#and then there was the time France England and Germany banded together to invade the Netherlands (google rampjaar if your curious) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

carriagelamp · 4 years ago

Photo

April l was apparently the month for me to revisit some children’s authors who are steeped in controversy at the moment. So here’s my hot (well, lukewarm) takes on issues that absolutely do not need a single other person talking about them. Also some actual good books that I read this month!

Badger in the Basement

The Animal Ark books are a childhood classic — though I recently found out that apparently there’s a difference between American and British publications, and the American versions didn’t include a lot of actual COOL animals which is… bizarre. As a Canadian stuck in the middle of this, this nonsense drives me nuts. This one was about the main character, the daughter of pair of vets, trying to protect a local badger sett from men wanting to participate in badger digging and baiting. These books are always feel-good, and it was a nice single-day-read while I waited for a library book to come in.

Chi’s Sweet Home

The cutest manga series about the misadventures of a little kitten, Chi, who has been adopted by a loving family. I’ve never bothered to read them in order, but apparently this time I stumbled across the last in the series -- whoops! Still, stood on it’s own pretty easily, and it was a fun read! Things get tense when the family realize that they may have found Chi’s original home… and may have to give up Chi forever.

Earth Before Us: Dinosaur Empire!

This was an odd graphic novel, I feel like I’m not sure who the target audience was exactly. It was a nonfiction comic done in a Magic School Bus style, with the purpose of teaching current, up-to-date facts about the animals that lived in the Mesozoic Era. If you’re into dinosaurs, you’ll probably enjoy this! The art is absolutely adorable, I love the dinosaur illustrations, and I learnt some really neat facts. That being said, the pages are really dense, and there’s a lot of info crammed in… some of it will probably go way over a child’s head without specific additional teaching or a very strong personal interest. But that being said, a dinosaur obsessed kid is still probably going to really dig this… as would a dinosaur obsessed adult. It wasn’t my cup of tea exactly but I’m sure it is someone’s.

assorted Dr Seuss Books

I love these types of controversies because it means getting to listen to every moron who has never had an opinion on Dr Seuss ever start generating a mile of them out of the aether. So many people are so mad about the six books that are getting retired and I bet most of them haven’t even read them. These are not the friggin Cat In The Hat or The Lorax or even the likes of Yertle The Turtle. I was raised by a grade one teacher, was a voracious reader who loved Dr Seuss, and wrote my university thesis on children’s literature, and I still only knew two of the six books on that list. So by all means, if you want to write an essay explaining why those specific books are worth clinging to, feel free, but if you haven’t even heard of them maybe it’s not a big deal. *grumble*

Anyway, my grousing aside, it gave me the urge to reread a bunch of Seuss books, including the two retiring books I personally knew: McElligot’s Pool and To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street. I do still enjoy both, especially McElligot’s Pool which always sparked my imagination, but it’s obvious why they’re being retired and I personally think it’s the right choice. There’s so much good kidlit out there, we can survive without these.

Goodbye, My Rose Garden

A f/f romance manga, fairly standard fair though cute if you’re looking for some historical angst, pretty dresses, and mutual pining. A young Japanese woman moves to England in the hopes of meeting a writer (Mr Frank) who she has long admired. Along the way she is employed by an enigmatic woman with plenty of money, rumours, and melancholy following her. I’ll be honest, uncut romance isn’t really my genre, but I’ll probably still try to the second book to see if the story picks up.

From The Holocaust to Hogan’s Heroes: The Autobiography of Robert Clary

It’s no secret that I’ve been on a Hogan’s Heroes kick. This is the autobiography of Roberty Clary, who plays my favourite character in the show, Louis Lebeau. And holy shit what a life this man has had. He was a Jew growing up in France before the start of the war, and who was one of many children taken away from his family and sent off to the concentration camps in Germany. This was an amazing, intense, inspiring, and heartbreaking read… it has Clary’s voice all over it, and it tells everything from the charming childhood he had, to the horrors of the concentration camps, the brutality of survival, and then about his exciting journey into the entertainment industry afterwards. It’s an experience, would recommend if you’re a fan of the show.

The Ickabog

The second controversial author I read this month. Originally I was going to give Rowling’s new book a miss, given everything that’s been going on over the past few years, but in the end my curiosity got the better of me. Politics aside, it was a fun read! Not groundbreaking, but enjoyable enough and written in an interesting style. It didn’t read the same as a lot of modern kidlit, it felt more like a cross between a classic fairytale and a Dahl book. Perhaps a bit like Despereaux. It tells the tale of how an idyllic country gradually falls into ruin through the ignorance, inaction, and greed, and how a supposedly fictional monster hides the very real, human monsters at the heart of the country. It was cute and pleasant and I’m glad I decided to get it from the library, though for anyone who is choosing not to engage for political reasons: you aren’t missing anything major.

Franklin In The Dark

A Canadian classic. I don’t think there’s a single person my age who hasn’t read or been read a pile of these books, and the nostalgia is so comforting. I found this on Youtube and listened to someone read it to me, and honestly 10/10 would recommend for a calm evening.

The big reason I decided to seek this one out though, was because I finally got to the M*A*S*H episode that inspired this entire series! In the episode C*A*V*E, in which Hawkeye is freaking out over his claustrophia while the camp is forced to take shelter in a nearby cave during some intense shelling, he mentions that if he had been born a turtle he would have been afraid of his own shell, and that the other turtles would make fun of him cause he’d be forced to walk around in his underwear. And so this first story about a young turtle who’s afraid to sleep in his own shell and drags it around behind him. So if you were ever curious, Franklin the Turtle is in fact named after Dr Benjamin Franklin Pierce. (this is also why the French version is named Benjamin!)

Wolves of the Beyond: Lone Wolf

I loved the Guardians of Ga’Hoole books as a kid but I never read the Wolves of the Beyond series. This first book was an interesting read, Lasky does a great job creating worlds and societies for the animals that inhabit them. Lone Wolf is about a deformed wolf cub who was abandoned in the wilderness to die. And he would have, if a desperate mother bear, who had recently had her only cub killed, hadn’t stumbled across him and saved him, vowing to raise him as her own...

Petals

A “silent” graphic novel. It has beautiful artwork and is told entirely through pictures, no text at all. It’s loves and heart-wrenching, though it left me feeling somewhat unsatisfied… I felt like there should have been more. Still, a neat story.

The Southern Book Club‘s Guide To Slaying Vampires

What a banger of a novel!! I can’t recommend this one enough. It’s about a group of suburban mothers in the ‘80s who form a book club out of a shared need for community and a love of grisly true crime novels. But when a strange drifter appears in town and starts setting down roots… and when children begin disappearing… these women need to band together to confront the horrors that have invaded their neighbourhood, and face down not only a terrifying monster among them but the patriarchal system that allows it to flourish. To quote the preface:

“Because vampires are the original serial killers, stripped of everything that makes us human — they have no friends, no family, no roots, no children. All they have is hunger. They eat and eat but they’re never full. With this book, I wanted to pit a man freed from all responsibilities but his appetites against women whose lives are shaped by their endless responsibilities. I wanted to pit Dracula against my mom. As you’ll see, it’s not a fair fight.“

The Weirn Books: Be Wary of the Silent Woods

I love Chmakova’s graphic novels, though I’ve only ever read her slice-of-life middle grade series before. This one is pure fantasy and very fun. It’s about two cousin “weirns” — witches with demon familiars — who attend the local night school. Things get strange though when an ominous figure appears outside the old, abandoned school house deep in the Silent Woods, and begins tempting children down its path…

I’m very much looking forward to word of a second book and was honestly kind of surprised that I haven’t heard more about this book given how popular her other series is. This has all the same charm and quirks but for those of us who prefer stories based in fantasy rather than reality.

