_ of beggary will be its
_reformation_, should this be possible. At least the suggestion is well
worthy of consideration, and in examining, the matter, there will be
several important advantages to which I shall afterwards refer.
(1.) The first step that we would take in reforming the-beggars would be
to _regiment them._ The task would be undertaken by our Labor Bureau. In
this I do not think there would be serious difficulty encountered, if
the scheme commended itself to the native public. They would only have
to stop their supplies and send the beggars to us.
(2.) Our next step would be to _sort out_ the beggars. They would be
divided into three classes:--
(a) _The physically unfit_, who could be furnished with light work
at our labor yards, or otherwise cared for. At present there are
hundreds of beggars who are physically unfit for the exertion that
begging involves, and who are driven to it by the desperate pangs
of hunger.
(b) _Those who like_ it, and are physically well fitted for it,
besides being accustomed to the life, and not being fitted much for
anything else.
(c) Those who dislike the life, and would prefer, or are suited for
other occupations. Some of these we would draft off to other
departments of our labour yards, while some would for the present
be kept on as beggars, with the hope of early promotion to other
employment.
(3.) We should _brigade the beggars_ under the name of the Household
Salvage Brigade, or some similar title, dividing them into small
companies and appointing over them Sergeants from among themselves, and
providing each with a badge or number.
(4.) We should with the advice and consent of the leading members of the
native community, _map out the city into wards_, and assign each company
their respective streets, allotting as far as possible the Mahommedan
beggars to the Mahommedan quarters, and the Hindoos to the Hindoo. In
this we should also take the advice of experienced beggars, from whom we
should expect to learn many useful hints.
(5,) Each house that was willing to receive them would _be supplied with
three receptacles_, one for waste cooked food, another for gifts of
uncooked food, and a third for old clothes, waste paper, shoes, tins,
bottles, and other similar articles.
(6.) At an appointed hour the Brigade would proceed to their posts,
would patrol their wards, and bring or send the various articles
collected to the labor yards, where all would be sorted and dealt with
as necessary the cooked food being distributed among those who were
willing to eat it, or sent to the surburban farm for our buffaloes. The
raw grain would be handed over to our food depôts, and credited by them
to the Beggars Fund for the special benefit of the destitute.
(7.) At the end of each day every member of the Brigade would receive a
food ticket in payment of his services. The amount could be regulated
hereafter. This ticket he would present at our food depôt, where he
would be supplied with whatever articles he might require. There would
be a regular system of rewards and encouragements for good conduct. But
all such details will be settled hereafter.
(8.) A special feature in the system would be the introduction of the
ancient _Buddhist_ custom of "_meetihal_," or "the consecrated handful
of rice." This is as follows. A pot is kept in each home and a handful
of grain is put into it every time the family meal is cooked. We think
that there would be no difficulty in getting this custom universally
adopted, when it was understood that the proceeds would be devoted
entirely to feeding the destitute. I believe that the income derived
from this alone would in course of time be sufficient to meet the needs
of the destitute in any city in India, at the same time that it would
serve to equalise and therefore minimise the burden which now rests
chiefly on a comparative few.
(9.) In case the food supply thus obtained should be insufficient, we
have little doubt that we could persuade leading merchants in the city
to club together and make up the difference, when they saw the good work
that was going on.
Such in brief is a skeleton of the scheme for elevating and renovating
the Beggar population of India. It is no doubt open to criticism on some
points, but it has special advantages which I will proceed to point out,
apologising for the extra space I am obliged to occupy, in dealing with
this subject, on account of its novelty and importance, and in order
that I may be thoroughly understood.
1. _It is conservative._ Here you have a reformation without a
revolution, or rather a revolution by means of a reformation. And yet
there is no attempted upheaval of society.
2. It is thoroughly _Indian_, and suited to the national taste.
3. It _costs nothing_ and may even prove in time a source of income to
the Social Scheme.
4. It is _doubly economical_ since it uses the human waste in collecting
what would be the natural wastage of the city, and devotes each to the
service of the other.
5. It is _systematic_ and therefore bound to be as immensely superior to
the present haphazard mode, as a regular Army is to an undisciplined
mob.
6. It unites the advantages of _moral suasion_, with those of the most
perfect _religious equality_ and _toleration._
7. _It saves the State an enormous expenditure_ and avoids the necessity
for harsh, repressive, unpopular legislation, and increased taxation.
8. _It benefits the public._
(a) It removes a public nuisance.
(b) And yet it satisfies the public conscience.
(c) It stimulates private charity, and directs its generosity into
wise and beneficial channels.
9. _It benefits the beggars._
(a) It protects the weak from the painful and often unsuccessful
struggle for existence.
(b) It ensures everybody their daily food and a sufficiency of it.
(c) It restores their self respect.
(d) It teaches them habits of honesty, industry and thrift.
(e) It opens up to them a pathway of promotion.
10. Finally it will furnish honest and honorable employment right away
for hundreds of thousands all over the land, and create an entirely
_novel_ industry out of what is at present an absolute _wreckage._
But I am well aware that certain objections are likely to be raised.
These I would seek to remove, though if we are to wait for a plan which
is free from all liability to criticism, we may wait for ever, and wait
in vain. There is a famous answer given by John Wesley to a lady who was
objecting to something about his work,--"Madam, if there were a perfect
organization in the world, it would cease to be so the day that you and
I entered into it." Hence it is not simply a question as to whether
there are difficulties in the present proposals, but can anything better
be suggested. However, I am anxious to meet in the fairest possible
manner all conceivable objections, and am perfectly prepared to make any
such modifications as may appear advisable.
(1.) Some will perhaps say that the beggars are already too well off to
desire to come,--that they are making a good thing of it and will prefer
to prosecute their calling under the present arrangements. Of course if
it be true that they are able to do better for themselves than we are
proposing to do for them, then they have no right to be included in the
submerged tenth. I would congratulate them on their success and turn my
attention to those who are more in need of our services. But could any
one seriously defend such a supposition? And if they are likely to be
bettered by the new arrangements, why should we suppose that they should
be so blind to their own interests as to refuse to profit by the new
chance? Besides, this is contradicted by all experience. Let there be a
prospect of a feast, or a supply of rice or food, and who does not know
that beggars will flock eagerly to the point, though it be only for a
single meal, and we propose to provide a _permanent livelihood._
(2.) But says some one else _they are bone-idle and will not work_, and
you propose to give them no food save in exchange for their work. This
is a real and serious difficulty. We fully recognise it. Yet we do not
think it is un-get-over-able, for the following reasons:--
(a) We do not intend to be hard-taskmasters. The work given will be
of a light character, and suited to the strength of each. We are
not going in for oakum picking and stone breaking. We shall do our
utmost to make everything bright, cheerful and easy. We have no
idea of treating them as criminals.
(b) It ought not to be difficult to get each one to do two annas
worth of work, and this will be more than sufficient to cover their
expenses. We have no desire to become _sweaters._
(c) _Begging is hard work._ If you don't believe it, come and try
it! I and many of my officers have begged our food as religious
mendicants, so that we, are able to speak from _experience_!
It is at best a life of sacrifice, hardship and suffering. And yet
we have practised it under _specially favorable circumstances_,
particularly those of us who are Europeans. But that there can be
any sort of rest, or ease, or enjoyment in it to those who are
driven to it by the pangs of hunger, unsupported by any spiritual
consolations, I cannot conceive. On the contrary I should say that
the task of the beggar is so hard, and disagreeable not to say
_shameful_, that the majority of them would leap to do the
most menial tasks that would deliver them from a bondage so
painful.
