HC Deb 02 April 1935 vol 300 cc323-34

10.21 p.m.

Sir R. CRADDOCK

I beg to move, in page 127, line 23, to leave out "the recruitment of officers generally," and to insert: recruitment to such posts and in recruitmeat generally for railway purposes shall have due regard to the past association of the Anglo-Indian community with railway services in India and. The Amendment I am moving bears specially on the case of the Anglo-Indian community. I know very well that the Secretary of State has always been anxious to do what he can to preserve the state of security for their livelihood, and, as far as possible, to insure that opportunities are given to them and that they are fairly treated. I do not feel at all satisfied that the Anglo-Indian community will receive sufficient protection. They have rendered great services in the past to India. In the customs, the railways, posts and telegraphs, and in many posts in the provincial services, they have fulfilled most useful functions with honesty and ability, but as time goes on they are gradually sinking and the number of appointments open to them are steadily growing fewer and fewer. The reactions on that community are such that, as they get less employment and become more unemployed, the parents have less means with which to educate their children sufficiently well, and as the children are not educated sufficiently well they have failed to secure, on that score, the appointments that used to be available to them. The result is that it goes on in its accumulative effects—less education—less employment, still less education—still less employment.

Although I am well aware that certain efforts have been made to secure their position as far as possible by laying down percentages on the railways and in some of the other services which should be given to Anglo-Indians, yet at the same time I am not satisfied that those percentages will save them, and for this reason. Eight or nine per cent. of railway employment, scattered as it will be over all the railways in India, will make it very difficult to realise at any given time whether the maintenance of that percentage is being jeopardised or not. There is another point. Those percentages at present include large numbers of the elder servants of the railways and the customs who will, before long, he retiring, and it may be practically impossible to fill up every vacancy due to the retirement of the older men who are in a larger proportion perhaps than the percentages available, and it will be very difficult to keep up records of them and for an one in authority to realise exactly how the matter is going. It may be that after a certain time figures can be compiled, and we shall suddenly awake to the fact that Anglo-Indian employment has been falling short of the percentages laid down.

Those appointments start from humble positions. It is a far cry from the appointment of a guard or a ticket collector or an apprentice driver to the Viceregal throne. It is impossible for the Governor-General to keep himself in touch with appointments of that kind. It may be said: "The railway authority, which takes the place of the Railway Board, will be able to prescribe rules and so on, in order to maintain the percentages," but the railway authority cannot come down to details of the appointment of guards and humbler appointments. That will have to be left to the traffic authorities operating each part of the system. It will be the local superintendent on the spot who will have the disposition of appointments of that kind.

Another way in which the proper percentage of Anglo-Indians may be lost is that standards may be prescribed which are really higher than is required for the positions. In certain cases the Anglo-Indian may be less well educated, though he may be a much more responsible person than the other man, and they will turn him down on the ground that he has not the requisite qualifications. One hears of these cases. The representative of the Anglo-Indians was able to quote a good many cases of that kind, in which in one way or another excuses have been made for the non-employment of Anglo Indians. The percentages of 8 or 9 per cent. laid down for these railway appointments are only arrived at after an enormous decline in the appointments of Anglo-Indians under the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms. Even under the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms the Governors, in the Instrument of Instructions, were responsible for looking after the interests of the Anglo-Indian community, but I am sorry to say there is no sign of their having done so in this respect. I do not blame them, because the facts never came to their knowledge, and I do not think that in future the facts will come to the knowledge of the authorities. Suppose it does at last come to the knowledge of the railway authorities that there has been a large fall in the appointments which ought to have gone to Anglo-Indians under the percentages laid down. That knowledge may only come after a year or two and in the meantime other people will have been appointed. They cannot turn out all the Indians who have been appointed. There would be trouble, perhaps a strike, on the railways, if those people were summarily turned out. No railway manager wants to face a strike in the workshops or on the railways in order to save a few Anglo-Indians. I do not like to lay too much stress upon it but I think that incidents of that kind very likely prove a deterrent to Anglo-Indians getting appointments in the proportion which it was intended they should get.

