Twenty-One Days in India, or, the Tour Of Sir Ali Baba K.C.B.; and, the Teapot SeriesAberigh-Mackay, George
General
Twenty-One Days in India, or, the Tour Of Sir Ali Baba K.C.B.; and, the Teapot Series
Aberigh-Mackay, George
India -- Description and travel; India -- Politics and government -- 1765-1947; India -- Social life and customs
From the commencement of his Indian career the Reverend gentleman
interested himself in that burning question of the employment of the
Anglo-Indian and Eurasian community of India; a large indigenous and
permanent element in the population, the disposal of which is still a
question of very great public importance, and its practical solution a
pressing necessity. The Archdeacon had this question, paraphrased by
Ali Baba as that of the "Mean Whites," greatly at heart, and the
conclusions he arrived at and suggestions made by him from time to
time, ably and vigorously summarized in a paper he read before the
Bengal Social Science Association on May 1st, 1879, in Calcutta, were
productive of considerable good.
Archdeacon Baly's predecessor was the Venerable John Henry Pratt, an
attached friend of Aberigh-Mackay's father, to whom his book, _From
London to Lucknow_, published in 1860, was "affectionately inscribed."
Certain traits in the character of this Archdeacon known to Ali Baba
by tradition are pourtrayed in the concluding portion of the paper.
No. 5
WITH THE SECRETARY TO GOVERNMENT
This article is of a composite nature. At the time it was published in
1879, the foreign policy of Lord Lawrence was a burning question, and
in connection with the Afghan War then running its course, renewed
attention was directed to the two essays, "Masterly Inactivity" and
"Mischievous Activity," first published in _The Fortnightly Review_ in
December 1869, and March 1870, respectively, by a comparatively young
Bengal Civilian, the late J.W.S. Wyllie, C.S.I. (1835-1870). Beyond
the fact that these essays and certain other papers by the same
brilliant author on the subject of the policy of the Indian Government
with independent principalities and powers beyond the bounds of India
were probably in Ali Baba's mind, the character of the supercilious
Secretary was very remote from that of Mr. Wyllie.
The typical person held up to derision by Ali Baba has been oft times
decried as one very detrimental to good government in India, where a
personal and absolute rule must needs obtain for some time to come. By
none more pointedly than by the present Secretary of State for India
when addressing his constituents at Arbroath on October 21, 1907, when
he informed them that "India is perhaps the one country--bad manners,
overbearing manners are very disagreeable in all countries--India is
the only country where bad and overbearing manners are a political
crime." Or, as a prominent Mohammedan in India very well said, "When
the English govern from the heart they do it admirably; when they try
to be clever, they make a mess of it."
In the restored passage on p. 35 there is delineated a Secretary in
striking contrast to the other. The Secretary in the Foreign
Department referred to was the late Mr. le Poer Wynne, under whom
Aberigh-Mackay had worked at Simla in 1870.
No. 6
H.E. THE BENGALI BABOO
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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