Have you ever solicited help and been refused? Have you known what
it is to feel the awful sickenings of heart at hope deferred? Have
you known what it is to be regarded with suspicion, with contempt,
with dislike, with scorn, or even with _pity_ by your fellow men?
If so, you may be able to realise the experiences that every beggar
has to go through a hundred times a day, many of them with feelings
every bit as sensitive as your own. Will he demean himself and work
hard at so miserable a calling and yet be unwilling to do some
light work, with which he can earn an honest living? I for one
cannot believe it, till I see it.
(d) Our experience further contradicts it in dealing with the more
depraved, hardened and supposed-to-be-idle criminals and
prostitutes, whom we receive into our Prison Gate and Rescue Homes.
When Sir E. Noel Walker was visiting our Prisoners' Home in
Colombo he was astonished at the _alacrity_ with which the men
obeyed orders, and the _eagerness_ with which they worked at their
allotted tasks. He asked the Officer in Charge whether he ever
_"hammered"_ them, and was surprised at finding that the only
hammer he ever required was the _allsufficient_ hammer of _love._
And yet the gates were always open and they were free to walk out
whenever they liked. Moreover, beyond getting their food and a very
humble sort of shelter, their labour was entirely unpaid.
(e) Finally by means of a judicious system of rewards and promotions
we should educate and encourage them into working, besides teaching
them industries which would be useful after they had left us.
(3.) But some one else will say "They are thievish and will rob you.
They are roguish and will decieve you. You don't know whom you have to
deal with." Well, if we don't know them, we should think nobody does! I
would answer,
(a) Granted that some of them cheat us. All will not. And why should
the honest suffer with the rogues?
(b) What if we do lose something in this way? It would be little in
comparison with the enormous gain. I feel sure it would in no case
exceed ten or twenty per cent, on the collections made, and that
would be a mere trifle.
(c) Our system of regimentation would largely guard against any such
danger and would be an encouragement to honesty.
(d) It is notorious that there is "honour among thieves." They would
watch over one another. Among them "_nimak-harami_" or
"faithlessness to their salt" would soon come to be regarded as a
crime of the first water.
(e) The inducement for thieving would be largely gone. Very few
steal _for the sake of stealing._ A man usually steals to fill his
own stomach, or some one else's, whom he loves. But here all would
be provided for.
(f) Besides he would feel that all he could earn was for the _common
good_ and was not going to make any individual rich at his expense.
(g) Our experience in the Prison Gate Homes contradicts it. True, we
have had some thefts especially at the beginning, but when I was
last visiting our Colombo Home, the Officers in charge assured me
that they were now of the rarest occurrence, while the gentleman
who owned the tempting cocoanuts that were hanging overhead told
me that he had never had such good crops from his trees, as since
our colony of thieves and criminals had been settled there!
(4.) Some one else may perhaps object that we shall have thrown upon our
hands a swarm of helpless, useless, cripples and infirm. Well, and what
if we do? Are they not our fellow human beings, and ought not some one
to care for them? We shall look upon it as a precious responsibility,
and I speak fearlessly on behalf of our devoted officers when I say,
that they would rather spend and be spent for such than for the richest
in the land. If, as I have already shown, the effort can be made
_self-supporting_ and _self-propagating_, the mere fact of their misery
or poverty only impels us to love them the more and to strive the more
earnestly for their emancipation.
CHAPTER IX.
THE PRISON GATE BRIGADE.
This has already been in operation for two years in the cities of Bombay
and Colombo and a branch has been recently established in Madras. Now
that it will be connected with other branches of our Social Reform, we
may look for a rapid increase of this useful though difficult work.
The establishment of our Labor Yards will greatly help us in finding
work for this class, without branding them with the perpetual stigma of
their crime. The chief difficulty in the working of these Homes consists
in the almost insuperable objection of the men to be _known as
criminals_ after their release from jail. This is of course perfectly
natural. Besides, it is important that we should hold out before them
hopes of bettering themselves by their good conduct, and earning an
independent and honest livelihood at no distant date. When once our
Labor Yards and Farm Colonies are in active operation, we shall be able
to do this for our rescued criminals, continuing at the same time the
fatherly supervision and help which they so very much need.
The following quotations from our last annual report will serve to
explain this branch of our work, and to give a glimpse of the
encouraging success with which we have already met in our efforts to
reach and reform the criminal classes.
COLOMBO PRISON GATE HOME.
Picturesquely situated among palm trees in one of the most beautiful
suburbs of Colombo, within easy reach of the principal city jail, is our
Sinhalese Prisoners' Home. Cinnamon Gardens, as the district is called,
forms one of the attractions of Colombo, which every passing visitor is
bound to go and see. The beauty of the surroundings must be a pleasant
contrast to those dull prison walls from which the inmates have just
escaped. Still more blessed and cheering must be the change from the
Warder's stern commands to the affectionate welcome and kindly
attentions of the red-jacketed Salvationists, who have the management of
the Home.
A bright lad who is on duty in the guard-room opens the gates and
introduces you to the grounds in which the quarters are situated. There
are groups of huts with mud walls and palm-leaf thatching, which have a
thoroughly Indian and yet home like appearance. The first few of these
are occupied as workshops or carpentry for the manufacture of tea boxes,
and here from early to late the men may be seen busily employed, sawing,
planing, measuring, bevelling, hammering and working with such a will
that you might imagine their very lives depended on it, or at least that
they must be making their fortunes out of it, whereas they are not being
paid at all, and all the profits of the manufactory go towards the
support of the Home!
"What I admire about your work," observed Sir Athur Gordon, the late
Governor of Ceylon, "is the way in which your Officers identify
themselves with these convicts, and live among them on terms of perfect
equality."
But I was describing the little colony. On the left of this group of
workshops is a neat little hut where Captain Dev Kumar and his young
bride, Captain Deva Priti, reside. What a change for them form the
English Homes to which they have been accustomed, to this little jungle
hut, surrounded as they are continually by a band of ex-convicts, and
criminals. Yet it would be hard to find a happier couple in the
island,--in fact, quite impossible outside the Salvation Army.
"It is all our own work," explains the Captain. "Our men built the hut,
and the materials only cost about Rs. 25!" Certainly this is the
perfection of cheapness in the way of house building! A little further
inside the enclosure you come to more huts, in some of which the men
live, while others serve for quarters for the native officers who assist
in the superintendence of the Home, and to whose noble efforts so much
of its success is due. Then there is the kitchen, and a dining-room, and
a stable for the bullock trap, in which the released prisoners are
brought to the Home, to avoid the risk of a foot journey when their old
associates might hinder them on the way.
The spare bits of ground are all laid out in little plots of garden,
where plantains and vegetables are grown, and in front of the Captain's
quarters is a dainty little scrap of a flower garden. The entire
enclosure forms really a portion of the garden of a neighbouring house,
the property of the late Mr. Ginger, who took a warm interest in our
work, and leased the grounds to us at a nominal rent.
The following are the statistics of the work during the past year:--
Total number of admissions, .......................... 230
Found Situations, ................................... 115
Left, the Home and lost sight, of, .................. 103
Total number of sentences of imprisonment,............ 459
Number of juvenile convicts under 16 years of age, ... 40
Number of meals given,.............................. 15,774
Number of tea-boxes made, .......................... 2,880
Profits on same,................................. Rs. 350
The accompanying is the official report form sent in by us to
Government every month showing the results of the work--
JAIL GATE BRIGADE--COLOMBO--ITS RESULTS.
Prisons.
