The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1911-08-18

most extraordinary variety. A
flying politician, taken IN
hand by a Bengal, sees In
finitely less in India than a British
workingman sees of Germany con-
Quoted through manufacturing cities
| by a tariff reformer. 1t Is most
! foolish and a most dangerous thing
for a man Of little observation, small
| imagination and no reflection to race
through one or two Indian cities and
| then express himself on Indian pol
tics with more authority than man
Of science would speak of chemistry
after life of incessant investigation.
1t needs actual experience to appre-
ciate this amazing variety OF human
types; and yet until this variety Is
realized in the mind of European
there can be no intelligent under
standing of anything that has to do
with India. The very first thing a
man must do who would form rational
opinions on Indian politics or carry
| In his mind a true picture OF Indian
color and Indian feeling is to realize
that the 300,O00,000 Of humanity COM
prising the empire Of India are not
one race or two races, but are 2,OOO
species of mankind as different from
each other as snakes from elephants,
tigers from fireflies and mosquitoes
from buffaloes.
Directed by Handful of British.
You cannot dogmatize about India.
You can no more speak Of India as
| one complete and single thing than
you can exhaust botany by smelling
rose or paying sixpence for bunch
of lilies. India is infinite. A man
with seeing eyes begins to perceive
this battling truth on his very first
walk through a street, and he is at
once on his guard in forming opln-
ions, and most diffident in venturing
to utter even the least uncertain OF
them. He who speaks Of India as a
nation Of Hindoos and Mohammedans
would speak of the consultations as
consisting Of Orion and Ursa Major.
There are many good people in
England who think of Indians as two
peoples, Hindus and Mohammedans,
purposely kept apart and purposely
held down by an immense army OF
proudful, Ubiquitous and atrabili-
GUS civil servants exported
year by year by the India
office. Let these good people
bear in mind that the inhabitants of
India represent 1900 species of man
kind, that not only Is each species
opposed socially and Intellectually to
the rest, but that they practice to-
ward each other an ostracism which
has never existed in England between
the greatest Swellfoot and the most
downtrodden hind; and, further, let
him definitely apprehend and reflect
upon this fact, that the whole com
pany of British civil servants, in
Guiding military officers holding civil
appointments, is only 1000. India is
governed by Indians, tremendous
army of them, with just 1000 British
citizens at their head. One might far
more truly say that India employs a
handful of Englishmen to direct her
own government than assert that
England holds India in the grip of
| an iron hand.
Influence of Caste Everywhere.
1 have seen nothing of violence or
even rudeness on the part Of English.
men toward the natives; but have
no doubt that instances of this kind
could be cited and perhaps proved
| have seen, known and 1 see it every
day I live in India, and every mile
travel in the country, instances OF
| the most intolerable exclusiveness
and appalling pride between native
| and native. Consider these two facts
A Brahmah priest will not visit a
low caste person, however extreme
his need; and a high caste doctor will
not go 10 the bedside of a dying
coolie Thanks be to God" said to
me benevolent and educated Hindu
"for the hospitals set Sr Eor poor peo
pie by the British government" A
postman will not deliver letters into
the hands If a lower caste man than
himself; he filings them down on the
ground. Democracy has no expires
sion whatever in India except through
the government, which devotes all its
laBors to improving the material for
tunes of the poor. 1t is the abused
civil servant who has given India an
idea at all of democracy and it is the
civil servant who governs for the
many and the poor and the general
welfare.
At every railway station, even the
smallest, you may see something Of
the infinite variety of Indian man
kind. Men of noble stature and in
tellectual countenance, men to all in
tents negroid and bestial, men Of
Jewish character, men like Chinese
men black. brown. chocolate, yellow
and almost white, move about among
. womankind degraded to the lowest