THE COUNCIL OF THE GODS.
He set up conclusions to the number of nine thousand seven
hundred and sixty-four ... he went afterwards to the Sorbonne,
where he maintained argument against the theologians for the
space of six weeks, from four o'clock in the morning till six in
the evening, except for an interval of two hours to refresh
themselves and take their repasts, and at this were present the
greatest part of the lords of the court, the masters of request,
presidents, counsellors, those of the accompts, secretaries,
advocates, and others; as also the sheriffs of the said
town.--_Pantagruel._
"The Bengal Legislative Council is sitting now. You will find it in an
octagonal wing of Writers' Buildings: straight across the _maidan_. It's
worth seeing." "What are they sitting on?" "Municipal business. No end
of a debate." So much for trying to keep low company. The long-shore
loafers must stand over. Without doubt this Council is going to hang
some one for the state of the City, and Sir Steuart Bayley will be chief
executioner. One does not come across councils every day.
Writers' Buildings are large. You can trouble the busy workers of
half-a-dozen departments before you stumble upon the black-stained
staircase that leads to an upper chamber looking out over a populous
street. Wild orderlies block the way. The Councillor Sahibs are sitting,
but any one can enter. "To the right of the Lat Sahib's chair, and go
quietly." Ill-mannered minion! Does he expect the awe-stricken spectator
to prance in with a war-whoop or turn Catherine-wheels round that
sumptuous octagonal room with the blue-domed roof? There are gilt
capitals to the half pillars and an Egyptian patterned lotus-stencil
makes the walls gay. A thick piled carpet covers all the floor, and must
be delightful in the hot weather. On a black wooden throne, comfortably
cushioned in green leather, sits Sir Steuart Bayley, Ruler of Bengal.
The rest are all great men, or else they would not be there. Not to know
them argues oneself unknown. There are a dozen of them, and sit six
aside at two slightly curved lines of beautifully polished desks. Thus
Sir Steuart Bayley occupies the frog of a badly made horse-shoe split at
the toe. In front of him, at a table covered with books and pamphlets
and papers, toils a secretary. There is a seat for the Reporters, and
that is all. The place enjoys a chastened gloom, and its very atmosphere
fills one with awe. This is the heart of Bengal, and uncommonly well
upholstered. If the work matches the first-class furniture, the inkpots,
the carpet, and the resplendent ceilings, there will be something worth
seeing. But where is the criminal who is to be hanged for the stench
that runs up and down Writers' Buildings staircases; for the rubbish
heaps in the Chitpore Road; for the sickly savour of Chowringhi; for the
dirty little tanks at the back of Belvedere; for the street full of
small-pox; for the reeking ghari-stand outside the Great Eastern; for
the state of the stone and dirt pavements; for the condition of the
gullies of Shampooker, and for a hundred other things?
"This, I submit, is an artificial scheme in supersession of Nature's
unit, the individual." The speaker is a slight, spare native in a flat
hat-turban, and a black alpaca frock-coat. He looks like a scribe to the
boot-heels, and, with his unvarying smile and regulated gesticulation,
recalls memories of up-country courts. He never hesitates, is never at a
loss for a word, and never in one sentence repeats himself. He talks and
talks and talks in a level voice, rising occasionally half an octave
when a point has to be driven home. Some of his periods sound very
familiar. This, for instance, might be a sentence from the _Indian
Mirror_: "So much for the principle. Let us now examine how far it is
supported by precedent." This sounds bad. When a fluent native is
discoursing of "principles" and "precedents," the chances are that he
will go on for some time. Moreover, where is the criminal, and what is
all this talk about abstractions? They want shovels not sentiments, in
this part of the world.
A friendly whisper brings enlightenment: "They are ploughing through the
Calcutta Municipal Bill--plurality of votes, you know. Here are the
papers." And so it is! A mass of motions and amendments on matters
relating to ward votes. Is _A_ to be allowed to give two votes in one
ward and one in another? Is section 10 to be omitted, and is one man to
be allowed one vote and no more? How many votes does three hundred
rupees' worth of landed property carry? Is it better to kiss a post or
throw it in the fire? Not a word about carbolic acid and gangs of
sweepers. The little man in the black dressing-gown revels in his
subject. He is great on principles and precedents, and the necessity of
"popularising our system." He fears that under certain circumstances
"the status of the candidates will decline." He riots in "self-adjusting
majorities," and "the healthy influence of the educated middle classes."