And A Bonus...

For some masochistic reason I got a Garfield book out of the library. Jeez, if I didn’t love these as a kid, I found them absolutely laugh out loud hilarious, and now I just don’t see it anymore. But here I will share the one strip in the book that actually made me laugh

39 notes · View notes

britishguy2003 · 4 years ago

Text

THE NEW ARRIVAL-A MINECRAFT STORY MODE FANFICTION

After The New Order of The Stone defeated Romeo also known, Beacontown has now been restored. With the leadership of The Town's 'Hero of Residence' Jesse and his Friends, the Town is now back into its origin as a peaceful town for its Citizen

But then, a New kind of Evil emerges from the other Dimension. This new kind of Enemy had already taken over the Eastern Territory of the Overworld. They are known as "The Axis'. They even threatened to invade Beacontown and conquer the overworld

Jesse and his Friends, meet a Group of Resistance group seperated from their Army who also comes from the dimension where the Nazis emerges as they fought together alongside their allies against this new threat

Will they be able to defeat this threat and bring justice and peace to the world or Will they destined to be defeated and heel to this threat? Find out in 'The New Arrival'

THE UNITED ALLIANCE

BRIEF HISTORY

The United Alliance or famously called the Allies is a Democratic Military Alliance consisted of Federal, Liberal, Capitalist, and Democratic Countries that bands together to fight the Axis Forces in 1960 after the defeat of their Predecessor, the Democratic Allies. This Alliance is formed when the Germans and it's Allies, the Axis Forces conquered the Earth. The Allies escaped their own world using a newly invented a Portal that was invented by British scientists. When they got transported to Minecraft world, they're scattered. They don't know where's each other so they just went through it. At first, they thought that they're safe here and rebuild their own nations here. But suddenly, the Germans and its Allies, the new Axis Power arrived in Minecraft World

THE COUNTRIES

1.) THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, A Democratic Capitalism-Liberal Country that was formed in 1776 after the American Patriots and French Troops defeated the British in the siege of Yorktown. It's one of the Alliance's major combatants in the war. USA is governed by a President with the Senate of the Republic along with vice president. Its military is consisted of three main branch: US Army, US Navy, and US Air Force

2.) GREAT BRITAIN AND IT'S EMPIRE, A Constitutional Monarchy and World Wide Imperial power that was formed after the English Civil War in 1648 three act of Union between the Kingdom of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland in the 19th Century. It's one of the Alliance's major combatants in the war. Great Britain along with it's Colony is governed by a King/Queen with the Prime Minister along with the Dukes of Wellington. Its military is divided into 6 Aerial Military branches: the British Armed Forces for mainland Great Britain. the ANZAC Forces for Australia and New Zealand, the Indian Armed Forces for India, the Canadian Armed Forces for Canada, Middle East Forces for British Territory in the Middle East, and the South African Forces for South Africa. Its Military is divided into 3 Military branches which were the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force but the main branches are the British Army, the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force

3.) SOVIET UNION (SOVETSKIY SOYUZ), A Single-Party Communist and Socialist Country that was formed in 1919 after the victory of the Bolsheviks against the Republicans in the Russian Civil War. It's one of the Alliance's major combatants in the war. Soviet Union is governed by a Secretary of the Communist Party and a Premier. Its military is consisted of three main branches: the Red Army (Armiya), the Red Navy (Flot), and the Red Air Force (Vozdushnyye Sily)

4.) FREE FRENCH REPUBLIC (REPUBLIQUE FRANCAISE LIBRE), A Democratic Liberal Country that was formed in 1940 after the Germans invaded France in 1940 and occupied France. It has its Fascist Counterpart which is the Vichy France. the Free French is governed by a President along with the vice president and prime minister. Its military is consisted of three main branches: FFI Army (La Armée), FFI Navy (La Marine), and FFI Air Force (La Aviation)

5.) KINGDOM OF ITALY (REGNO D'ITALIA), A Constitutional Monarchy that was formed after the Italian War of Independence against the Austrians in 1848 and unification in 1870. It has its Fascist Counterpart which is the Socialist Republic of Italy. the Italian Kingdom is governed by a King/Queen with Prime Minister and the Dukes of Aosta. Its military is consisted of three main branches: the Royal Italian Army (Regina Esecirto), the Royal Italian Navy (Regina Marina), and the Royal Italian Air Force (Regina Avizione)

6.) UNITED CHINA (Zhōngguó liánhé), a Multi-Party Democratic Country that was formed in 1945 after the Japanese invaded North China in 1945 as all political forms in China (Nationalist, Communist, Warlords) banded together as one, forming the United China. China is governed by a Generalissimo and a Premier. Its military is consisted of three main branches: the United Army (Jūnduì), the United Navy (Hǎijūn), and the United Air Force (Kōngjūn)

THE AXIS ORDER

BRIEF HISTORY

The Axis Order is a Military Alliance Order formed by Fascist and Totaliterist Country to oppose the United Alliance. It was formed after the victory of their Predecessor, The Axis Tripartite against the Allied Forces. The Axis Order is mostly dominated by Fascist Ideology which means that their Alliances are stronger than their Democratic Counterpart, The United Alliance. After the German's last military campaign against the remaining Allied Forces in Scotland, they found zero Allied Troops. They're gone nowhere. Then they found the Transportation device. the Germans concluded that the Allied Forces has escaped through the portal to an unknown world. The Axis high command decided to pursue the Allies and wipe out their remnants. They're afraid that the Allies might return with stronger numbers and highly advanced weaponry to free Earth from their regime

THE COUNTRIES

1.) NAZI GERMANY THE THIRD REICH (DAS DRITTE REICH DER DEUTSCHLAND), a Fascist Socialist Country that was formed in 1933 after the NSDAP won the General Election and took over the Government when Adolf Hitler was elected as Chancellor. It's one of the major combatants of the Axis. Germany is governed by a Fuhrer and a Chancellor. Its military is consisted of three main branch: Wechramt (Army), Kriegsmarine (Navy), and Luftwaffe (Air Force)

2.) IMPERIAL JAPANESE EMPIRE (Teikoku Nihon), a Traditional Imperial Power and a Fascist Monarchy that was formed in 1868 after the Meiji Restoration. It's one of the major combatants of the Axis. Japan is governed by an Emperor and a Prime Minister. Its military is consisted of three main branch: the Imperial Army (Gun), the Imperial Navy (Kaigun), and the Imperial Air Force (Kūgun)

3.) SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF ITALY (REPUBBLICA SOCIALISTA D'ITALIA), a Fascist Socialist Country that was formed after the rescue of Duce Benito Mussolini in 1944 from the Royalist and the Allies. Fascist Italy is governed by a Duce and a Prime Minister. Its military is consisted of three main branch: Black Shirts (Army), Red Shirts (Navy), and White Shirts (Air Force)

4.) FINNISH SOCIALIST REPUBLIC (SUOMEN SOSIALISTINEN TASAVALTA), a Socialist Independent Country that was formed in 1941 after the Winter War against the Soviet Union and the election of Mannerheim as the Supreme Leader. Finland is governed by a Supreme Leader and General Secretary. Its military is consisted of three main branches: the Army (Armeija), the Navy (Laivasto), the Air Force (Ilmavoimat)

