Retrospective
Early in the 17th century, at the time when the mammoth trading companies (or bands of adventurers) were being formed to exploit territories hitherto untouched, the rich natural wealth of India began to draw the attention of western traders. An English East India Co. and, later, a French East India Co., were formed, both of which proceeded to steal as much of India as possible from the natives. Then, when they had each collared so much that they could hardly get more without encroaching on each other’s territory , the inevitable scrap ensued, and our valiant champion of small nationalities (evidently France had not yet been “saved”) was victorious, and the greater part of India was annexed to “our” Empire.
The native population of India at the time of the European incursion was under what is known as the Patriarchal form of society. Now Patriarchal society is founded on the blood relationship of those who reside together in the groups or village communes, and is exclusive, communal, and non-competitive. The attitude of the natives toward European intruders may therefore be guessed. The following quotation from that excellent little work, “A Short History of Politics,” by Prof. Jenks (p. 20), is suggestive :
“To a community in the Patriarchal stage, an Immigration Bureau would appear to be a monstrosity. To its members the immigrant is simply a thief, who comes to steal the pasture and the corn land ; a heathen, who will introduce strange customs and worship.”
The successive wars in India have been the result of the natives’ resistance to the encroachments and innovations of the “Huns” of Europe, or, as our masters would say, “the pioneers of civilisation” ! The natives have all along objected to that canker of society—civilisation (or syphilisation). Strange beings ! Sheridan’s speech in 1788 impeaching Warren Hastings (Governor-General of India and a high official of the East India Co.) gives abundant evidence of the way the natives were ruthlessly fleeced of their territory and treasure.
Some incidents leading up to the celebrated Indian Mutiny are summarised as follows by Justin McCarthy in his “Short History of Our Own Times” (p. 175) :
“Towards the close of 1847 Lord Dalhousie was sent out to India. . . . During his few years of office he annexed the Punjaub, he incorporated part of the Burmese Territory in our dominions ; he annexed Nagpore, Sattara, Jhansi, Berai and Oudh.”
By the way, perhaps the reader will have noticed the terminology. When Jameson attempted to steal the Transvaal on behalf of the future Randlords, it was declared to be a daring and courageous coup on behalf of the downtrodden “Uitlander” colonists. When Lord Dalhousie, on behalf of the European exploiters of India, stole from the natives provinces beside which Britain sinks into insignificance, he was performing a great, glorious, and justifiable “annexation.” But when one of the modern “hewers of wood and drawers of water” (a mere common working man, spurred on by the sight of his haggard wife and starving children, steals a loaf of bread, he is a damned low sneak-thief. Reader, treasure these facts.
But to continue the quotation :
“The population of India became stricken with alarm as they saw their native princes thus successively dethroned. The subversion of thrones, the annexation of states, seemed to them naturally enough to form part of that vast scheme for rooting out all the religions and systems of India, concerning which so many vague forebodings had darkly warned the land.”
The Mutiny resulted in practically the whole of India being incorporated in the British Empire. As to the benefits accruing to the fortunate people under British rule, Buckle, in that monument of industry and erudition, “The History of Civilisation in England,” says of the inhabitants of India in 1857 (Vol. 1, p. 57) :
“In modern times, for which alone we have direct evidence, wages have in India always been excessively low, and the people have been, and still are, obliged to work for a sum barely sufficient to meet the exigiencies of life.”
To come, however, to later times, I may point out that the Report of the Inspector of Mines for 1908-9, page 56, stated that in India there were 6,461 children under 12 at work in the mines and that children of 4 were working 7 hours a day. Now throw out your chests, ye props of Britain’s pride !
The following extract from “The Daily News and Leader” (25.6.13) of a happening in Oudh will further assist the chest-puffing process :
“In February of last year three natives were tried by the sessions judge of Sitapur for murder, and all were acquitted on the ground that the evidence was not to be believed. Five months later the men were re-arrested at the instance of the Lieutenant-Governor, were tried again on exactly the same evidence, were convicted and sentenced, two to be hung, which penalty has been inflicted, and the third to be transported.”
It is supposed to be a fundamental law of the English judicial code that no individual can be tried a second time on a charge of murder after having been acquitted the first time. But, of course, the above were only “niggers,” though members of our great and glorious Empire (and of a small nationality to wit ! !)