A.--This Return for the preceding month shall be forwarded on 1st or 2nd
of each month, by the Officer Commanding Salvation Army, through the
Superintendent of the Convict Establishment to the Inspector General of
Prisons, with columns 1, 6, 7, and 8, duly filled in.
B.--The Superintendent Convict Establishment shall fill in columns 2, 3,
4, and 5, and send on the Return to the Inspector General.
1. Name and age of Prisoner.
2. Nationality and religion.
3. Name of Offence.
4. Length of imprisonment in months.
5. General character in Jail.
6. Number of days maintained by the Salvation Army
7. How employed now, or going to be employed.
8. Result of action of salvation Army on prisoner, roughly estimated.
_Superintendent Convict Establishment._
_Commdt. Salvation Army, Colombo._
That the work of the Colombo Prisoners' Home is highly appreciated in
Colombo is further proved by the fact that most of the leading
Government officials subscribe to its funds, including the Colonial
Secretary, Sir E. Noel Walker, the Chief Justice Sir Bruce Burnside,
and many others. Again, it is not an uncommon thing for us to receive
such letters as the following from the Magistrate:--
From the POLICE MAGISTRATE, Colombo,
To the CAPTAIN OF THE PRISON GATE BRIGADE.
_Dated, Colombo, October 30th, 1889._
_Subject--Habitual Offender, Dana._
Sir,
I have the honour to inform you that a man named Dana, produced
before me this day, charged with being a habitual thief, has
expressed a wish to be admitted into the Prison Brigade Home.
I shall be glad if you afford him an opportunity to redeem his
character.
I am, Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
E.W.M.,
_Police Magistrate._
The past year was suitably finished up by providing a special feast to
which only ex-convicts were admitted. No less than 150 accepted the
invitation.
About this branch of our work a leading daily paper, the Ceylon
_Independent_, writes as follows.--
Most of our readers have read in our columns of the good work the
Army is doing at the Prison Gate, in reclaiming from criminal
courses the discharged prisoners who have served their time of
confinement. In that critical moment, when the wide world is once
more before the newly discharged culprit, when he emerges from
confinement to overwhelming temptation, big it may be with fresh
schemes of crime, armed with enlarged experiences to aid in its
accomplishment, to be met, taken kindly by the hand, and led gently
to the pleasanter and more peaceful path of honesty, industry, and
virtue, is a surprise that is calculated to disarm temptation at
least for a moment, and thus virtue gains time for thought.
The success of the Prison Gate Brigade has hitherto been surprising, and
quite beyond its founders' anticipation. It has been especially useful
in reclaiming juvenile offenders, of whom a large number have been
induced to take to the honest means of livelihood, chiefly carpentry,
which the Home provides.
OUR BOMBAY PRISON GATE BRIGADE.
This work in Bombay was commenced some two years ago at the instance of
a leading Parsee gentleman, with a generous subscription of Rs. 1,200.
Owing partly to the fact that we have been hitherto unable to secure
suitable premises and partly to the entire absence of any assistance on
the part of Government, the work in Bombay has been much more uphill and
discouraging than in Ceylon. Nevertheless we have persevered in the
teeth of all sorts of difficulties, and the results have been very
encouraging. Recently in one week no less than three of the inmates of
our Bombay Home were accepted as cadets, to be trained up as future
officers. Previously to this nine others had been similarly accepted.
One of these, Lieut. Hira Singh, is now himself taking an active part in
the rescue of other convicts, while another is sucessfully working in
Gujarat. Accounts of their lives are given further on.
Indeed Bombay has proved itself to be an even richer field than Colombo
itself; and now that some of the peculiar difficulties that have
hitherto hindered the work, are one by one being removed, there is every
reason to believe that this work will soon make rapid progress.
The returns for the past year show that the prison gates have been
visited 235 times, for the purpose of meeting the convicts on their
release. Since the commencement of the Home about 134 men have been
admitted. Of these 74 have professed conversion, about 12 having been
accepted as officers by ourselves and the remainder having mostly found
employment elsewhere. The number of meals given during the past year has
been about 7,800.
One of the special features of the work here consists in the constant
visitation of the liquor dens, with a view to persuading those who were
frequenting them to give up their evil ways. No less than 430 such were
in this way visited and a large number of papers distributed. While the
opposition was in some instances severe, as a rule our officers were
well treated even by the grogshop-keepers, who while admitting that
their trade was evil, pleaded that they had the Government's approval,
and that they must somehow support themselves and their families.
Besides the regular inmates, a large number of casuals have been
relieved and assisted, but of these we have no exact figures.
The following are some specimens of the work done by us among the
criminal classes in Bombay and Ceylon:--
LIEUTENANT HIRA SINGH
Is a Hindu of the Kshatraya caste. He comes of a soldier race and
family, his father having served in the East India Company's army before
him, and he having from his youth followed the same profession for the
past eighteen years, serving successively as Private, Lance-Corporal,
Corporal, and Sergeant in a native Regiment. He went through the last
Afghan campaign, having been to Cabul, Quetta, and other places.
For many years his conduct was excellent, but latterly he took to
drinking, got into serious trouble with the police, and was sent to
prison for forty days, thus losing his post as well as his claim to
pension. He was met by our officers on his release, accompanied them to
the Home, gave his heart to God, and has now been an officer in our
ranks for more than a year. During most of this time he has been
connected with our Bombay Prison Gate work, and has in turn helped to
rescue many others. But for the help he then received, a life of
drunkenness and crime would probably have been, almost forced upon him.
He is a good specimen of numbers who would _like_ to reform, but with
ruined reputation have no choice, save between starvation and crime.
HARMANIS.
"I am a native (Singhalese) of Kalutara in Ceylon. My father was a
toddy-drawer. We were very poor. Sometimes my uncles would give me a
cent or two for mounting guard to give them warning about anybody's
approach while they were slaughtering stolen cattle in the jungles.
Once, being very hungry, I climbed up a palm tree to steal cocoanuts,
but was caught by the owner and handed over to the police. The
magistrate sent me to jail for three weeks. After my release I came to
Colombo, and falling in with the Salvation Army, I went to their Home
for prisoners, and now thank God I am saved."
PODI SINGHA
This is only one of the many aliases by which he is known. He has been
one of the worst thieves and bad characters to be met with even in
Colombo, where there is a pretty good assortment of the scum of slumdom.
Adopted as an infant by a pious Mahomedan, he was trained up in that
religion. But in spite of every effort that was made for his
reformation, he rapidly went from bad to worse, till at length he found
himself in the hands of the police.
His first sentence was twelve months for throwing sand in a Singhalese
man's eyes and then robbing him of his comb. When released he fell in
with other criminals, from whom he learnt many new tricks of the trade.
Once he was stealing some clothes from a line when the lady of the house
saw him. A hue and cry was raised, and he soon found himself surrounded
with coolies and dogs. Seeing that there was no chance of escape, he
began to jump and scream and go through all sorts of antics. The lady,
thinking he was mad, and having pity on him, let him go.
He has seen the inside of nearly all the Colombo jails, but without
being made any better. Finally, he was received into our Home. At first
he was rather troublesome, but after a short time he gave his heart to
God, and has been doing well. "He cannot read or write," says the
Captain in charge, "but he prays like a divine, and I am believing to
see him become an Officer some day."
JANIS
Was brought from his village by a Singhalese gentleman when quite a
little boy, but, leaving his master, thought he would start life on his
own account. He soon became a practised thief. "I always managed to
escape," he says, "till one day with some of my companions I robbed a
Buddhist temple. I managed to get a silver 'patara' (plate), which we
sold for Rs. 24, but was caught and sent to jail." "But you were
yourself a Buddhist," said the Captain. "How came you to rob your own
temple?" "What of that? I thought nothing of sin in those days. But it
is all so different now. I am saved, and mean to spend all my life in
saving others. I am just now practising a song to sing in the meeting
to-night."