5.) FRANCOIST SPAIN (ESPAÑA FRANCESA), a Socialist Dictatorial Country that was formed in 1930 after the victory of Francoists in the Spanish Civil War against the Republicans. Spain is governed by a Caudillo and a Prime Minister. Its Military is consisted of three main branches: the Army (Ejército), the Navy (Armada), and the Air Force (Fuerza Aerea)

Chapter 1: Awkward Situation

(M.Jesse POV)

I was in Beacontown after the Disaster that the Admin aka Romeo caused. Everyone were rebuilding their homes or the other facilities. After all that, i invited Jack and Nurm to join the new order of the stone and they accepted it gratefully. another new thing to one of my friend who was also my former enemy and former member of the old order, Ivor... He's apparently a ninja now (also he almost killed me). with that ninja suit and diamond katana, he's kinda awesome. Although Alchemist and Ninjas are kind of a weird skill combination but a deadly one too. Lukas was also helping Beacontown's peoples to rebuilt their home, my sister Jess, assisted him on that task too so that he'll have his job easier

I was standing outside the order's temple on it's outside garden, watching Beacontown. That's when Petra come to the temple and walked to me

"Hey, Jesse!" Petra said calling me and waving at me

"Oh! Hey, Petra. What's up?" I replied, waving at her

"Nah, I was going to buy some Materials for Lukas and Jess for the Renovation Project" Petra said, she placed her hands on her hips "So...Everything's okay?" Petra asked

"Yeah,it's fine. I mean Look at all this!" I exclaimed gesturing the Town, she looked at the direction i gestured "Everything's back to the way it is" i sighed happily

"Yeah, you're doing great job Mr-um...Mayor" Petra joked, grinning

"Ha Ha Very Funy. And please don't call me 'Mayor'!" i said sarcasticly

"Yeah sure, why not huh?" Petra said, chuckling "Romeo got his redemption chance, went to find Xara, and everything's back to normal" i said

"Heh, i actually got bad felling that he will make up with Xara in a 'not easy way' since she was acting so much like a...Lunatic" Petra said, chuckling

"Yeah, me too" i said, chuckling. Petra then looking at the skies

"Oh yeah, i have to go! Job Calling! later, Jesse!" Petra said waving at me as she turned away from me

Petra was about to walk away from the garden and on that time she didn't realize there are banana skin on the ground. She slipped on it and She start yelling 'Gah!'. At that time, i ran to her side and quickly caught her in my arm. Thats when Petra opened her eyes. I realized that we're both are blushing and gazing at each other in the eyes

At the same time, Radar comes out from the temple. He was looking at the job list i gave him. He didn't realized that we were in front of him until

"Asking anyone that in need for suplies-check! Checking facility dama-whoa!" Radar said, surprised when he looked up from the job list and looked at US "I gu-guess i i- i should leave you two a-alone. So-sorry boss!". He quickly left the garden and going off to do his Jobs

After that i released Petra to let her stand on her feet

"So-sorry about that" i said blushing with averted eyees

"No, it's fine. i have to go!" Petra said, blushing too. She then leave the garden quicklu. i cleared my thoughts from the early event as i quickly walking away from the Garden and heading towards Ivor's lava pad. I remembered that he had something to tell

It was the most embarassing thing in my life. But, i have to admit that i have a crush on her for a very long time. but you know what? if theres another thing, my sister even had a crush on Lukas. I always teased her with Lukas and she always teased me back with Petra. I wonder when Lukas will get her

When i was on the way to Ivor's Lava Pad, i Saw six odd looking peoples wearing Brown Hoods. They're carrying some sort of weird weapons that i couldn't describe. They looked really suspicious. I don't like it, at all. But, nah... Must be usual weird Beacontowners who had their own weird but awesome styles and creativities. I ignored them as i continued to walk towards Ivor's lava pad

After a short walk towards Ivor's lava pad, i finally arrived at Ivor's lava Pad. I climbed the ladder and knocked the door 3 times. Then i heard someone from inside the Door

"Coming!" the voice said which is Ivor's voice. Then the door opened to reveal a Man with Ninja style Black Hair and Beard and in his usual Alchemist Clothing/Order of the Stone clothing not his Ninja outfit

"Jesse! Glad you could Made it here!"

Chapter 2: Ivor's Intel

{M.Jesse POV}

"Jesse! You're here" Ivor's said happily when he opened the door

"Yeah, Hi Ivor!" I greet him, waving at him

"Hey! Come on in, Jesse!" He said as gestured for me to come in as we head inside the Pad's Living room

Then we sat on the living room Chairs. I don't know what's so important that he call me to his Lava Pad. But i think it's something very important. Maybe? I dunno

"So, Ivor what is it?" I asked him

"Oh, Okay. Straight to the point ey? I just got a juicy report from my informant that theres something suspicios and new on the eastern area of the town. Its looks a lot like a Huge City, but it looks bigger and wider than Beacontown or Champion city combined. That city looks like it had so many advanced and unknown technology different from the redstone system because the City itself was powered by some sort of Incredible powe source that wasn't found in this world and apparently they're a new existence" Ivor explained to me. Hmmm, that's odd, i don't remember that theres a City or Something else on the East. All i remember on the East was Romeo's ice palace. Grrr, that Place gives me the Breeze

"Wait! I thought Theres nothing in the east except Romeo's palace" I said to him. He chuckled as he slumped back on his seat

"Hah! Told you! Odd isnt it?" Ivor suddenly exclaimed. I nod my head. Is there any more info from Ivor about this so called 'city'? Well, i guess i had to find out

"Okay, are there any more information ?" I asked him again. He clasped his hands together and then continued

"Okay! from what i suspect that Civilization in there is not a very friendly civilization that you usually live on" Ivor said a little creepy

"What do you mean with 'not very friendly', Ivor? " I asked him, confused. Wait, did he means that this City are full of Criminals? Theres no way one huge city are filled with Criminals right? That was the craziest thing that i've ever heard in my life

"Well, in there... Lots of the City's Population were armed with some sort of Weapons" Ivor explained again

"What kind of weapons?" I asked him. Now i'm really curious

"I'm not sure. The weapons looked like some sort of combination of iron and Wood. This weapon work like bow but this weapon work is very simple from what" Ivor informed, stroking his beard

"Wait a minute, i saw some odd looking Peoples brought the exact weapon that you mentioned" i told him. Ivor just blinked

"You Saw someone with that kind of weapons?" Ivor asked, blankly

"Yes, right in front of the Beacon Shop"i told him

"Hmm, well my friend, i think we need to do some Investigation. We don't wanted any invited guest to come and obelirate us" Ivor suggested. I chuckled at him

"Maybe you're right. I will tell Radar to hire Four Volunteers for the scout" i said

"Thats a good idea" Ivor commented

{No one's POV}

While M.Jesse and Ivor talking, The mysterious group that was standing outside the Beacon Shop earlier opened their cloak to reveal middle aged mens wearing Red Berrets are watching from long distance with a Binoculatar. The group then went to report the conversations to their leader. The group packed their Gears back and went for their boss place

"They'll figured out who will they opposed"

{Female Jesse's POV}

I was in the garden looking at the view. It was a beautiful and calm around here. The wind blows calmly, the Parrots are chirping, and the various kinds plants fills the garden. When i was there, i couldn't help but think of someone, Lukas. He's helping the peoples of Beacontoen to rebuilt the town since he was the expert of Buildings. After the incident with Romeo, My Brother have been rebuilding the town with the help of Lukas while he was writing his revisions book. At that time i was starring at the sun, i was thinking about him. What is this feelings? I'm sooo confused. And then something i didnt expect happpened, Lukas walking from the back of the garden towards me

"Hey, Jesse!" Lukas said greeting me

"Oh, hi Lukas! Uhhh, what are you doing here?" I said, greeting him

"Nothing, just you know. Checking on you"Lukas said, trying to play it cool

"Oh, i'm fine, Lukas. Thanks for asking though" I said smiling at him

"Nah, it always nice to see you smile" He said smiling back. Okay, that was sweet of him...wait what!?