For a practical answer to this, there steals across the council chamber
just one faint whiff of the Stink. It is as though some one laughed low
and bitterly. But no man heeds. The Englishmen look supremely bored, the
native members stare stolidly in front of them. Sir Steuart Bayley's
face is as set as the face of the Sphinx. For these things he draws his
pay,--a low wage for heavy labour. But the speaker, now adrift, is not
altogether to be blamed. He is a Bengali, who has got before him just
such a subject as his soul loveth,--an elaborate piece of academical
reform leading nowhere. Here is a quiet room full of pens and papers,
and there are men who must listen to him. Apparently there is no time
limit to the speeches. Can you wonder that he talks? He says "I submit"
once every ninety seconds, varying the form with "I do submit, the
popular element in the electoral body should have prominence." Quite so.
He quotes one John Stuart Mill to prove it. There steals over the
listener a numbing sense of nightmare. He has heard all this before
somewhere--yea; even down to J. S. Mill and the references to the "true
interests of the ratepayers." He sees what is coming next. Yes, there is
the old Sabha, Anjuman journalistic formula--"Western education is an
exotic plant of recent importation." How on earth did this man drag
Western education into this discussion? Who knows? Perhaps Sir Steuart
Bayley does. He seems to be listening. The others are looking at their
watches. The spell of the level voice sinks the listener yet deeper into
a trance. He is haunted by the ghosts of all the cant of all the
political platforms of Great Britain. He hears all the old, old vestry
phrases, and once more he smells the Smell. _That_ is no dream. Western
education is an exotic plant. It is the upas tree, and it is all our
fault. We brought it out from England exactly as we brought out the
ink-bottles and the patterns for the chairs. We planted it and it
grew--monstrous as a banian. Now we are choked by the roots of it
spreading so thickly in this fat soil of Bengal. The speaker continues.
Bit by bit we builded this dome, visible and invisible, the crown of
Writers' Buildings, as we have built and peopled the buildings. Now we
have gone too far to retreat, being "tied and bound with the chain of
our own sins." The speech continues. We made that florid sentence. That
torrent of verbiage is Ours. We taught him what was constitutional and
what was unconstitutional in the days when Calcutta smelt. Calcutta
smells still, but We must listen to all that he has to say about the
plurality of votes and the threshing of wind and the weaving of ropes of
sand. It is Our own fault.
The speech ends, and there rises a grey Englishman in a black
frock-coat. He looks a strong man, and a worldly. Surely he will say,
"Yes, Lala Sahib, all this may be true talk, but there's a vile smell in
this place, and everything must be cleaned in a week, or the Deputy
Commissioner will not take any notice of you in _durbar_." He says
nothing of the kind. This is a Legislative Council, where they call each
other "Honourable So-and-So's." The Englishman in the frock-coat begs
all to remember that "we are discussing principles, and no consideration
of the details ought to influence the verdict on the principles." Is he
then like the rest? How does this strange thing come about? Perhaps
these so English office fittings are responsible for the warp. The
Council Chamber might be a London Board-room. Perhaps after long years
among the pens and papers its occupants grew to think that it really is,
and in this belief give _resumes_ of the history of Local
Self-Government in England.
The black frock-coat, emphasising his points with his spectacle-case, is
telling his friends how the parish was first the unit of
self-government. He then explains how burgesses were elected, and in
tones of deep fervour announces, "Commissioners of Sewers are elected in
the same way." Whereunto all this lecture? Is he trying to run a motion
through under cover of a cloud of words, essaying the well-known
"cuttle-fish trick" of the West?
He abandons England for a while, and _now_ we get a glimpse of the
cloven hoof in a casual reference to Hindus and Mahometans. The Hindus
will lose nothing by the complete establishment of plurality of votes.
They will have the control of their own wards as they used to have. So
there is race-feeling, to be explained away, even among these beautiful
desks. Scratch the Council, and you come to the old, old trouble. The
black frock-coat sits down, and a keen-eyed, black-bearded Englishman
rises with one hand in his pocket to explain his views on an alteration
of the vote qualification. The idea of an amendment seems to have just
struck him. He hints that he will bring it forward later on. He is
academical like the others, but not half so good a speaker. All this is
dreary beyond words. Why do they talk and talk about owners and
occupiers and burgesses in England and the growth of autonomous
institutions when the city, the great city, is here crying out to be
cleansed? What has England to do with Calcutta's evil, and why should
Englishmen be forced to wander through mazes of unprofitable argument
against men who cannot understand the iniquity of dirt?