The Captain asked him whether he did not think it a great disgrace to go
to jail. "Oh, no! I thought everybody in Colombo had been there some
time or other. All the people with whom I mixed had been." "Well, how
did you like it?" "Oh, it was not such a bad place! The food was fairly
good, and I had not to work very hard but I wish I had known about
salvation sooner. Even then I used to wish that I could find something
which would _make_ me good, but all my efforts were in vain till I came
to the Home, and got saved."
In conclusion, I feel sure that a few brief particulars regarding this
branch of our work in Australia will be read with interest, and will
serve to prove the usefulness of this portion of our social reform
scheme:
Some six or seven, Prisoners' Homes have been established in
Australasia. The Victorian Government give an annual grant of £1,000, to
assist us in this branch of our work. Special facilities are afforded to
our Officers in visiting the prisoners, and in some of the jails printed
notices are posted up by the authorities to the effect that any
prisoner, previous to discharge, may communicate with the officers in
charge of our Home, with a view to making a fresh start in life.
The testimony of Sir Graham Berry, Agent General, the Chief Secretary,
the Inspector General of Penal Establishments, and the Chief
Commissioner of Police, proves conclusively how much good has thus been
done. The following extracts from their letters are copied from our
Australasian Prison Gate report:--
H.E. SIR H.B. LOCH, K.C.B., G.C.M.G., writes through his Private
Secretary to express "his approval and appreciation of the work done by
the Salvation Army in connection with the Prison Gate Brigades and
Rescued Sisters' Homes, and has great pleasure in expressing his belief
in the good which has resulted from the philanthrophic endeavours of the
Salvation Army to rescue and afford material assistance to those in
whose interests these organisations have been formed."
SIR GRAHAM BERRY, Agent General for Victoria, writes:--"I have
confidence in the permanent results of your labours, because you, treat
these unfortunates as if they were human beings and capable of better
things. I believe your organisation is a very powerful agency for good
among that class which is practically neglected by others."
CHIEF JUSTICE HIGGINBOTHAM says that "it is only proper to mention that
there is no better nor more useful work done in rescuing discharged
prisoners from relapsing into crime, than that effected by the Prison
Gate Brigade of the Salvation Army."
Similar letters have also been received from the following gentlemen:--
The Hon. ALFRED DEAKIN, M.L.A., Chief Secretary.
The Hon. JAMES BALFOUR, M.L.C.
The Hon. M.H. DAVIES, M.L.A. (Speaker of the Legislative Assembly).
The Hon. F.F. DERHAM, M.L.A., Postmaster General.
The Hon. H.T. WRIXON, M.L.A., Attorney General.
The Hon. W.F. WALKER, M.L.A., Commissioner of Customs.
Mr. JUSTICE KERFERD.
The Bishop of MELBOURNE.
W.G. BRETT, Esq., Inspector General, Penal Department.
H.M. CHOMLEY, Esq., Chief Commissioner of Police.
A. SHIELDS, Esq., M.P., Medical Officer, Melbourne Jail.
CHAPTER X.
THE DRUNKARD'S BRIGADE.
Hundreds of habitual drunkards have been soundly converted and reformed
in connection with our ordinary spiritual work in India. Probably there
are not less than 500 such enrolled in our ranks in this country, and
turned into staunch and perpetual abstainers.
The terrible nature of the drinks and drugs consumed by the Natives, I
have already had occasion to describe, as also the increasingly large
number of those who are becoming enchained by the habit.
In connection with our present Social Reform, special efforts will be
made to reach this class. They will be personally dealt with, and placed
as far as possible in circumstances that shall put them beyond the reach
of their besetting temptation.
For some time past our Officers, more especially those in charge of the
Prison Gate work, have visited liquor-shops and opium and ganja dens,
speaking personally to the frequenters, and in some cases distributing
among them suitable appeals and warnings in regard to the fatal
consequences of the habit.
Untimately it is intended to establish homes for the most hopeless class
of inebriates, both for those habituated to liquor and for those who are
the slaves of the still more fatal drugs, such as opium and bhang.
CHAPTER XI.
THE RESCUE HOMES FOR THE FALLEN.
Here again we have made a beginning. It is now a year since the opening
of our Home in Colombo, and during that time 52 girls have been received
into our Home. Of these
2 have been restored to their friends,
4 are with others--doing well,
23 have turned out unsatisfactory, and
23 are with us in the Home, almost without exception giving evidence of
being truly reformed.
Heart-rending are the tales which have reached our ears as to the way in
which many of them have been decoyed from their homes, and as to the
miserable existence which they have since been dragging out.
Every Indian city teems with a too fast increasing number of similar
unfortunates, for whom at present nothing has been attempted. We
propose, therefore, very largely to extend our Homes at all the large
centres of population.
Connected as will be this department with the network of other agencies
that we have already established, and increased as will be our
facilities for reaching this class, we are confident that we shall be
able to carry out this much-needed reform on a scale commensurate with
the evil, besides warning the youths of our cities against the terrible
contamination to which they are at present exposed. All the weight of
our increasing influence will be thrown into the scale for cutting off
both the supply and demand of this infamous traffic in human souls.
CHAPTER XII.
"THE COUNTRY COLONY"--"WASTEWARD HO!"
As has been already explained in the first part of this book, the
congested state of the labor market in the agricultural districts is
leading to an enormous and increasing immigration of the country
population towards the towns, not as a matter of preference, or of
choice, but of dire necessity. The object of the Country Colony, as
applied to India, will be twofold:
1. It will seek to divert into more profitable channels the steadily
increasing torrent of immigration from the villages to the towns.
2. It will re-direct and re-distribute the masses of the Submerged Tenth
who already exist in every large city.
Like his English representative, the Indian village bumpkin has a
natural aversion to town life. Peculiarities in his dialect, dress, and
manners make him the laughing-stock of the clever Cockney townsman. His
simplicity and ignorance of the world cause him to be easily victimised
by the city sharper, for whom he is no match in the struggle of life. He
sighs for his green fields, and longs to get away from the bustle that
everywhere surrounds and bewilders him. He surrenders these preferences
only, because starvation is staring him in the face, and he has better
chances of working, begging, or stealing in the city than in his
village.
And yet within a few miles of his birthplace there are frequently tracts
of waste land amply sufficient to support him and thousands more. He
could reduce it to cultivation if he had the chance. He would infinitely
prefer eking out the scantiest existence in this manner to flinging
himself into the turbulent whirlpool of town life. Strangely enough the
"Sirkar" (Government), to whom these tracts belong, is equally anxious
that the land in question should be cultivated. It would yield in the
course of a few years as rich a revenue as the acres of exactly similar
soil that have been brought under cultivation in the neighbourhood. But
the difficulties in the way are well nigh insuperable:
1. The congested labor consists almost entirely of those castes which
are looked upon as inferior. The very idea of their emancipation is
distasteful to the higher castes, who enjoy in most parts of India an
almost exclusive monopoly of the land. Hence any effort to obtain a
grant of waste land is met with strong and often bitter opposition, and
it is next door to impossible for any one in the position of the
Submerged Tenth to fight the battle through.