On a par with this was the well known case of Denshawai, in which an affray occurred between some military officers out on a shooting expedition and some ignorant villagers, wherein one of the villagers, a woman, was shot. The “Daily News” (24.8.07) commented on the case as follows :
“Denshawai will always be a name of terrible memories. . . We suspect that every man who had any share in the transactions of those fatal days of June ’06 would give a good deal to forget them. Most Englishmen who read the story of the tragedy and the comments of Lord Cromer can imagine the emotions of a character on the Greek stage when confronted with the consequences of the moment of a hideous infatuation. The trial, the sentences, the punishments inflicted on a great public theatre of revenge, they all revolt and horrify us. …. The bare record makes the name of Denshawai terrible”.
A letter also appeared in “The Nation” of the same date from Frederic Macharness, M.P., which ran as follows :
“The abnormal tribunal which sentenced these villagers claimed to administer any law it chose, and to inflict any punishment it thought fit. It consisted of five officials, presided over by a Minister utterly devoid of judicial experiecne. It passed its terrific sentences on a Wednesday and carried them out on the following Saturday. It was actually contended by the prosecuting counsel that the court was so unfettered by civil laws that it might find the villagers guilty of murder even without premeditation.
The affray took place on June 13th ; by special decree a court violating every law of the country was constituted ; it sat on June 24th, came to sweeping conclusions on June 27th, and its sentences were executed three days later. Within that period of six days, fifty-nine persons, practically the entire male population of a village, were sought out, cross examined, arrested and tried : four were hung, one—the husband of the woman who had been shot in in the affray—was sentenced to penal servitude for life, a number of other heavy sentences were imposed and 400 lashes were distributed publicly between the hangings.
On July 5th Mr. Dillon questioned Sir Edward Grey in regard to the executions, receiving an answer to the effect that the trial had been properly carried out. Later Sir Edward Grey pledged himself that the newspaper reports were incorrect, although as a matter of fact none of them had dared to state the facts in their full horror.”
Such are the blessings conferred upon the natives of India by British rule !
Before leaving India let us turn our attention to the circular sent round by Lord Roberts to the commanding officers in India (which we have on several occasions quoted in our columns) instructing them to scour the villages and obtain native female children from 13 years of age upwards to be used in the military brothels. And this on behalf of a country that is howling about “Huns” and German “Kulture” ! Ok the damned hypocrisy of modern Governments !
Gentle reader, bear with me, but before continuing our tour I cannot refrain from again reminding you that this war is alleged to be waged by Great Britain on behalf of small nationalities !
We will now pursue our journey to China, the celebrated land of “suspended animation.”
Until the recent introduction of European machinery and methods China was organised on the village community system, and consequently, for reasons already given, was exclusive and objected to all forms of foreign interference.
Now to industrial countries, and especially to the premier manufacturing country, England, here was splendid virgin soil upon which to dump their surplus goods, if only the opportunity could be found of exploiting it. American, traders and the East India Co. gradually insinuated themselves into the country and a thriving trade commenced.
The principal article the East India Co. dealt in was opium, which they grew in India and sold in China. When, in 1834 this company’s exclusive privileges ceased, private traders took up the sale of opium, which they bought off the company.
Educated opinion in China adverse to the consumption of opium as being detrimental to the prosperity of the Chinese nation steadily grew, eventually culminating in laws passed by the Chinese Government strictly prohibiting the traffic in opium. Under cover, however, of an agreement with the Chinese Government for the existence of establishments to carry on general trade in Canton and Macao, our honest English traders smuggled in large quantities of the forbidden drug, in which they did a very profitable trade.
The British Government sent out superintendents to manage commercial dealings with China, but the effect of their presence was to protect the opium trade and force on China political relations with the West. The superintendents did not attempt to aid the Chinese authorities in stopping the opium smuggling.
The Chinese Government then took the matter into their own hands with the following result as summarised by Justin McCarthy (“Short History of Our Own Times,” p. 27):
“When the Chinese authorities actually proceeded to insist on the forfeiture of an immense amount of opium in the hands of British traders, and took other harsh, but certainly not unnatural measures to extinguish the traffic, Captain Elliot, the Chief Superintendent, sent to the Governor of India a request for as many ships of war as could be spared for the protection of life and property of Englishmen in China. Before long British ships arrived and the two countries were at war.”