"Yeah..... By the way, do you know wheres my brother?" I asked him. Changing the Topic and i really do curious what's my brother doing during this time

"He's with Ivor. Discussing about something. It must be important that he only called Jesse"he answered

"I wonder what are they discussing about looking at the sky"i said

"Yeah, me neither" Lukas replied, patting his back

"So Lukas, you wanna sit here?" Invited him to take the empty seat next to me. He smiled

"Oh sure sure" he said as he sits next to me

"Its a wonderful day today, huh?" he said looked at the sky

"Yeah it is" i said, looking at the sky too

"Your brother knows how to make this town fired up and full of joy" Lukas said

"Yeah, he's the best brother that anyone could have" i said

"Its good to have a brother, Huh?" Lukas asked me

"Yeah, it is" i said. then i frowned remembering how annoying is my Brother "but, sometimes he's really annoying" i muttered

"Well, He's your Brother" Lukas said, chuckling. i sighed

"You're right" I said, with a nervous grin

At that time i felt like we gazed at each other's eyes. Its kinda awkward. I felt like we're gazing at each other for about minutes before SOMEONE startled us by yelling at us

"Ahem, So lovebirds!" A voice that we all know and recognized yelled at us, making us startled. we looked away from each Petra who's smirking upon us

"Petra!!!" I exclaimed in shock and embaresment as blushed. When i looked at Lukas, somehow he was blushing too but he glanced away his gaze from me

"Hehehehe sorry, Lovebirds" Petra teased. Okay, this is really embarrasing. Petra... WHY!?

Chapter 3: Embarrassing Interruption

{Petra's POV}

Man! i really made Lukas and F.Jesse embarassed. They both are blushing like mad right now because of my sudden appearance. They both are gazing at each other and i kinda wanna to tease them again. I laughed soo hard from their embarasment until i apologized at them

"Hahahaha, okay okay i'm sorry" i apologized to them even though i'm still laughing

"Apology accepted" Female Jesse sighed, still blushing a little

"Ummm, girls. By the way i need to go back to my shack. I need to rewrite my book. Later you girls!" Lukas said still blushing as he walked away

"Uh, okay. Later!" F.Jesse said as she waved at him. When he's out of our sight, i walked up to her

"So how's you doing Miss.Vice Mayor?" I said, smirking. While nudging her shoulder

"Petra, please don't do that again" F.Jesse said, huffed

"Pffft, fine. Jack and Nurm calling your brother. Did you see him?" I asked her

"Oh, yeah. My brother now is with Ivor. They both are in Ivor's lava pad" F.Jesse answered her

"Ivor? Oh man, what is he doing with your brother by the way?" I asked, placing my hands on my hips. F!Jesse shrugs

"I don't know, but it seems important. Thats why he called my brother" F.Jesse said

"Yes, i think so. But hey! let's eat. I bought twelve pumpkin pie" I said with pulling out twelve pumpkin pie that i prepared for everyone that i brought earlier in the Bakery

"Yeah, i will wait for my brother and Lukas to arrive her. You can go inside first" F.Jesse told me. I nod

"Oh,okay then. I'll go inside first" i said as i walked inside to the temple's dining room. I sit on the nearest chair and i place the pie on the table. I'm gonna wait everyone to be here so we can eat them together like the old times and with new some of our new found friends: Jack, Nurm, Err Stella. I looked at the picture in the dining room, the picture it was all of us the new order of the stone. The Jesse twins is in the middle, i was next to Male Jesse, Lukas was next to Female Jesse, Axel was next to Lukas, Olivia was next to me, and... Ivor is on the top of the Jesse twins. That makes me happy y'know remembering the old days

At that time, The Jesse twins and Ivor got in to the dining room.

"Hey Petra!" Male Jesse said, waving at me

"Oh, hey M.Jesse!" I said, waving at him

He sits right next to me, while Ivor sit next to Male Jesse and F.Jesse sits right next to Ivor

"Where are the others?" Ivor asked

"They'll be here just in a few minute" I said

"Lukas willl be here riding his horse. So i think he will get here earlier than the others" F.Jesse told us. We all nod in understanding

"Jack and Nurm still working for their new maps, but they said they'll will be get here soon" I told them. Earlier in Jack's podium, i saw them working on a couple of maps

"Stella still running champion city, meanwhile Axel and Olivia are walking here from Boomtown and Redstonia" M.Jesse tolds

"Okay then, we'll just wait for them..." Ivor said a little Grumpy

"Ivor, don't get too Grumpy" I responded

"Who's 'grumpy' huh?" Ivor said sarcastictly

"And... You two still holding grudge each other. Could you two please stop doing that?" F.Jesse tried to divide us. Male Jesse is only grinned

"Okay, fine. Geez" I said in a sigh

"Heh, particullary the same Petra and Ivor we know" Male Jesse said laughing

{Lukas POV}

I was at my Stable in my house. I already Prepared my horse for the ride after seeing F.Jesse and i got embarassed by Petra. We're going for a dinner today where everyone is in the temple. I quickly mount my horse, Mickey and horse raiding towards Beacontown

When i was riding towards the temple, i Saw someone in a blue hood talking with five other guys wearing the same blue hood. These... group of Strangers looks looked very suspicious cuz' they bring lots of weapon like a sword and couple of TNT with some sort of tool that was look like something i know from a book that i read before. I think it was a gun, some sort of Bow i think. But those things are super rare from what i know. How did they even got them?

I continued horse riding towards the temple in like 5 minutes and i arrived at the temple earlier. I got in to the temple and went inside the dining room. When i got in, Everyone were having conversations there. But They didn't even start eating the Foods on the table. I guess they're waiting for me huh?

"Hey, Everyone!" i greet everyone, waving my hand

"Hey Lukas!" everyone replied, waving their hands

Chapter 4: Meet n' Greet

{Lukas POV}

"Hello Everyone!" I said when i got inside the dining room

"Oh, hey Lukas!" Female Jesse said, smiling. Which makes me really nervous remembering about the previous event

"Hey Lukas, finally you Made it here! And real quick, dude" Male Jesse exclaimed

"Yeah, i rode my horse. So that's why i was here so fast" i said, scratching my back

"Blonde Guy, Long time no see!" Ivor Exclaimed, why is he still calling me like that!?

