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urden humbug. The pukka sahib pose. It’s so boring. Even those bloody fools at the Club might be
better company if we weren’t all of us living a lie the whole time.’
‘But, my dear friend, what lie are you living?’
‘Why, of course, the lie that we’re here to uplift our poor black brothers instead of to rob them. I
suppose it’s a natural enough lie. But it corrupts us, it corrupts us in ways you can’t imagine. There’s
an everlasting sense of being a sneak and a liar that torments us and drives us to justify ourselves
night and day. It’s at the bottom of half our beastliness to the natives. We Anglo-Indians could be
almost bearable if we’d only admit that we’re thieves and go on thieving without any humbug.’
The doctor, very pleased, nipped his thumb and forefinger together. ‘The weakness of your
argument, my dear friend,’ he said, beaming at his own irony, ‘the weakness appears to be, that you
are not thieves.’
‘Now, my dear doctor——’
Flory sat up in the long chair, partly because his prickly heat had just stabbed him in the back like a
thousand needles, partly because his favourite argument with the doctor was about to begin. This
argument, vaguely political in nature, took place as often as the two men met. It was a topsy-turvy
affair, for the Englishman was bitterly anti-English and the Indian fanatically loyal. Dr Veraswami had
a passionate admiration for the English, which a thousand snubs from Englishmen had not shaken. He
would maintain with positive eagerness that he, as an Indian, belonged to an inferior and degenerate
race. His faith in British justice was so great that even when, at the jail, he had to superintend a
flogging or a hanging, and would come home with his black face faded grey and dose himself with
whisky, his zeal did not falter. Flory’s seditious opinions shocked him, but they also gave him a
certain shuddering pleasure, such as a pious believer will take in hearing the Lord’s Prayer repeated
backwards.
‘My dear doctor,’ said Flory, ‘how can you make out that we are in this country for any purpose
except to steal? It’s so simple. The official holds the Burman down while the businessman goes
through his pockets. Do you suppose my firm, for instance, could get its timber contracts if the country
weren’t in the hands of the British? Or the other timber firms, or the oil companies, or the miners and
planters and traders? How could the Rice Ring go on skinning the unfortunate peasant if it hadn’t the
Government behind it? The British Empire is simply a device for giving trade monopolies to the
English–or rather to gangs of Jews and Scotchmen.’
‘My friend, it iss pathetic to me to hear you talk so. It iss truly pathetic. You say you are here to
trade? Of course you are. Could the Burmese trade for themselves? Can they make machinery, ships,
railways, roads? They are helpless without you. What would happen to the Burmese forests if the
English were not here? They would be sold immediately to the Japanese, who would gut them and
ruin them. Instead of which, in your hands, actually they are improved. And while your businessmen
develop the resources of our country, your officials are civilising us, elevating us to their level, from
pure public spirit. It iss a magnificent record of self-sacrifice.’
‘Bosh, my dear doctor. We teach the young men to drink whisky and play football, I admit, but
precious little else. Look at our schools–factories for cheap clerks. We’ve never taught a single useful
manual trade to the Indians. We daren’t; frightened of the competition in industry. We’ve even crushed