2. Of course, under the British Government these caste distinctions are
not officially recognised. But as a matter of fact they still carry
great weight. Anybody can, it is true, petition the Government for a
grant of this land, but to secure favourable consideration is almost
impossible. During the last four or five years I have personally
interested myself in several petitions, with a view to assisting the
petitioners, whom I knew to be thoroughly deserving of success. And yet
after going through a weary tissue of formalities, seldom lasting less
than a year, I have not known of a single favourable answer, nor have
these advances met with the least sort of encouragement. The Government
officials to whom these vast estates are entrusted are mostly so
preoccupied with other work that it is impossible for them to give to
the subject the personal attention that it requires, and they are guided
by the reports of interested and sometimes bribed subordinates. The very
fact that they are entitled to draw exactly the same salary whether the
public estate improves or not, removes the incentive that would
otherwise exist, even if they were the absentee landlords of the
property, while the constant liability to be transferred from one
district to another aggravates the difficulty of the situation.
3. Again, there is a lack of the capital necessary for the initial
expenses of the cultivator in sinking wells, building houses, supplying
cattle and obtaining both seed and food till the harvest has been
gathered in.
4. The lack of combination among the congested mass of labourers is
another serious evil. They are as sheep without a shepherd. Individually
they have no influence. Collectively they are capable of becoming a
mighty power. What is needed at the present moment is a directing head
and an enfolding organisation that shall gather them together, bind them
in one harmonious whole, and with the help of a friendly Government lead
them on to occupy and cultivate these waste lands, converting them into
districts inhabited by a sober, thrifty and enterprising population.
Without such a combination the efforts that are made by private
enterprise will continue to be carried out on such a petty scale as will
utterly fail to cope with or remove the existing evil, and will merely
serve to give relief in a few isolated cases. For instance I have in
mind one district where to my personal knowledge the amount of congested
labor cannot amount on the most moderate calculation to less than half a
million people. There is in their immediate neighbourhood abundance of
waste land capable of supporting them. The Government is anxious for
that land to be occupied. The people are eager to obtain and capable of
cultivating every piece of waste that can be placed at their disposal.
If, instead of leaving it to individual caprice and effort to carry on
in the present haphazard and redtape fashion, we are able on the one
hand to combine this mass of labor, and to obtain on the other hand from
Government the particulars of the land they are desirous of having
cultivated, and the most favorable terms on which it can be granted to
us, we shall be in a position with, but a very moderate amount of
capital at our command, to solve the double problem of the waste land
and waste labor, and that within a very short period.
5. The religious influences which we should bring to bear on the
colonists would be invaluable, especially in the early days of these
colonies. The example of our Officers, their self-sacrificing devotion
to the interests of the people, the knowledge that they would gain
nothing by the success of the enterprise and that they were actuated
solely by the highest motives, the facts that they were sharing the
homes of the people, enduring the same hardships and eating the same
food, all this would act as an inspiration to the colonists when the
early days of trial and difficulty came upon them. No less an authority
than Mr. John Morley, M.P., remarked when he first heard of General
Booth's scheme, that he considered that its combination of religion with
the other details of the plan of campaign was its most hopeful feature,
and would be most likely to ensure its success. This seems to apply
especially to that portion of the scheme now under consideration.
Indeed, were such an enterprise directed solely by an agency destitute
of this powerful lever, we should anticipate failure in nine cases out
of ten, no matter how great the ability that directed and how abundant
the capital that could be commanded. Individual rapacity and selfishness
would spoil everything, and instead of a beautiful spirit of harmony and
self-sacrifice, we should find a lucky few gaining the prizes and the
masses left no better, perhaps worse, off than before.
With these preliminary remarks I would introduce the Country Colony, as
suggested by General Booth. It will consist of the following branches,
to which no doubt others will be added as we advance:--
1. The Suburban Farm in the vicinity of large cities, including
(a) A dairy for the supply of milk, ghee, cream and butter.
(b) A market garden for fruit and vegetables.
2. The Industrial Village.
3. The Social Territory or Poor Man's Paradise.
4. The City of Refuge.
5. Miscellaneous:
(a) Gangs for public works, such as tanks, railways, roads, &c.
(b) Gangs for tea gardens.
(c) Land along the railways.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE SUBURBAN FARM.
The connecting link between the City Colony and the Country Colony will
be the Suburban Farm. Situated conveniently near to the largest cities,
it will serve many important purposes.
1. It will form the channel, or outlet, by which the agricultural
portion of the labor overflow in the cities will make its way back to
the country. In fact, it will constitute a sort of sluice which will in
time act with the same regularity and ease as those which are attached
to any reservoir of water, directing to the most needy places, and
distributing without waste, those very waters which if uncontrolled
would sweep everything before them as a devastating flood.
2. It will at the same time find a ready market in the city, not only
for its own produce, but for that of the other branches of the country
colony, with which it would be in constant and close communication.
3. It will supply the city with wholesome and unadulterated dairy
produce, together with the best fruits and vegetables, at the ordinary
market rates. These could be disposed of either wholesale to city
merchants, or by moans of stalls in the various markets, or we could
undertake to retail them in connection with our Household Salvage
Brigade. The Suburban Farm would consist of, say, from fifty to five
hundred acres of land in the immediate neighbourhood of a city. It would
combine three or more separate departments.
1. _The Dairy._ Buffaloes and cows would be given us by friends,
besides being purchased and reared by us, in large numbers. To tend
them, milk them, prepare the ghee, cream and butter, and to convey it
all to town, would find employment for a large number of the Submerged
Tenth.
2. The _Market Garden_ would employ a still larger number. Bananas grow
quickly in all parts of India, and with them we could make an immediate
beginning, introducing from different districts the best species.
Sugar-cane and other popular native products would receive special
attention, and where the European population in the neighbourhood was
sufficiently numerous we could include the cultivation of such fruits
and vegetables as would be liked by them. In the case of seaport towns
we should no doubt do a large business with the steamers in the harbour,
as for instance, in Bombay, Colombo, or Calcutta.
3. We should probably at an early period transfer some of the industrial
brigades enumerated in Chapter VI to our Suburban Farm. In doing this
there would be several obvious advantages:
(a) We should have more elbow room for them on the Farm, than in the
Labor Yards, where land would be so expensive that we should be
obliged to crowd everything into the smallest possible compass,
both in regard to work sheds and sleeping accommodation.
(b) In removing them from the contaminating influences of city life,
we should be able to exercise a more personal and powerful influence
upon these members of the Submerged Tenth and should stand a far
better chance of effectively carrying out that spiritual and moral
regeneration, without which we reckon that any mere temporal
reformation would be ineffective and evanescent.
(c) We should prevent our labor yards from getting gorged, and would
keep them within manageable dimensions. At the same time that we
should cope more effectively with all existing distress.
(d) The Suburban Farm being closely connected with other portions of
our Country Colony, we should be able to use the latter to relieve
it in case of its becoming in turn overcrowded by the influx from
the City.
(e) It would thus form a natural stepping-stone to the Industrial
Village, which we have next to describe.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE INDUSTRIAL VILLAGE.
For the Industrial Village we have already before our very eyes an
admirable object lesson in the existing organisation and subdivision of
an ordinary Indian village. Indeed it is singular how precisely India
has anticipated just what General Booth now proposes to introduce in
civilized Europe.
The village community so familiar to all who have resided in India
consists of an independent or rather interdependent, co-operative
association which constitutes a miniature world of its own, producing
its own food and manufacturing its own clothes, shoes, earthenware,
pots, &c, with its own petty government to decide all matters affecting
the general welfare of the little commonwealth. Very wisely the British
rulers of India have left this interesting relic of ancient times
untouched, so that the institution can be seen in complete working order
at the present day all over India. The onward march of civilisation has
somewhat shaken the fabric and has threatened the existence of several
of the village industries. But at present there has not been any radical
alteration. The village may still be seen divided up into its various
quarters.