"Oh hey, Ivor" I greeted him

"Hey take a seat, writter!" Petra said gesturing to the empty seat near Female Jesse

"Okay" i said as i walk towards the empty seat to sit next to Female Jesse which makes me a little bit nervous (and of course Awkward)

"Where's everyone by the way? I didn't see em" I asked them

"Oh, They're on the way here. They just need to do some of their job quickly" Male Jesse aswered me

"Oh, okay then" I responded. I looked at the sun clock. It's already afternoon

An hours later, everyone has arrived in the room. The new members and our companion even here too. We were having a nice dinner, lots of friendships things, and conversations. But then after the dinner Male Jesse, Ivor, Jack and I were talking in the treasure room while the Girls were still in the dining room

"Well, that was some nice dinner, Jesse. Glad you invited us all" I said to M!Jesse

"Yeah, it's nice to be regrouping and assembling new member by dinner and gettin' to know each others too" Male Jesse said. I then glanced at Ivor

"Umm, Ivor why are you always wearing your Ninja suit? Even at Dinner?" I asked Ivor, Confused by why's he wearing that Outfit rather than his old Outfit. He sighed

"I already told you! from now on i'm a Ninja!" He said as he showed us some of his cool ninja moves

"Nice Moves you got there, Ivor" Jack said, giving him a thumb

"Yeah, Ivor. And please don't pull your smoke boom and throw it at us. Its stunk" Male Jesse warned him by pointing a finger at him

"Hah! I wouldn't" He said winked "Maybe" he smirked. M!Jesse looked annoyed by him but nevertheless he ignored him

"All things have changed again. Thanks to you M.Jesse, All the members reunited and we got some new members. Who knows what adventures that will comes" I said to M.Jesse

"Yep, I'm doing this for everyone" M.Jesse said, Jack smirked at him

"Ohhh, are there some love here? Because i can sniff it from here" Jack said smirking to M.Jesse. M.Jesse sighed

"Okay Jack, you got me. I have a crush on Petra. Happy?" M.Jesse said casually

"Hah! I knew it! My Ninja skill can even senses it too!" Ivor said, laughing

"Geez, please stop doing that. Don't tease M!Jesse!" I said trying to defend M.Jesse

"Okay, fine" Ivor said scratching his neck, then he turned to look serious "By the way Its time for the 'business' , M.Jesse" Ivor said changing the conversations

"Oh, yeah right! About that..." Male Jesse said, nervously

"May i ask what's this Business is?" Jack asked them both curiously. i'm also curious about this 'Business'

"Yeah, what is it?" I Asked them both, curiously

"So here what i was gonna say, We're planning for... The Order's Night off! Since we have to work hard everyday. So, why not taking a little Night off eh?" Ivor said excidetly

"Wow, thats cool" Jack said, sounding enthusiastic

"Yeah, totally" i agreed

"But, where are we going to spend our Night's off?" Jack asked them

"Oh, we're gonna watch the newest movie on Beacontown's theater" Ivor told us

"Yeah, the newest movie is all about us.'The Hero of Beacontown', that was the title of the movie" Male Jesse explained

"Thats great. All the member will be in the movie" i said, totally in for this Movie Night "Then why you didn't tell the girls?" i asked them curiously

"Yeah, why?" Jack said, curiously

"Because y'know? Girls like surprises. Obviously" Ivor answered me with a 'duh' expression

"Whoa, you got some surprises there Ivor" I complimented him

"Yeah, because i'm a Ninja now" He said. Then he looked at the Sun Clock "Oh it's good bye time! see you later at my Pad's 08.00 PM! SMOKE BOMB!" Ivor said as he dissapeared with his smoke bomb. But when the smokes are cleared, i Saw him at the exit

"Ack! You just Saw nothing..." he whispered as he sprinted like a Ninja to go back to his 'lovely' Lava Pad or so called 'Home

"Heh, the same o' Ivor but with a pinch of Ninja-ish" Male Jesse said, chuckling

"Yeah, whoo" I said, swaying away the smokes

"Welp, glad thats over with. i have to go back first to my Podium. Nurm is currently taking care of the podium while i was gone with Archie. See ya at Ivor's pad" Jack said as he waves at us

"See ya!" Male Jesse and I waved him goodbye at him as he go out the temple

"Heh, it's sure nice to make the order's having some fun huh? " I said, chuckling

"Yeah, I'm doing this for everyone" Male Jesse said

"Yeah thats the right thing to reunited everyone. For your Friends and Families" I said, patting him

"Yeah Lukas. Let's go find Radar" Male Jesse said as he walked away to the door followed by me

"Yeah" I said. As we went to find Radar

Chapter 5: The Incident

{Male Jesse POV} After all those Conversations and Hanging out, it's finally nightime, we all are going to watch the movie about us at the Beacontown's theater. we already book private seats there I was wearing my white T-Shirt, my sister was wearing a red T-Shirt, Petra was wearing a Blue T-shirt, Lukas was wearing his Shirt covered by his black skin jacket, Ivor was wearing black shirt with ties, Harper was wearing brown jacket covering her shirt, Jack was wearing a new blue vest, Nurm was wearing white sweater and as always, his green Emerald fedora. I'm currently fixing my messy hair with everyone at the Cinema

"You guys ready?" I asked everyone as i finish fixing my hair

"We're ready!" everyone said in unison

"Okay, then let's go!" I said, they replied with nods as we head inside the Cinema to watch the movie. I hope it's a great movie

We were having a lots fun when we were watching our own history reenacted by profesional actors and actress. I must admit that the Movie is good, detailed, made in perfection, and clearly specific of telling our life and struggles. We all laughed hysterically when we watch some funny scenes but we went silent and sad when we watch the death of Reuben...especially for me and my sister, we really miss him. But his death is not in vain. He helped us saving the world from Evil

At 12.00 pm the Movie was finally over and we all are going back home. when we were about to go home, Ivor and Harper are already excused themself and leave for Ivor's Pad. Then, I see the same suspicious hooded figure placing something that has 10 buttons of 10 numbers with a black screen displaying 00:00 near the cinema. He then pushed several number turning the number displayer into 00.20. When that guy leaves, curious, i walked straight to inspect the thing he placed there

"Hmmm, what is this?" I mumbled to myself as i inspected the thing

"Bro! What are you doing?" My sister said approaching me

"Yeah, we have to go back home! It's already late y'know" Petra said approaching me after my sister

"Yeah, didn't you got your duty tommorow?" Lukas said approaching me too behind them

"Yeah, you're right. Let's head home, guys!" I said as iwalked away from the thing. After i stepped away from that thing. I realized that thing make a some sort of *beep* sounds and then exploded. We quickly jumped for cover from the explosion

*Boom noise*

"What the!?" I said shocked while i feel my ears are hurt from the explosion

"That thing exploded!?" Petra said holding her arm. Looks like the explosion got her arm wounded

"Petra! Are you all right?" I asked her with concern

"I'm Fine, Jesse. it's just my arm getting hurt from that" she assured me

"Okay but we'll need to heal your arm okay?" I said, she nooded "okay" she replied

"Look!" Lukas exclaimed pointing at the injured peoples that caught the explosion

"We need to help them!" My sister said pointing at the injured peoples

"Yeah" Lukas said as he went with my sister to help the injured people

"What was that all about, Jesse?" Petra asked, a bit worried

"I think...i think this guy... I don't know who he is...he just placed...that thing and then again...that guy was the one who me and Ivor gotten... really Suspicious of" i said, between pantings

"What!? So this guy? he had some sort of a revenge on you?" Petra asked me, slightly confused

"I-I dunno. that guy is what we were talking about in Ivor's pad. And he just-" i said when a bottle was thrown out of nowhere and land nearby. Inside the bottle was a letter

"Huh!?" Petra said as she looked at the letter inside the bottle

I quickly picked up the letter from inside the bottle, scrolled it out and began to read it "Hero in residence, Jesse. This is the man who set that explosion. If you read this, go to the Royal Inn cafe at the Badluck alley. Thats where you can find me and my groups. We're not bad guys, we set up that bomb for...well Its classified. I apologize for the injury that i caused. So whatever the bloody hell are you doing, just meet me at the Inn. We will explain everything to you. Sincerely, John."