Let me stress the fact that the Anglo-Indian is an important person on the railways at the present time. He is a loyal British subject. He is very unwilling to forgo his British nationality; he clings desperately to his British stock and to the Christian religion. He suffers extraordinary disadvantages because of this. For instance, he cannot live in the same way as an ordinary Indian, he does not receive the same consideration. A driver who is an Englishman can rise to 250 rupees a month, an Anglo-Indian driver can only get up to 150 rupees; whilst an Indian is quite well off on 60 rupees a month. His wants are entirely different, his style of living is entirely different, and for that 60 rupees he gets all that he requires in the social scale in which he lives and was perfectly happy. An Anglo-Indian cannot live on so little. Errors sometimes creep into the ideas of hon. Members opposite. The hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) on the Second Reading, in a reference to the grants given to the Anglo-Indians, betrayed an extraordinary misunderstanding, which can only be explained by the fact that the hon. Member must have been misinformed by someone.

It must be remembered that the education of the Indian boy is met by local funds supplemented by provincial funds. The Anglo-Indian boy has only a grant in aid. Schools are kept up by charities, partly by endowments and partly by funds, and the fees are much larger in the case of the Anglo-Indian boy. I do not keep in my head the fees which are paid all over India, but I remember that in my own province the parents of an Indian boy in a primary education school only paid one anna per month. With two months' vacation that is 10 annas, or one shilling a year. In the case of the Anglo-Indian at his Church school, or whatever school it is, his parents pay five rupees a month, or 80 times as much as the parents of the Indian boy. So now, when the hon. Member for Westhoughton, or one of his colleagues, thinks at all of this subject, and of the disparity between the Anglo-Indian boy and the Indian boy, perhaps he will learn the facts before expressing opinions.

There is another point. Whenever there have been serious railway strikes we have had to depend on the help of the Anglo-Indian because he was not so subject to the intimidation of the strike leaders or agents as was the pure Indian. It is necessary, therefore, to keep the Anglo-Indian factor in the management of railways and telegraphs. You will always find in the history of every strike and every trouble that you have had to depend on the Anglo-Indian. It will be noticed that any Anglo-Indian entering the railway service has to join compulsorily the auxiliary force. Here again he fulfils a most useful function. It is no good ignoring all these facts and saying, "Oh well, the Anglo-Indian has to look after himself now." You have to realise what the facts are and to deal with them. I heard an Indian member of the Secretary of State's Council not long ago make a speech, I think it was in the Caxton Hall, in which he said, "Of course we are willing to give grants for the aid of Anglo-Indian children, but they must be on the same scale as the grants for the Indian boys, and if they want anything more they must pay for it themselves." That is specious enough but it is not justice at all. It must be remembered that the fees paid form a large part of the cost of education, and it is not the case that the Anglo-Indian children are educated at the cost of the State.

At all points of administration in these departments the facts must be borne in mind. Take defence. Railway communications are all connected with defence, and even Customs are. The smuggling of arms is becoming very common, and it is highly important that we should have Anglo-Indians in the Customs, if only for that reason. Telegraphs and so forth are all connected with communications. It is no good trying to ignore the part that the Anglo-Indians play. It is no good saying merely, according to some rules laid down in 1933, that appointments should be kept for them. It is necessary to see that practical effect is given to that rule in the case of appointments knowledge of which can scarcely come to the Viceroy or the Governor. So far as the railways are concerned, the Governor has no responsibility whatever, because the railways do not come under him. Employment on the railways is under the Federal Railway authority. In view of all the circumstances I think it would be a very valuable record and one to which Anglo-Indians would look, if we put into this particular Clause a special reference of the kind proposed in my Amendment.

I have the greatest sympathy with the Anglo-Indian community and I fear for what may happen to them under the new conditions. Sir Henry Gidney has said that about the time of the war there were only 1,000 Anglo-Indian men unemployed, and that now there are 20,000 unemployed out of a total adult male population of some 60,000. I do not know whether those figures are an overstatement of the case or not, but I have heard the same thing from other sources and I know that there are many cases in which a woman or a girl in a family has been able to get employment as a nurse or in some other capacity while her brothers are unable to find any employment at all, and in those cases the woman or girl has, more or less, to support the whole family. Knowing as I do, the circumstances of many of these people and how they have undoubtedly lost a great number of the employments which were formerly open to them, and lost them almost irretrievably, I fear for what the results may be in the future. I fear particularly for their position in regard to education because without education they cannot qualify for these appointments. I fear also that if this protection is not given to them in every way possible the Anglo-Indians before long will become the flotsam and jetsam of the big cities and finally disappear as the remnants of a depressed class.