Take for instance a village in Gujarat. Those substantial houses in the
centre belong to the well-to-do landowners. The cultivators or tenants
have their quarters close alongside. The group of huts belonging to the
weavers is easily distinguishable by the rude looms and apparatus for
the manufacture of the common country cloth. The tanners' quarter is
equally well marked, and yonder the groups at work with mud and wheel
and surrounded with earthenware vessels of various shapes and sizes,
remind you that you are among the Potters.
On inquiring into the interior economy of the village a system of
payment in kind and exchange of goods for labour and grain is found to
prevail exactly similar to that suggested by General Booth. Only here we
have the immense advantage that instead of having to explain and
institute a radical reform in the existing system, we have to deal with
millions of people who are thoroughly imbued with these principles from
their infancy.
For instance one of the staple articles of food in the village consists
of buttermilk, which is distributed by the high caste among the low
caste from year's end to year's end in return for petty services. One of
the usual ways in which the high caste will punish the low, for any
course of conduct to which they object is by the terrible threat of
stopping their supply of "chas," which means usually nothing short of
starvation.
Here then is our model in good working order and in exact accordance
with the ideal sketched out by General Booth. We cannot do better than
adhere to it as closely as possible.
Probably the first industrial settlement which we shall establish, in
addition to the labor yards and suburban farms already referred to, will
consist of a colony of Weavers in Gujarat.
For this we shall have special facilities, as we have now 150 Officers
at work in that part of the country, as well as more than 2,000 enrolled
adults, a large proportion of whom have been in our ranks for several
years. From amongst these we shall be able to select thoroughly reliable
superintendents (both European and Native), and shall be able to take
full advantage of their local experience.
But how far we shall consider it wise to confine our first settlement
to one particular caste or to include within it from the outset some
other useful village industries such as have been above referred to, I
am not as yet prepared to say. Much will necessarily depend on the
course that events may hereafter take. For the present I can only say
that we will adhere as closely as possible to our Indian model.
The one weak point about the Indian system, as it at present exists, is,
that there is no means of regulating the proportion of labour in each
section of the community. The rules of caste prevent any transfer from
one trade to another, while there is no system of intercommunication
between the villages to enable them to readily transfer their surplus
population to the places where they would be most needed. In a case
where some village industry is threatened with annihilation, as for
instance the weavers, there is absolutely no provision for the transfer
of the unfortunate victims of civilisation either to some more favored
locality or to some other sphere of labour.
Now this is just where our combined plan of campaign with its union of
City, Country, and Over-sea Colonies would step in and supply the
missing link. We should be able to direct the glut of labor into just
those channels where it would be the most useful.
And why should this be thought impracticable? Everybody is acquainted
with the power of wind, water and steam, where properly directed, to
move the most gigantic machinery and yet for centuries those powers were
suffered to go to waste. It is only of late that we have learnt for
instance to put chains upon the genii of the tea-kettle, to put them as
it were into harness, to bridle them and to compel them to drag our huge
leviathans across thousands of miles of ocean. May not the enormous
mass of waste labor that has accumulated in our cities and rural
districts be fitly compared to the former waste of steam. The best that
we have been able to do for it so far has been to provide for it the
safety valves of beggary, destitution, famine, pestilence, crime,
imprisonment and the gallows.
Is it too much to suppose that this enormous waste of human steam, the
most valuable sort of steam that the world contains, can be properly
controlled and guided so that it will make for itself railways and
steamers that shall carry its human cargoes by millions across lands
that are at present mere wastes, and to populate countries which are as
yet wildernesses? In doing so, we shall but fulfil the words of prophecy
uttered 26,000 years ago. "The wilderness and the solitary place shall
be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.
It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing.* *
For in the wilderness shall waters break out and streams in the desert.
And the parched ground shall become a pool and the thirsty land springs
of water.* * * And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be
called the way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it, but it
shall be for those. The way-faring men, though fools shall not err
therein. No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up
thereon; it shall not be found there. But the redeemed shall walk there,
and the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Sion with songs
and everlasting joy upon their heads. They shall obtain joy and
gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."
CHAPTER XV.
THE SOCIAL TERRITORY, OR, POOR MAN'S PARADISE.
Probably the biggest wholesale emigration scheme ever undertaken was
that of Israel out of Egypt into Canaan, under the leadership of Moses.
The circumstances were so very similar to those with which we are
dealing, that I may be excused for referring to them, as they have a
direct bearing on the present problem, and may help largely towards its
solution. It is said that "History repeats itself" and certainly this is
true in regard to the evils that then existed, and we do not see why the
remedy should not in some respect correspond.
Looking back then, we find that there was in Egypt in the year 1,500
B.C. a submerged tenth, consisting of 600,000 able-bodied men with their
wives and families and numbering therefore at least two and a half
million souls. They constituted a distinct caste, or nation, which had
been grafted into the original Egyptian stock 430 years previously.
Owing to hereditary customs, race distinctions and religious differences
they had preserved their identity and had never become assimulated with
the Egyptians. It was a famine that had driven them to take refuge in
Egypt at a time when their numbers were so few that their presence
caused no particular inconvenience to the original inhabitants, while
the services of the King's Vazir, to whose caste they belonged secured
them a suitable reception.
At the time however when we take up their history a change had taken
place. Their numbers had immensely increased. The labor market was
deluged with them. The rulers, capitalists and landowners began to
tremble for their very existence. Enormous public works were planned and
the enslaved caste were compelled to carry out their allotted labour
under rigorous taskmasters, who made their lives a burden to them. Still
their numbers continued to increase. Alarmed at the prospect of an
impending revolution, the King gave orders that every male child of the
Hebrews should be drowned, thinking thus to stamp out the nation. It is
easy to imagine therefore that affairs must have come to a desperate
pass, when from the palace of Pharaoh and yet from among their own caste
a deliverer was raised up to organise and carry out the wholesale
emigration of the entire nation.
Looked at in this light it was certainly the boldest venture and
greatest scheme of the kind that had ever been conceived, and without
the aid of remarkable miraculous displays of Divine power Moses could
never have carried out so magnificent a project.
Everything appeared to be against him. The people whom he had come to
deliver were an undisciplined mob of cowardly slaves, whose spirit had
been crushed by years of cruel tyranny. They were unarmed and
unaccustomed to war. They were the subjects of the most powerful
military monarchy of those times. For them to dream of emigrating must
have seemed the wildest folly. On the one hand the Egyptians would not
hear of it, and their way would be barred by legions of the best
soldiers the world could produce. On the other hand the country to which
they were to emigrate was already occupied by numerous and warlike
tribes, who would contest every inch of territory. Added to this there
was a "great and howling wilderness" which separated the one country
from the other.
Hence it will be seen that this vast national emigration scheme was
carried out by Moses under circumstances of peculiar difficulty which do
not exist in the problem at present under consideration.
There are the same destitute hunger-bitten multitudes, it is true, and
the same difficulty arises before us as to what to do with these
steadily increasing hordes. The same Egyptian remedy, the construction
of vast public works, has been resorted to over and over again, with the
effect of giving temporary, but not permanent relief. In some respects
the position of the Hebrews in Egypt was preferable to that of the
destitute masses in India. They seem at least to have had no lack of
food and shelter, and if they had to work hard, and were cruelly treated
by their taskmasters, we have become familiar in the Indian villages
with many instances of cruelty in the treatment of the low caste by the
high such as could not well have been surpassed in Egypt itself, to say
nothing of the extortions of the money-lender and the ravages of famine
and pestilence referred to elsewhere.