The Chinese were, of course, worsted in the war and compelled to come to terms, the “swag” obtained by England being as follows :
The Island of Hong-Kong ceded in perpetuity ; Five ports : Canton, Ainoy, Foo-Chow-Foo, Ningpo, and Shanghai, thrown open to British trade and Consuls established there.
In addition to the above China had to pay a war indemnity of four and a half million pounds and, the crowning piece of impudence and injustice, a further indemnity of one and a quarter millions in respect of the smuggled opium they had destroyed.
Justin McCarthy makes the following comment upon this war (p. 25) :
“Reduced to plain words, the principle for which we fought in the China War was the right of Great Britain to force a peculiar trade upon a foreign people in spite of the protestations of the Government and all such public opinion as there was of the nation.”
In 1856 further trouble broke out with China. {The war above referred to occurred in 1842.)
The treaty of 1843 stipulated that the Chinese authorities could not seize Chinese offenders on board an English vessel. On October 8th, 1856 a party of Chinese accompanied by an officer removed twelve men off the Arrow, a vessel lying in the Canton River, on a charge of piracy. The veseel was declared by its owners to be a British vessel when, as a matter of fact, it was a Chinese vessel which had obtained temporary possession of a British flag by false pretences. The Chinese governor contended that the vessel was a Chinese pirate. The British consul, however, demanded the instant restoration of the captured men, and sent to Sir John Bowring (British plenipotentiary at Hong-Kong) for assistance in the matter.
“He [Sir John Bowring] ordered the Chinese authorities to surrender all the men taken from the “Arrow,” and he insisted that an apology should be offered for their arrest, and a formal pledge given by the Chinese authorities that no such act should ever be committed again. If this were not done within 48 hours naval operations were to be begun against the Chinese. The Chinese Governor, Yeh, sent back all the men, and undertook to promise that for the future great care should be taken that no British ship should be visited improperly by Chinese officers. But he could not offer an apology for the particular case “Arrow,” for he still maintained, as was indeed the fact, that the “Arrow” was a Chinese vessel, and that the English had nothing to do with her. Accordingly Sir John Bowring carried out his threat, and had Canton bombarded by the fleet which Admiral Sir Michael Seymour commanded. From October 23rd to November 13th naval and military operations were kept up continuously.” (“Short History of Our Own Times,” p. 165.)
The action of Sir John Bowring was subsequently endorsed by the British Government.
Thus was the isolation of China broken and a vast territory of the “Unchangeable East” opened up to the grasping hands of Western traders. At home in England the factory wheels spun away more merrily than ever, breaking their white slave attendants in mind and body, while the factory lords beamed with delight, piled up their bank balances, rubbed their hands together and talked of the disgraceful extortion of the landowners.
H. de B. Gibbins makes the following comment on the aftermath of these wars in his “Industrial History of England,” p. 217 :
“The Chinese Wars of 1842 and 1857, regrettable as they were, established our commercial relations with the East generally upon a firm footing, and since then our trade with Eastern nations has largely developed.”
The following extract from the “Morning News and Leader” (15.8.13) is an echo of the Opium War and, in view of what has been said above, may come as a shock to the working-class believers in this “liberty-loving” country. The note in question is headed “Opium Traffic. Attitude of British Government on Chinese Buying ” :
“Mr.T.C.Taylor, the Liberal member for Radcliffe, asked the Foreign Secretary in the House of Commons yesterday whether the Chinese Government had asked to be released from the obligation to purchase any further Indian opium.
Sir Edward Grey : The reply is in the affirmative. His Majesty’s Government have not yet sent a reply to the Chinese Government, but we cannot agree to the proposal except as regards provinces where the production of native opium has ceased.
Mr. Taylor : Are we to understand that, whatever the sacrifices made by the Chinese Government, however many lives of their own people they take in putting down the cultivation of opium, His Majesty’s Government will go on compelling China for an indeterminate period to take opium from India ?
Sir Edward Grey : That is not at all a fair inference from my answer. A fair inference would be that wherever China succeeds in suppressing the production of opium in any of her provinces, in regard to that part of the country we will at once withdraw any claim to import Indian opium.”
In concluding this section, fellow workers, I would remark that we are fighting for the protection of small na——Damn ! There I go again!
GILMAC