PRINCE DWALA formed a frequent subject of conversation at the Residence. Mr. Cato disagreed on every possible question with everybody there; but they found him a charming visitor, and the process of ‘draain’ his leg,’ as the Scotch call it, was an unfailing amusement to the younger members of the party.
He found them assembled round the breakfast table when he came out on the veranda next morning, beaming round through his gold spectacles with that benevolent smile with which he always began the day. Lady Crampton sat at the end, behind a silver urn—a flighty, good-looking creature, who might have passed for thirty. Besides her there were Mademoiselle and the three girls; Dick Crampton, and Reggie the nephew—secretaries both—deep in the batch of last month’s newspapers, which had just arrived.
The Governor and his private secretary were still at work.
‘When’s the execution, Dick?’ said Reggie, helping himself to ham.
‘Half-past ten, old man; you’ve lots of time.’
‘The usual tortures, I suppose?’
‘Just the usual. The Mater’s been up for hours sharpenin’ the spikes of the rack.’
‘Getting rusty, I suppose?’
‘Not they! They got blunted over all those land-tax defaulters last week.’
Helen, the youngest girl, tossed her long hair over her cheeks and exploded with laughter.
‘Soyez gentille, Hélène,’ said Mademoiselle: ‘les jeunes filles bien élevées ne rient pas à table.’
Mr. Cato adjusted his spectacles, and stared with horror from face to face.
‘What nonsense are those boys talkin’ down there?’ said Lady Crampton. ‘For Heaven’s sake don’t choke, Helen! Dick, you naughty boy, do try to behave.’
‘You mind what the Mater says, Reggie.’
‘What was Her Excellency pleased to remark?’
‘She says you’re not to play the elephas mas gigas ass. Hello, Guv’; good mornin’.’
His Excellency came in, tall and débonnaire, and sat down to breakfast. After him came his private secretary, a pale and anxious young man, who said little, and opened an egg as if he expected to find an important despatch inside it.
‘Any news, Reggie?’ said the Governor, cheerfully rubbing his large white hands together.
‘Fry’s hurt his finger.’
‘Bad luck to it!’
‘Well, Sir Henry,’ said Mr. Cato, beaming away, ‘I’m going to have a good talk with you after breakfast about Prince Dwala.’
‘Too busy, too busy, my dear Sir. You talk it over with Mr. Batts; he knows all about everything.’
The private secretary looked up darkly, and gave a dry nod at Mr. Cato.
‘Rum chap that Prince,’ said Reggie: ‘looks uncommon like a monkey.’
Mr. Cato flushed with indignation.
‘Please don’t talk like that, Mr. Crampton. I know you mean no harm; but it’s just by little remarks like that that we Englishmen nourish that narrow-minded contempt for natives to which we are all of us only too prone.’
‘Dear little things, monkeys,’ murmured the tactful Lady Crampton: ‘my sister used to keep one in Kensington, till it took to hidin’ food in the beds, and had to be given to the Zoo.’
After breakfast Mr. Cato and Mr. Batts retired into a dark chamber, and discussed the question of the Prince’s future. Mr. Batts sat like an eminent specialist, with folded arms and pursed lips, while Mr. Cato expounded his views. Mr. Batts held out great hopes of the Government coming down handsomely.
‘My dear Sir, we couldn’t have chosen a better moment for the application. The Colonial Office is bound to spend its grant by the end of the financial year, under penalty of having it reduced in the next Budget—it’s a Treasury rule. What I’m telling you is a secret, mind; don’t let it go any further. Between you and me, my dear Sir, they’re often glad if some expense of this kind turns up to put their surplus into; and once they’ve got him over, it’s easy enough to get the item renewed year by year. They like native potentates; it’s picturesque and popular. As for preventing white men from going into their country, that is a policy which I can’t accept. It’s opposed to the natives’ own interest: their countries could never be developed without European assistance.’
‘How do you mean “developed,” Mr. Batts?’
‘Well, take the question of gold, for instance. These lazy beggars the Soochings would simply leave it lying useless in the ground, as far as they are concerned. Mind you, I’m not saying that all these Jews and foreigners who start the thing are the most desirable people to carry civilisation among the savages. Providence works for good by very funny means.’
‘But the gold belongs to the Soochings.’
‘Gold or any other commodity belongs by the law of nature to the man who works it. It’s a reward for his industry. That’s in Mill. It’s not by any means such an easy thing working a mine as you might think, especially in a savage country. First of all, there’s the labour difficulty to deal with.’
‘What do you mean by the “labour difficulty”?’
‘Getting labour, of course; native labour to work the mine.’
‘But what are the Europeans doing there, if they’re not going to labour?’
‘You’ve evidently not studied the mining question, my dear Sir. Once the prospecting is over, Europeans don’t dig. That would be very primitive. They have their work pretty well cut out as it is, pegging out their claims and looking after the men to see they don’t steal. Of course they have to get natives to dig for them—Soochings in this case.’
‘But why should the Soochings dig for them?’
‘Why should they, my dear Sir? Why, we’d pretty soon make ’em! But it’s no good arguing these big questions on first principles. We simply follow the policy which has worked so well in other parts of the world.... Now what’s your figure for the Prince’s salary from the Colonial Office?’
‘Well, what do you say to a thousand a year?’
‘Oh, make it two, make it two. That Mandingo man gets two thousand; and we don’t want to have our native princes priced lower than Africans. It’s just these things which fix the status of a Colony in the eyes of London people.’
‘Good; two thousand.’
‘And as big a lump down as we can screw out of them. I’ll instruct His Excellency.’
‘Then he’ll get his ordinary revenue from his subjects?’
‘That won’t amount to much.’
‘And the royalties on the gold?’
‘Don’t count on that. I saw the Chief Justice last night; he’s going to give it against you.’
‘I shall appeal.’
‘To the Privy Council? Well, well: one never knows what will happen when a case gets to the Privy Council.’