10.43 p.m.

Lord E. PERCY

I need not tell my hon. Friend the Member for the English Universities (Sir R. Craddock) that he and I think entirely alike on this subject. I have been very anxious to see that the Anglo-Indian community is properly safeguarded. Of course we are not concerned here and now with the question of education because what we are now discussing is solely the question of railway appointments, and after listening to my hon. Friend's speech my original impression of his Amendment remains, namely that it is a most dangerous way of trying to give additional protection to the Anglo-Indian community. I thought we had all agreed that that protection must be primarily the protection which is in the hands of the Governor-General in his discretion. There is a great deal to be said for mentioning the Anglo-Indian community specifically in the Clause, but I ask the Committee to observe what the Amendment would do.

Instead of leaving the Clause as it is to provide that the Federal Railway Authority is bound to follow the instructions given to it by the Governor-General as to allotting a fair proportion of appointments to every community, including of course the Anglo-Indian community the Amendment proposes to give the Federal Railway Authority a separate responsibility from the responsibility of the Governor-General. It is the Federal Railway Authority which is to have due regard to the past associations of Anglo-Indians with the railways, and it is the Governor-General who is to give instructions to the railway authorities. Surely the railway authorities would then say, "I have my responsibility, which is to pay what I think is due regard to the interests of the Anglo-Indian community, and I have also a responsibility to carry out instructions from the Governor-General. If these two responsibilities in my judgment conflict, I shall not obey the instructions given by the Governor-General." It is very dangerous to introduce that kind of division of responsibility into this matter instead of leaving it entirely in the Governor-General's hands and making it quite clear that the Federal Railway Authority must carry out any instruction which is given by the Governor-General. By all means put the duty, if you wish, on the Governor-General to have due regard to the associations of the Anglo-Indian community, but do not throw that responsibility on the Railway Authority.

Sir B. PETO

If this Amendment were accepted, the Federal Railway Authority, in representing to the Governor-General what percentage of Anglo-Indians should be employed, would have due regard to the circumstances stated in the Amendment, and therefore they would recommend to the Governor-General to have regard to the appointment of Anglo-Indians, and the Governor-General would still have his own authority.

Lord E. PERCY

I do not think that that is how it would work. I do not think that the appointments generally in this case are made by the Governor-General, but by the Railway Authority. The Governor-General has to give instructions to the Railway Authority as to whom they are to appoint. In any case, my answer to my hon. Friend is that I dislike a division of responsibility, and I especially dislike a division of responsibility placed in the statute. My hon. Friend the Member for the English Universities says that the Governor-General does not know these people, but he also says that the Railway Authority does not know them. I think that the safer way is to leave it in the hands of the Governor-General, but, I should be glad to co-operate with my hon. Friend in putting a special protection of the Anglo-Indian community into this Clause in another connection without disturbing the sole responsibility of the Governor-General.

10.48 p.m.

Duchess of ATHOLL

I am glad to hear that my right hon. Friend will be ready to co-operate in framing some Amendment which would recognise the special claim of this community for employment on the railway, although I do not think that all of us are convinced by what he says. The Clause as it stands only requires the Governor-General co have regard to every community, without bearing in mind any special services that any community may have rendered to the railways in the past. That seems to me very material, and it is well worth while raising this point on the Amendment in the hope that we may get some other form of words which may perhaps commend itself to my right hon. Friend. The Governor-General has to bear in mind the claims of all communities to have fair representation, presumably more or less according to their numbers without any regard to past services.

It is very necessary that we should recognize the valuable services which the Anglo-Indian community has rendered in the past, for it is not too much to say that they have been the backbone of the three security services of the railways, telegraphs and customs because they could be relied upon to be loyal to British rule. They have laid us under a great debt to them in the past, a debt which has been recognised by everybody who has considered this question in the last few years. This was recognised in the Montagu-Chelmsford Report, the Report of the Statutory Commission, and the proceedings of the first Round Table Conference. In all these documents emphasis was laid on the obligation of the Government to safeguard their position because of the peril in which they stood. In a memorandum submitted to the Joint Select Committee, it was stated that of 1,000 employés in the North Western Railway, only half per cent. of the total were Anglo-Indians. It was pointed out that this was an extreme danger in a railway of that strategic importance. A disloyal telegraphist could disorganise the traffic in a few hours and bring about a position similar to that in 1919 in the Punjab.