"Hey, Petra. This is the letter from the guy that had set up the bomb" I told Petra while showing the letter to her

"What!? Let me see it!" She said as she took the letter and examined the letter "John? He was that Inn owner!" Petra told me as she finished examining the letter

"Inn owner!?" I asked Petra, shocked

"Yeah, that's where i bought pies daily" Petra replied

"Should we meet him?" I asked Petra. She shrugged, unsure of what to say to me but then she replied

"Yeah, i think so...but you should tell the others!" Petra said as she handed me back the letter

"You're right, let's go!" I said as we went back home. Well, for me to the Order's temple and Petta to her own place. I'll talk about this to everyone because it seems important. Well, let's just wait for tommorow because i'm so tired right now

5 notes · View notes

yesterdarling · 7 years ago

Text

Languages in Hetalia Cardverse

Because I’m linguistics trash, I took an in-depth look at the languages in Cardverse, namely the way the languages would develop, as the geography of Cardverse differs greatly from ours. I got thinking because of a story I’m writing, and I figured this might be handy for other writers, or at least may be of some interest, so here it is!

First, I’d like to establish some things: This is all highly theoretical (duh) and would have happened a very long time before the rulers we all know and love were in power. This is to account for language development, deep-set accents, and all that other stuff. I tried to mirror history as best I could, but there WILL be differences. After all, this is a fandom universe and not real.

The Lingua Franca, or common knowledge that all the countries speak, would be English, as three out of 12 regions speak it.

First off, we have the type of languages first spoken in the countries:

*Tribes that speak Germanic tongues live in the north

I chose these language families because while many languages came about through trade and war, I needed a starting point for some to develop. The original languages of Diamonds and Spades are unknown due to the way languages developed there.

Now, the fun part: how the languages developed. Here’s a map, labeled with the current languages of the regions, and also what I refer to the regions as. Consider it as a key.

Italian is the primary languages of Hearts

Germanic tribes overpower the Italian population in the Northern Hearts region and the Eastern Clubs region. German becomes the primary language of these regions.

German explorers from Hearts “discover” West and Central Spades. Around the same time, Northern Islanders (Scandinavians) “discover” the same area. The two create a pidgin (temporary language) called English.

The pidgin becomes a creole, and later a language as newer generations adopt English. Celtic tribes in the mountains of West Spades, however, do not take to it.

A cold war of sorts breaks out between West and Central Spades. During this long period of Isolation, English in West Spades is influenced by the Celtic tribes, changing the dialect and accent, along with adding some creoles for trade. Since towns in this region are far apart, accents vary from town to town. The region adopts the name “England”

After the cold war ends and peace returns, the Central Spades dialect still remains unchanged, though some speak a Spanish creole due to trade with some islands. The Central region is now called America.

While this is happening, two separate Eastern Islands (Asia) invade Eastern Spades and Southern Hearts respectively.

Certain trade cities in East Spades (now China) speak the Cantonese dialect, but the rest of the people in East Spades speak a more popular dialect called Mandarin.

Meanwhile, the Southern Hearts region has been renamed Nihon, later called Japan due to Mandarin pronunciation. Their language is only verbal, until they adapt the Mandarin writing system to fit their language.

The remaining region of Hearts is called Italy. In hopes of getting more land, the Italians invade Diamonds. It works for a while, but they are weak and are overthrown.

People in Central and Southern Diamonds (Liechtenstein and Switzerland) keep speaking Italian. Northern Diamonds adapts the language, soon speaking French and calling the region France. Some areas of Liechtenstein and Switzerland adopt French.

Germany begins trading with Switzerland and Liechtenstein. In port cities, German is adopted.

After a while, the region of Eastern Clubs gets tired of being part of Germany. They rebel and call themselves Austrian, but they still speak German.

Slavics from a land far-north invade and conquer Western Clubs. They call the land Russia and speak Russian.

The remaining Clubs region just keeps speaking Uralic languages, which later develops into Hungarian and the region is called Hungary.

As time goes on, the regions band together and form kingdoms. While most kingdoms do this through treaty, England and America gang up on China. The secondary language of the Chinese region becomes English as a result.

English becomes the Lingua Franca of the four kingdoms. It’s very common for anyone from any kingdom to at least understand 2-3 languages.

And there you have it; a linguistic history of Cardverse. I hope this was interesting, maybe even helpful? It could at least tie into politics or character background.

Or you can just decide I’m a nerd and not care about this.

I’ll try to write some more useful Cardverse reference as i go about writing my story.

#Hetalia #Cardverse #Linguistics #Spades Kingdom #Diamonds Kingom #Hearts Kingdom #Clubs Kingdom #Yester Follies

2 notes · View notes

clusterassets · 6 years ago

Text

New world news from Time: The ‘Special Relationship’ Between the U.S. and U.K. Is Unlike Any Other Alliance. Here’s How It Got That Way

Though U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to the U.K. this week has sparked protests, with hundreds of thousands planning to demonstrate in London on Friday, the relationship between those nations and their leaders is typically a close and friendly one. In fact, it’s so friendly — and, experts say, so unusual in its specifics — that it has its own name: the “special relationship.”

But why do we call it that? Why not just call it an alliance?

The phrase can be traced back to Mar. 5, 1946, when Winston Churchill addressed Westminster College in Fulton, Miss., where he and President Harry S. Truman received honorary degrees. (This is the same speech in which he famously used the metaphor of the “Iron Curtain” dividing capitalism in Western Europe and Communism in Eastern Europe — though he didn’t invent the term.)

Here’s what he said about the “special relationship”:

I come to the crux of what I have travelled here to Say. Neither the sure prevention of war, nor the continuous rise of world organisation will be gained without what I have called the fraternal association of the English-speaking peoples. This means a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States… Would a special relationship between the United States and the British Commonwealth be inconsistent with our over-riding loyalties to the World Organisation? I reply that, on the contrary, it is probably the only means by which that organisation will achieve its full stature and strength.

Churchill emphasized the need for the two powers to band together against the Soviet Union, rebuilding the ravaged Europe so that it didn’t become one big Soviet satellite.

“The real purpose of the speech, more than anything else in my opinion, was to try to talk about the appalling economic problems that western Europe was suffering in ’46 [between the] terrible winter in Germany, people dying of starvation, Berlin devastated, flattened by bombing,” says historian Warren Kimball, author of Forged in War: Roosevelt, Churchill and the Second World War. “He’s there to ask the U.S. for economic help but never asks the question in a straightforward way, so he refers to the special relationship that U.S. and Britain had. We demonstrated how well we could work together during the war, so we could work together for the peace, and the peace can include economics.”

Indeed, President Truman would sign into law the Marshall Plan, providing U.S. aid to rebuild Europe, about two years later on April 3, 1948.

Though it wasn’t the beginning of that relationship — after all, Churchill was pointing to something that already existed — that moment started a new way of looking at the relationship between the two countries. It’s come to represent a certain closeness and more than seven decades of sharing intelligence and nuclear relations.