But in many respects the situation is far more hopeful. Our Pharaoh is a
Christian Queen, under whom we have, not one, but many Josephs, who are
really anxious for the highest welfare of the submerged masses, and who
are likely to hail with gladness (as has been already the case in
England) any project which bids fair to alleviate permanently the
existing misery. The wealth and power of the British Government and
Nation, instead of being used to hinder such a scheme, is likely to be
thrown bodily into the scale in favour of all reasonable reform that
will help congested labour to redistribute itself and recover its normal
balances.
Again the progress of science and civilization has removed immense
barriers that previously existed, and railways, steamers, post and
telegraph have rendered possible for us, if not comparatively easy, what
was before only within the reach of miraculous manifestations of Divine
Power.
Furthermore, _the land is there, plenty of it, for centuries to come_,
some of it across the seas, within easy reach of our steamers, but a
great deal of it quite close at hand. Nor will it be necessary to
dispossess others to occupy it. The only enemies that will have to be
faced are the wild beasts, always ready to beat a retreat when man
appears. It does not even belong to some different nationality or
Government, jealous of our encroachments, but is the property of the
same Power to whom these destitute multitudes are looking for their
daily bread.
Hence it is impossible to imagine circumstances more favorable than
those which already exist in India at the moment that General Booth's
scheme is placed before the public, towards the carrying out on an
enormous scale, hitherto never dreamt of, the portion of his projects
referred to in the present chapter.
What I would propose is that a considerable section of waste Territory
should be assigned to us and placed at our disposal in some suitable
part of India, upon which we could plant colonies of the destitute,
similar in many respects to those already described, save that we should
here carry out on a wholesale scale what elsewhere we should be doing by
retail. Into this central lake or reservoir all our scattered streams
would empty themselves, till it was so far full that we should require
to repeat the process elsewhere. Beginning with a single social
reservation in some specially selected district, we should easily be
able to repeat the experiment elsewhere on an even larger scale
profiting as we went along by our accumulated experience.
From the first, however, I should suppose that it would be preferable to
carry out the manoeuvre on as large a scale as possible, for the reason
that this is just one of those things which will be found easier to do
wholesale than retail.
We have many illustrations of this in business. The merchant who amasses
a colossal fortune will perhaps scarcely spend an hour a day in
superintending the working of an establishment that covers half an acre,
while the poor retail shopkeeper over the way toils from early morning
to late at night and is scarcely able then to earn a bare subsistence
for the support of his family.
Compare again the labour and profits of a boatman in Bombay Harbour,
with those of the owner of an ocean going steamer. The former toils day
and night at the peril of his life and earns but little, while the
latter rests comfortably at home and enjoys a handsome income.
Or again let the village hand-loom weaver be pitted against the Bombay
Mill-owner, and we see at a glance that under certain circumstances it
_pays_ infinitely better to do things on a large than on a small scale,
and that in so doing the amount of labour and risk are also economised.
Now this applies to the proposal contained in this chapter. Given a
people who are well acquainted with Indian agriculture and who are
willing to be moved;--given a leader and an organisation in which they
have confidence;--given those religious and moral influences which will
so help them in overcoming the initial difficulties of the enterprise;
and given a suitable tract of country which (without displacing existing
population) they can occupy, and I would say with confidence that it
will be found easier to accomplish the transfer on a large than on a
small scale, by wholesale rather than by retail.
In the present case all the above conditions are satisfied. The entire
congested labor of the rural districts is thoroughly versed from
childhood in the arts of Indian agriculture. They are willing in many
parts of the country to emigrate by thousands even across the "kala
pani," to which they have such an intense and religious aversion, or to
enlist by thousands in our merchant marine and military forces. Much
more then will they be willing to emigrate in far larger numbers to
districts close at hand. A leader to inspire, an organisation to enfold,
and a plan of campaign to guide, have in the most marvellous manner
almost dropped from the skies since the publication of General Booth's
book. The religious and moral restraints and incentives, so important
for guarding against the abuses of selfishness and for inspiring with a
spirit of cheerful self-sacrifice, are provided, and that in a purely
_Native garb_, and yet with all the advantages of European leadership
and enthusiasm. And finally there is land in abundance which Government
desires to see colonised, and which is being slowly retailed out bit by
bit in a manner altogether unworthy of the urgent necessities of the
occasion.
What then is there to hinder a big bold experiment? General Booth will
have in England largely to _make_ his agriculturists before he can put
them upon the land. Here in India we have _millions_ of skilled
destitutes ready to hand, and it will be possible within a very short
period with a few bold strokes to relieve the congested labor market
from one end of India to the other in a manner that can hardly now be
conceived.
Is not this plan infinitely superior to the spasmodic Egyptian
expedient of occasional public works, which cost the State enormous sums
and only increase the local difficulty as soon as they are completed?
Should we not here be erecting a satisfactory and permanent bulwark
against the future inroads of famine? Shall we not rather be increasing
the public revenue for future years by millions of pounds and that
without adding a single new tax, or relying upon sources so uncertain
and detrimental to the public welfare as those founded upon the
consumption of drugs and liquors that destroy the health of the people?
Shall we not again be increasing the stability and glory of the Empire
in caring for its destitute masses and in turning what is now a danger
to the State into a peaceful, prosperous and contented community? And
finally will not our Poor Man's Paradise be infinitely superior from
every point of view to the miserable regulation _workhouse_, that is in
other countries offered by the State, or again to the system of
charitable doles and wholesale beggary that at present exists? To me it
seems that there is indeed no comparison between the two, and General
Booth's book has opened out a vista of happiness to the poor, such as we
should hardly have conceived possible save in connection with a
Christian millennium or a Hindoo "_Kal Yug._"
But it may be objected by some that in providing those outlets for the
destitute, we should in the end only aggravate the difficulty by
enormously increasing the population. This reminds one of the gigantic
folly of the miser with his hoards of gold. An amusing eastern anecdote
is told of one who having gone two or three miles to say his prayers to
a mosque suddenly remembered that he had forgotten to put out an oil
lamp before leaving home. He at once retraced his steps and on reaching
his house called out to the servant girl to be sure and put out the
light. She replied that she had already done so, and that it was a pity
he had wasted his shoe leather in walking back so far to remind her. To
this he answered that he had already thought of this and had therefore
taken off his shoes and carried them under his arm so as not to wear
them out!
And here you have a wretched class of miserly so-called "_economists_"
who are afraid to light their lamp, lest they should burn the oil, and
who would rather sleep in the darkness, doing nothing, or break their
necks fumbling about in their vain efforts to do little, when for a
farthing dip they may put in hours of profitable toil! And when a shoe
is provided for the swollen foot of a nation they are so afraid of
wasting their shoe leather, that they would rather hobble about belamed
with thorns, stones, heat, or cold, than lay out the little that is
necessary to bring them so ample a return!
Each labourer represents to the state what the piece of gold is to the
miser. He is the human capital of the nation and is capable of producing
annual interest at the rate of at least a hundred per cent, if placed in
sufficiently favourable circumstances. What folly is it then, nay what
culpable negligence, nay what nothing short of criminality to sink this
human gold in the bogs of beggary and destitution! Man is the most
wonderful piece of machinery that exists in the world! The cleverest
inventions of human science sink into insignificance in comparison with
him! The whole universe is so planned that his services _cannot_ be
dispensed with and indeed he is at the same time the most beautiful
ornament and the essential keystone of the entire fabric! The utmost
that science itself can do is to increase his productive powers.