A much more comprehensive Amendment than this was brought before the Joint Committee by Lord Hardinge of Penshurst, seeking to secure for the community due weightage in all services, not merely in the railway service. Unless some Amendment of that kind were put into the Constitution to safeguard their position, it was stated that the fate of the community was doomed and India's gain would be their destruction. The Prince of Wales when receiving Anglo-Indian delegates in 1922 said, "You may be confident that Great Britain and the Empire has not forgotten the devoted services of your community to the King Emperor, and that you gave so great an example of your devotion in the Great War." I would suggest that those words gave a pledge to that community which we in Parliament are bound to make good.

10.53 p.m.

Sir H. CROFT

I think the Committee will permit me to say that, although we have listened perhaps to four or five speeches from the Noble Lady, we have done so with the greatest admiration, for the wealth of knowledge she has displayed has almost converted me to the suffragette movement. I feel that this question we are discussing now is possibly one of those which every Member of this House ought to regard as perhaps his greatest responsibility in considering the reforms for the Indian Empire. The Anglo-Indian as he is now termed, a generally accepted term, is perhaps one of the most unfortunate of any peoples in the world; not being a member of any special race, the consequence is that almost invariably he falls between two stools. That is why in this Amendment we are asking Members, whatever their views may be upon this question, to give their special consideration to these people.

May I remind the Committee that at one time Englishmen who had retired from the service, or who were actually in the service in the days of the East India Company, were urged to marry Indian women. The consequence was that this vast population has grown up feeling that they are absolutely dependent for their whole future on the British raj. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that. I would like to quote the words of the Montagu-Chelsford report, because it sizes up this matter very adequately, and bears out the claims for the Anglo Indians which we are trying to press on the House. Paragraph 346 reads Some reference is needed also to the case of the large Anglo-Indian or Eurasian community which on historic grounds has a strong claim on the consideration of the British Government. It is not easy for them, occupying as they do an intermediate position between the races of the East and West, to win for themselves by their own unaided enterprise a secure position in the economy of India. They have been hitherto to a great extent political and economic dependents of the Government, and they would not be strong enough to withstand the effect of changes which omitted to take account of their peculiar situation. We think the Government must acknowledge and must be given effective power to discharge the obligations to see that their interests are not prejudicially affected. I regret to say that from that day to this the position of Anglo-Indians has gone steadily from bad to worse, and the reason why it is so vital that we should give full consideration to the subject of their employment and why we want to press on the Government to put in words such as are proposed, is that their lot at the present time has really become deplorable—that is not too strong a word to use. I receive every week letters from Anglo-Indians who are trying to strike out for themselves in agricultural cultivation because of the loss of employment upon the railways, and they are making every effort as communities to get together and establish new colonies with a view to finding a new outlet for their energies. But it is in the Statutory Commission's Report that we have the very strongest argument for giving special consideration to their case, and I would like to read one or two brief paragraphs from it. They say on page 42: The events of the 12 years which have elapsed since the passage of the Montagu-Chelmsford Report was have not diminished the concern of this community for its future, and we warmly sympathise with its anxieties. Anglo-Indians are found in every part of India, but almost entirely amongst urban populations, and very largely in railway and administrative centres. The report says further; For a long time the usefulness of Anglo-Indians in staffing administrative posts was widely recognised. The community has played an honourable part in developing the country and in supporting the forces of order. These avenues of employment are the more important since Anglo-Indians are not cultivators and have riot held any positions in the world of commerce. It is, generally speaking, a poor community and now finds itself, largely as a result of reforms and the progress of Indianisation, exposed to the danger of falilng between two stools. Coming from such authorities, those words must impress upon us the real need for the people of this country to see that very special consideration is given to this very large community, these hopeless, powerless children in India. Now I come to the work they have done. It is common knowledge that on the railways and in the post and telegraph services of India these people have been established from very early days in positions of responsibility. Why 1 Because in almost every case they can speak English as well as the vernacular in the locality and the consequence is they have been specially adaptable for all these great services, and—

It being Eleven of the Clock,The CHAIRMANleft the Chair to make his Report to the House.

Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.