But obviously the history between the two countries is even deeper than that, and it arguably makes the alliance unlike any other in the world.

“There was no special relationship before [World War II]. There was friendly relationship,” according to historian Kathleen Burk, author of Old World, New World: Great Britain and America from the Beginning. Before the term ‘special relationship’ was coined, “the U.S. and British fought each other as often as they were allies.” Here’s a look at key moments in the evolution of the special relationship throughout history:

In the Beginning…

Of course, the United States of America has always had a unique relationship with Britain, even if it wasn’t called a “special relationship.” The early colonial connection between the two meant a shared language and certain shared cultural elements, but it was also the source of great tension.

Obvious examples of the fighting Burk mentions are the American Revolution — the war against Britain that first established the U.S. as its own country — and the War of 1812. During the Civil War, the British supported the Confederacy rather than the Union, because the South was its connection to cotton.

“During most of the 19th century, a lot of the European powers waited for the U.S. to break apart, and it seemed like that would happen until Gettysburg,” says Burk. “The fact that the U.S. remained a unified power after the Civil War made it clear, [America] was a unified country and [it] wasn’t going to fall apart and [it was] a country you have to pay attention to.”

It’s after the Civil War, she says, that the two nations stopped working against one another, even if they weren’t yet working together. The special relationship was then able to develop “little by little, step by step,” as she puts it, from that period through World War II.

The British supported the Americans during the Spanish-American War in 1898, and the U.S. government — unlike most European nations — supported the British in the second Boer War (1899-1902). The U.S. waded into World War I in the early 20th century, but became more closed off after. “American leaders were disappointed in how [the war] turned out and didn’t see themselves as involved in Europe, so they turned back inside,” as Burk puts it.

Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter

The “Special Relationship” During World War II

The “special relationship” that Churchill spoke about continuing is the one that blossomed in a specific context: his alliance with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during World War II.

They didn’t have much of a choice but to work together; as Jon Meacham wrote in TIME, “it was a matter…of life and death.” But they also found out they had the same interests. As he wrote in Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship, “They loved tobacco, strong drink, history, the sea, battleships, hymns, pageantry, patriotic poetry, high office, and hearing themselves talk.”

The Atlantic Charter, a joint declaration from the two, spelled out guiding principles for defeating Hitler in August of 1941. After Pearl Harbor, they became even closer, as Churchill literally moved into the White House and stayed through Christmas so that he and Roosevelt could plot strategy in person. “Never before had a wartime Prime Minister of Great Britain visited the U.S.,” TIME reported in Jan. 5, 1942. “This meeting might possibly be the first broad hint that some day the two nations might draw together.” Later that year, FDR did not to hesitate to offer reinforcements when the British troops in Tobruk, Libya, were forced to surrender to German and Italian troops in June 1942. “Churchill is talking to Roosevelt in the White House when they learn the news, and [Roosevelt] basically told Marshall to do what Churchill wanted,” says Kimball.

Their friendship is enshrined in Westminster Abbey. Unveiled on Nov. 12, 1948, a stone tablet dedicated to FDR reads: “To the honoured memory of Franklin Delano Roosevelt 1882 – 1945 a faithful friend of freedom and of Britain. Four times President of the United States. Erected by the Government of the United Kingdom.” It was the first memorial to a foreign head of state in “Britain’s most hallowed shrine,” as TIME reported. In a brief speech, Churchill, “in a voice he could hardly control,” said the tablet “proclaims a growth of enduring friendship and a rebirth of brotherhood between two great nations upon whose wisdom, valor and fortitude the future of humanity in no small degree depends.”

The “Special Relationship” After World War II

What Churchill and FDR began, their successors have largely continued.

American diplomats have long echoed the importance of maintaining the “special relationship” with Britain. “No other country has the same qualifications for being our principal ally and partner as the U.K.,” declared a U.S. State Department policy paper written in 1950, right before the Korean War. “The British and with them the rest of the Commonwealth, particularly the older dominions, are our most reliable and useful allies, with whom a special relationship should exist… We cannot afford to permit a deterioration in our relationship with the British.”

As Walter Annenberg, Nixon’s Ambassador to the U.K., once put it more bluntly, “I have always maintained that England and America belong in bed together.”

Of course, as with any alliance, the “special relationship” has had its ups and downs. Militarily speaking, it doesn’t mean that Britain will always jump when America calls, and vice-versa. The Suez Canal crisis tested the relationship between President Eisenhower and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan after Britain and France invaded Egypt in 1956, after Cairo nationalized the Suez Canal. “The British soon withdrew, confronted by the Eisenhower Administration’s objections to the operation and a rising tide of criticism at home,” TIME later reported. “In so doing, they also had to face a fact that they had resisted until then: the sun had set on the British Empire.” John F. Kennedy is crediting with salvaging the “special relationship,” actually becoming friends with Macmillan.

Later, when President Lyndon B. Johnson asked U.K. Prime Minister Harold Wilson to send combat troops to Vietnam in the mid-’60s, Wilson refused. When Britain’s economy hit hard times after “it liquidated its imperial holdings,” TIME’s Feb. 2, 1970, issue reported that the “special relationship” had “grown steadily less special” as well “unbalanced” and “unproductive.”

President Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher are credited with “reinvigorating the special relationship,” forging arguably the strongest special relationship since the bond between FDR and Churchill. She became “Reagan’s closest ally in placing new nuclear missiles in Europe to counter Soviet deployments in the early 1980s,” as TIME put it in 1990. Robin Renwick, former senior diplomat in the British Embassy during the Falklands crisis, said that if the U.S. Secretary of Defense hadn’t agreed to provide Sidewinder missiles to Britain, “we wouldn’t have been able to re-take the Falkland Islands.” Renwick has recalled that Joe Biden assured him and the British Ambassador to the U.S. Nicholas Henderson, “Forget all this crap about self-determination, we’re going to support you because you are British!”

Prime Minister Tony Blair and George W. Bush also seemed particularly close when both troops invaded Iraq, though a 2016 review of documents suggests Blair was fighting back more behind the scenes than people thought. (The best known pop-culture take on the idea of a British PM being pushed around by a bossy American President is the scene in the 2003 film Love Actually in which Hugh Grant, whose character appears to be modeled after Blair, gives a rousing speech resisting an attempt by a Clinton-Bush hybrid president to steamroll him.)

And the special relationship is more consistent than we realize; a common language facilitates common pop-cultural references, and when the special relationship is talked about, it’s usually in a positive way. A February 2017 Times of London poll expressed that nine out of ten Americans believed that the transatlantic tie was “very important” or “somewhat important.” Perhaps if the above examples throughout history prove anything, it’s that leaders will come and go, but the two nations’ ties and a shared history have withstood the test of time.

As both Kimball and Burk both coincidentally described it to TIME, it’s not just a relationship, but an inclination.

July 13, 2018 at 06:30PM ClusterAssets Inc., https://ClusterAssets.wordpress.com

#Time #world #news #ClusterAssets #ClusterAsset #Cluster Asset Inc.#ClusterAssets Inc.

0 notes

akividu · 8 years ago

Text

Ruin of India by British Rule

Ruin of India by British Rule by Henry Mayer Hyndman, 1907 marxists.org · by Hyndman

Hyndman: Report on India of the “Social Democratic Federation” (Great Britain), Stuttgart (1907)

Source: “Reports of the Social Democratic Federation, Ruin of India by British Rule ,” in Histoire de la IIe Internationale, vol. 16 (Geneva: Minkoff Reprint, 1978, 1907), 513-33;Transcribed: by Thomas Schmidt.