A pause follows the black-bearded man's speech. Rises another native, a
heavily built Babu, in a black gown and a strange head-dress. A snowy
white strip of cloth is thrown duster-wise over his shoulders. His voice
is high, and not always under control. He begins, "I will try to be as
brief as possible." This is ominous. By the way, in Council there seems
to be no necessity for a form of address. The orators plunge _in medias
res_, and only when they are well launched throw an occasional "Sir"
towards Sir Steuart Bayley, who sits with one leg doubled under him and
a dry pen in his hand. This speaker is no good. He talks, but he says
nothing, and he only knows where he is drifting to. He says: "We must
remember that we are legislating for the Metropolis of India, and
therefore we should borrow our institutions from large English towns,
and not from parochial institutions." If you think for a minute, that
shows a large and healthy knowledge of the history of Local
Self-Government. It also reveals the attitude of Calcutta. If the city
thought less about itself as a metropolis and more as a midden, its
state would be better. The speaker talks patronisingly of "my friend,"
alluding to the black frock-coat. Then he flounders afresh, and his
voice gallops up the gamut as he declares, "and _therefore_ that makes
all the difference." He hints vaguely at threats, something to do with
the Hindus and the Mahometans, but what he means it is difficult to
discover. Here, however, is a sentence taken _verbatim_. It is not
likely to appear in this form in the Calcutta papers. The black
frock-coat had said that if a wealthy native "had eight votes to his
credit, his vanity would prompt him to go to the polling-booth, because
he would feel better than half-a-dozen _ghari-wans_ or petty traders."
(Fancy allowing a _ghari-wan_ to vote! He has yet to learn how to
drive!) Hereon the gentleman with the white cloth: "Then the complaint
is that influential voters will not take the trouble to vote? In my
humble opinion, if that be so, adopt voting-papers. _That_ is the way to
meet them. In the same way--The Calcutta Trades' Association--you
abolish all plurality of votes: and that is the way to meet _them_."
Lucid, is it not? Up flies the irresponsible voice, and delivers this
statement, "In the election for the House of Commons plurality are
allowed for persons having interest in different districts." Then
hopeless, hopeless fog. It is a great pity that India ever heard of
anybody higher than the heads of the Civil Service. Once more a whiff of
the Stink. The gentleman gives a defiant jerk of his shoulder-cloth, and
sits down.
Then Sir Steuart Bayley: "The question before the Council is," etc.
There is a ripple of "Ayes" and "Noes," and the "Noes" have it, whatever
it may be. The black-bearded gentleman springs his amendment about the
voting qualifications. A large senator in a white waistcoat, and with a
most genial smile, rises and proceeds to smash up the amendment. Can't
see the use of it. Calls it in effect rubbish. The black dressing-gown,
he who spoke first of all, speaks again, and talks of the "sojourner who
comes here for a little time, and then leaves the land." Well it is for
the black gown that the sojourner does come, or there would be no comfy
places wherein to talk about the power that can be measured by wealth
and the intellect "which, sir, I submit, cannot be so measured." The
amendment is lost; and trebly and quadruply lost is the listener. In the
name of sanity and to preserve the tattered shirt-tails of a torn
illusion, let us escape! This is the Calcutta Municipal Bill. They have
been at it for several Saturdays. Last Saturday Sir Steuart Bayley
pointed out that at their present rate they would be about two years in
getting it through. Now they will sit till dusk, unless Sir Steuart
Bayley, who wants to see Lord Connemara off, puts up the black
frock-coat to move an adjournment. It is not good to watch a Government
close to. This leads to the formation of blatantly self-satisfied
judgments, which may be quite as wrong as the cramping system with which
we have encompassed ourselves. And in the streets outside Englishmen
summarise the situation brutally, thus: "The whole thing is a farce.
Time is money to us. We can't stick out those everlasting speeches in
the municipality. The natives choke us off, but we know that if things
get too bad the Government will step in and interfere, and so we worry
along somehow."
Meantime Calcutta continues to cry out for the bucket and the broom.