MUKHARJI: A VISIT TO EUROPE / 162 9
to shake hands with us and ask about their friends. Many queer incidents happened in this way. 'Do you know Jim,?James Robinson you know of
Regiment?' asked a fat elderly woman, who one day came bustling through the crowd and took me by storm, without any of those preliminary manoeuvres usually adopted to open a conversation with a stranger. I expressed my regret in not having the honour of Jim's acquaintance. The good old lady then explained to me that she was Jim's aunt, and gave me a long history of her nephew, and the circumstances which led to his enlistment as a soldier. If the truant nephew lost the golden opportunity of sending through us his dutiful message to his aunt, she on her part was not wanting in her affectionate remembrances of him. Among other things, most of which I did not understand, for she did not speak the English we ordinarily hear nor was her language quite coherent at the time, she begged me to carry to Jim the important intelligence that Mrs. Jones' fat pig obtained a prize at the Smithfield Agricultural Show.2 I shewed my alacrity to carry the message right off to Jim in the wilds of Upper Burma by immediately taking leave of the lady, who joined her friends and explained to them that I was a bosom friend of her nephew.
Once, I was sitting in one of the swellish3 restaurants at the Exhibition, glancing over a newspaper which I had no time to read in the morning. At a neighbouring table sat a respectable-looking family group evidently from the country, from which furtive glances were occasionally thrown in my direction. I thought I might do worse than having a little fun, if any could be made out of the notice that was being taken of me. I seemed to be suddenly aware that I was being looked at, which immediately scared away half a dozen eyes from my table. It took fully five minutes' deep undivided attention to my paper again to reassure and tempt out those eyes from the plates where they took refuge, and the glances from them, which at first flashed and flickered like lightning, became steadier the more my mind seemed to get absorbed in the subject I was reading. The closer inspection to which I submitted ended in my favour. Perhaps, no symptom being visible in my external appearance of the cannibalistic tendencies of my heart, or owing probably to the notion that I must have by that time got over my partiality for human flesh, or knowing at least that the place was safe enough against any treacherous spring which I might take into my head to make upon them, or owing to whatever other cause, the party gradually grew bolder, began to talk in whispers and actually tried to attract my attention towards them. The latter duty ultimately devolved upon the beauty of the party, a pretty girl of about seventeen. Of course it was not intended for my ears, but somehow I heard her say?'Oh, how I wish to speak to him?' Could I withstand such an appeal? I rose and approaching the little Curiosity asked?'Did you speak to me, young lady?' She blushed and hung down her head. Her papa came to the rescue. 'My daughter, Sir, is delighted with the magnificent things brought from your country to this Exhibition. She saw some writing in your language on a few plates and shields, and is anxious to know its meaning. We did not know whom to ask, when we saw you. Will you take a seat here, and do me the honour to take a glass of something with me? What will it be? Sparkling moselle?4 I find is good here; or shall it be champagne or anything stronger?' He said. The proferred glass was declined with thanks, but I took a chair and explained the meaning of some of the
2. Britain's most important agricultural event, 3. Stylish, held annually in London since 1799. 4. A white wine.
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1630 / EMPIRE AND NATIONAL IDENTITY
verses damascened on the Koftgari ware.5 The young lady soon got over her bashfulness, and talked with a vivacity which I did not expect from her. She was delighted with everything I said, expressed her astonishment at my knowledge of English, and complimented me for the performance of the band brought from my country, viz., the West Indian band composed of Negroes and Mulattos, which compliment made me wince a little, but nevertheless I went on chattering for a quarter of an hour and furnishing her with sufficient means to annihilate her friend Minnie, Jane or Lizzy or whoever she might be, and to brag among her less fortunate relations for six months to come of her having actually seen and talked to a genuine 'Blackie.'
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1887 1889
5. Steel merchandise of Indian manufacture with an inlaid pattern in gold. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN
Chamberlain (1836?1914) was a manufacturer who made his fortune at the age of thirty-eight; he spent the rest of his life in politics, generally allying himself with radical causes. An enthusiastic promoter of imperial expansion and consolidation, he was appointed colonial secretary in 1895. The following selection is taken from a speech Chamberlain delivered in 1897 at the Royal Colonial Institute's annual dinner; published later that year in his Foreign and Colonial Speeches, the text records the frequent 'cheers' and 'laughter' and expressions of agreement ('hear, hear') that greeted his performance.
From The True Conception of Empire
It seems to me that there are three distinct stages in our Imperial history. We began to be, and we ultimately became, a great Imperial Power in the eighteenth century, but, during the greater part of that time, the colonies were regarded, not only by us, but by every European Power that possessed them, as possessions valuable in proportion to the pecuniary advantage which they brought to the mother country which, under that order of ideas, was not truly a mother at all, but appeared rather in the light of a grasping and absentee landlord desiring to take from his tenants the utmost rents he could exact. The colonies were valued and maintained because it was thought that they would be a source of profit?of direct profit?to the mother country.
That was the first stage, and when we were rudely awakened by the War of Independence in America from this dream, that the colonies could be held for our profit alone, the second chapter was entered upon, and public opinion seems then to have drifted to the opposite extreme; and, because the colonies were no longer a source of revenue, it seems to have been believed and argued by many people that their separation from us was only a matter of time, and that that separation should be desired and encouraged lest haply they might prove an encumbrance and a source of weakness.
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CHAMBERLAIN: THE TRUE CONCEPTION OF EMPIRE / 1631
It was while those views were still entertained, while the little Englanders1? (laughter)?were in their full career, that this Institute was founded to protest against doctrines so injurious to our interests?(cheers)?and so derogatory to our honour; and I rejoice that what was then, as it were, 'a voice crying in the wilderness'2 is now the expressed and determined will of the overwhelming majority of the British people. (Loud cheers.) Partly by the efforts of this Institute and similar organisations, partly by the writings of such men as Froude and Seeley3?-(hear, hear)?but mainly by the instinctive good sense and patriotism of the people at large, we have now reached the third stage in our history, and the true conception of our Empire. (Cheers.)
What is that conception? As regards the self-governing colonies4 we no longer talk of them as dependencies. The sense of possession has given place to the sentiment of kinship. We think and speak of them as part of