But the idea of dispensing with the service of a single human being, or
of consigning him hopelessly to the perdition of beggary, destitution,
famine and pestilence is the most stupendous act of folly conceivable.
What should we think of a railway company that would shunt half its
engines on to a siding and leave them to the destructive influence of
rain and dust? And how shall we characterise the stupidity that shall
shunt millions of serviceable human beings into circumstances of misery
so appalling as well as of uselessness so entire, as those which we have
endeavoured to picture? Why, here we have not even the decency of a
siding! These wonderfully made semi-Divine human engines are suffered to
obstruct the very main lines on which our expresses run, not only
wrecked themselves, but the fruitful cause of wreckage to millions more!
But I have said enough I trust to show that the problem is not a
hopeless one, and that the portion of General Booth's scheme to which
this chapter refers is particularly applicable to India and capable of
being successfully put into operation on a scale commensurate with the
necessities of the hour.
Having obtained our territory we should proceed to mark it out, and to
direct into the most advantageous channels, the inflowing tide of
immigration. There would be a threefold division into agricultural
districts which would furnish food for the incoming population, a
pastoral district for the cattle, and a central market, which would
furnish the pivot on which all the rest would work. Our agricultural and
dairy farm proposal I have already fully discussed and will now proceed
to describe the social City of Refuge which will act as a sort of solar
system round which all the minor constellations would revolve.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE SOCIAL CITY OF REFUGE.
I am tempted again to turn to Hebrew history to find a parallel for what
would I believe be easily accomplished at an early period in connection
with our "Poor Man's Paradise." I refer to what was styled the "City of
Refuge." The object of this institution was to provide a temporary
shelter for those who had unintentionally killed any one, so that they
might escape from "the avenger of blood." If on inquiry it could be
proved that the death was purely accidental, the fugitive was entitled
to claim protection until by the death of the high priest, the blood
should have been expiated when he would be free to return to his home
and people. If, on the other hand, it were a case of premeditated
murder, the city authorities were bound to hand over the fugitive to
justice.
The careful provision made by the Hebrew law for the occasional
manslayer surely casts a severe reflection on the millions who, many of
them through no fault of their own, represent the submerged tenth! Let
us leave for the time being the wilful criminals who are the open
enemies of society to be dealt with as severely as you like by the arm
of the law. Turn for a moment a pitying gaze towards those hungry
destitute multitudes, who cannot it may be, plead their own cause, but
whose woes surely speak with an eloquence that no mere words could ever
match! Why should we not provide them with a City of Refuge, where they
will have a chance of regaining their feet? If it be urged that their
numbers preclude such a possibility, we would reply that it has already
been proved in the previous chapter, that this will in really make
our task the more easy. The impetus and enthusiasm created by a movement
in mass tends largely to ensure its success.
If on the other hand it be urged that our object is to divert the flow
of population from cities to villages, it must be remembered that this
does not preclude the creation of new towns and cities, which shall
furnish convenient centres and markets for the surrounding villages. It
is not a part of General Booth's scheme to abolish cities, but rather to
dispose suitably of their superfluous population. And no doubt in course
of time the world will be covered not only with suburban farms and
industrial villages, but with cities which for commercial importance and
in other respects will rival any that now exist.
I am the more encouraged to believe that this will be particularly
practicable in India for the following reasons.
1. We have an enormous population close at hand. If at a distance of
12,000 to 14,000 miles, England can build its Melbournes, Sydneys and
Adelaides, surely it does not require a very great stretch of
imagination to suppose that here in our very midst with millions upon
millions of people at disposal we shall be able to repeat what has
already been elsewhere accomplished under circumstances so specially
disadvantageous.
2. Again let it be remembered that in this case we should have the
special advantage of carrying out the work on a carefully organised plan
and in connection with a scheme possessing immense ramifications all
over India and the world.
3. Once more, India supplies labor at the cheapest conceivable rate, so
that the cost would be infinitesimal as compared with the other
countries just mentioned.
4. Another important fact is that the laborers are accustomed to be
paid in kind, and to carry on a system of exchange of goods which will
further minimise the cost of the undertaking.
5. A still more encouraging element in the solving of our Indian problem
is the fact that nearly every native is a skilled artizan and you can
hardly meet with one who has not from childhood been taught some
handicrafts. Indeed the majority both of men and women are acquainted
with two or three different trades, besides being accustomed from
childhood to draw their own water, wash their clothes and do their
cooking. Hence it is impossible to find a more self-helpful race in the
world.
6. Again this very thing has been already done in India itself,
especially by its great Mahommedan rulers, hundreds of years ago, and
that under circumstances, which made the undertaking infinitely more
difficult than would now be the case. What was possible to them then, is
equally possible to us now.
7. Finally in the midst of some of the very waste tracts of which we
have spoken may be found cities which were once the flourishing centres
of as large and enterprising a population as can anywhere be seen. Why
should not such places be restored to their former prosperity instead of
being handed over to become "the habitation of owls and dragons."
The selection of the site of the future city would of course be made
with due reference to advantages of climate, water, and communication
and it would be planned out previous to occupation with every
consideration of convenience, health, and economy. Gangs of workmen
would precede the arrival of the regular inhabitants, though we should
largely rely upon the latter to build for themselves such simple yet
sufficiently substantial dwellings as would meet the necessities of the
case. We might reasonably anticipate, moreover, that the influx of
population would attract of its own accord a certain proportion of
well-to-do capitalists, for whom a special quarter of the town could be
reserved and to whom special facilities could be granted for their
encouragement, consistent with the general well-being of the community.
It would be easy to fill many pages with a description of the internal
colony, the business routine, the simple recreations, the practical
system of education for the children and the lively religious services
that would constitute the daily life of the City of Refuge. Suffice it
to say that we should spare no pains to promote in every way the
temporal and spiritual welfare of its inhabitants, to banish drunkenness
and immorality, to guard against destitution and to establish a happy
holy Godfearing community, that would constitute a beacon of light and
hope not only for its own immediate surroundings but far and wide for
all India and the East.
CHAPTER XVII.
SUPPLEMENTARY BRANCHES OF THE COUNTRY COLONY.
(1.) _Public Works_--
While the central idea of the entire system will be that of providing
permanent, as contrasted with temporary work for the destitute, there is
no reason why the former should not be supplemented by the latter. The
great public works which at present afford occasional relief for
thousands would still be possible, only provision would be made for the
redistribution of the masses of labour thus withdrawn from the ordinary
channels as soon as the public work in question was completed.
For this again we possess a scriptural parallel in the "levy out of all
Israel" raised by King Solomon, consisting of thirty thousand men who
were sent "to Lebanon ten thousand a month by courses; a month they were
in Lebanon and two months at home." In addition to the above we find
that he employed seventy thousand "that bare burdens" and eighty
thousand "hewers in the mountains, beside the officers which were over
the work, three thousand and three hundred, which ruled over the people
that wrought in the work." It was the elaborate organisation of these
laborers, and the provision for their spending a certain proportion of
their time at home, which enabled Solomon to carry out his great public
works without seriously deranging the labor market, or hindering the
prosperity of the nation. I have selected this instance because it is
from well authenticated sources, goes fully into details and refers to a
nation and country very much resembling India. Indeed it is almost
identical with the familiar Indian institution known as "begar" or
forced labour.
The weak point of such special efforts is that they tend to leave
things in a worse position than ever when they are concluded. Nobody
sits down to calculate what is to become of the thousands who have been
drawn together, often hundreds of miles from their homes, when the time
comes for them
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