The British Empire in India is the most striking example in the history of the world of the domination of a vast territory and population by a small minority of an alien race. Both the conquest and the administration of the country have been exceptional, and although the work has been carried on, save in a few directions, wholly in the interest of the conquerors, we English have persistently contended that we have been acting really in the interests of the subdued peoples. As a matter of fact, India is, and will probably remain, the classic instance of the ruinous effect of unrestrained capitalism in Colonial affairs. It is very important, therefore, that the International Social-Democratic Party should thoroughly understand what has been done, and how baneful the temporary success of a foreign despotism enforced by a set of islanders, whose little starting-point and head-quarters lay thousands of miles from their conquered possessions, has been to a population at least 300,000,000 human beings.

To begin with, India was conquered for the Empire not by the English themselves but by Indians under English leadership, and by taking advantage of Indian disputes. When the English, following upon the Portuguese, first landed in India for the purpose of commerce, they were almost overwhelmed by the wealth and magnificence of the potentates whose friendship they asked for and whose protection they craved. At the time their connection with this part of Asia began, India was a great and rich country whose trade had been sought after for centuries by the peoples of the West. If civilisation is to be gauged by the standard attained in science, art, architecture, agriculture, industry, medicine, laws, philosophy and religion, then the great States of India at that period were well worthy of comparison with the most enlightened and cultured parts of Europe and no European monarch could be reckoned as in any way superior to Akber, Aurungzib, Shah Jehan, or Sivaji; while it would be hard to name any European Minister of Finance equal to the Hindoo Rajahs Toder Mull and Nana Furvana. We still scarcely know how far we ourselves have been influenced in many departments by the science and thought which spread westward from the great Indian Peninsula. Even when full account also is taken of that “anarchy” of which nowadays we hear so much from Anglo-Indian bureaucrats, as having everywhere prevailed prior to English rule, we discover that there is little basis for all this pessimism of the past beyond the eagerness to exalt, however dishonestly, the superiority of European methods.

It is safe to say that never was the condition of India more anarchical than that of France, Germany, the Low Countries and Italy during a great portion of the Middle Ages. Thugs and dacoits were at no time more dangerous or more cruel than the bands of robbers and freebooters who roamed at will in those days through some of the finest regions of Europe. The exactions of the feudal nobles and chieftains were in many cases worse than the heaviest demands made by Rajahs or Nawabs; the dues to the Church were certainly not less onerous than the tithes to the Brahmins. Nadir Shah’s sack of Delhi was horrible; but not worse than the Constable de Bourbon’s sack of Rome. Yet he would be a bold man who should urge that the Pax Romana with its blight of the great slave-worked estates and constant drain of wealth to the Metropolis was better for the mass of the people than even the turbulence and oppression of the period of the Crusades. Progress was going on all the time, and we can now see that what has often been called anarchy was but the commencement of a new and more vigorous life. It may be that European interference checked a similar development in India following upon the gradual break-up of the Mogul Empire of Delhi. At any rate, Europeans have no right to claim that they have benefited the country, until evidence has been given that the mass of the people are really better off than they were, or than they are, under native rule. That is the test of the merit of all governments, home or foreign. Do they or do they not secure increased welfare for the body of the people governed?

Englishmen of all Western peoples are perhaps the least qualified to enter into and fully comprehend the national life and development of a number of Asiatic nations, bound together for a comparatively short time under our alien rule; but whose growth for thousands of years has gone on in conditions so entirely dissimilar that it requires an effort of the mind to reach back to the period when the two civilisations had a common starting-point.

Writing fifty years ago when the relations between Europeans and Indians were closer than they are to-day Mountstuart Elphinstone expressed himself as follows:

“Englishmen in India have less opportunity than might be expected of forming opinions of the native character. Even in England few know much of the people beyond their own class, and what they do know they learn from newspapers and publications of a description which does not exist in India. In that country, also, religion and manners put bars to our intimacy with the natives and limit the number of transactions as well as the free communication of opinions. We know nothing of the interior of families but by report, and have no share in those numerous occurrences of life in which the amiable parts of character are most exhibited. Missionaries of a different religion, judges, police magistrates, officers of revenue or customs, and even diplomatists, do not see the most virtuous portion of a native, nor any portion unless when influenced by passion or occupied by some personal interest. What we do see we judge by our standard. It might be argued in opposition to many unfavourable testimonies that those who have known the Indians longest have always the best opinion of them; but this is rather a compliment to human nature than to them, since it is true of every other people. It is more to the point that all persons who have retired from India, think better of the people they have left, after comparing them with others even of the most justly-admired nations.”

Few would venture to dispute Mountstuart Elphinstone’s knowledge of his subject or the justice of this statement. What was true then is still more true now. The pernicious nonsense supplied by Anglo-Indian pensioners and others to the press in India and in England concerning Indian cowardice, ignorance, slavishness and incapacity is written wholly and solely with the object of upholding a nefarious despotism; which, though less openly brutal, is more insidiously harmful even than that of Russia. The numerous races and peoples of India are still capable of great work in every field of human endeavour. Wherever they are allowed a free outlet they display the highest faculties; and it is absurd to contend that great States which managed their own business capably for thousands of years, which outlived and recovered from invasions and disasters that might have crushed less vigorous countries, would be unable to control their own affairs successfully if a handful of unsympathetic foreigners were withdrawn, or driven out, from their midst.

Previous invaders and conquerors of Hindostan mostly settled in the conquered territory and invariably employed the natives in the highest posts civil and military. Native ability was made use of in every department of the administration. Men of capacity, however humble their birth, might and did rise to be the highest functionaries of a Mohammedan monarch or became the heads of considerable Hindoo Empires themselves. The people were thus not crushed down by successive waves of interlopers who never make their homes in the country and drain away its produce steadily to a foreign land. But under English rule the old system has been completely changed. The result of the great battles of Plassey, Assaye, Wandiwash, Seringapatam and Gugerat has been to deprive 225,000,000 of Indians of all control over the policy and administration of their own country and to put even the great Native States, which still retain a nominal independence, increasingly at the mercy of the same despotic power. Up to the time of the mutiny, even to half-a-century ago, this system of complete domination was not so fully worked out as it has been since; and the rule of the famous East India Company which lasted till 1858 was far lighter and more considerate of the interests of the population than has been the Government of the Crown. Not a single one of the solemn pledges given by the late Queen of England and Empress of India, in favour of justice to Indians, has ever been fulfilled and the Indians find themselves to-day, after 150 years of British domination, in a far worse position, in regard to having any control over their own affairs, than they have ever yet been. Here and there an Indian is allowed to creep into the Civil Service on sufferance, or specially servile persons are rewarded by the Government with seats on the Legislative Councils, where they have no authority whatsoever; these, however, are but exceptions which prove the rule.

According to an official return to the House of Commons, obtained many years ago, with great difficulty, by the late Mr. John Bright, the conditions not having materially changed in the meantime, out of 39,000 officials who drew a salary of more than 1,000 rupees a year 28,000 were Englishmen and only 11,000 natives, or in the ratio of more than five to two. The Englishmen, however, received on the average in salaries more than five to one what the natives are paid. Of 960 civil offices which really control the civil administration of India, 900 are occupied by Englishmen and only 60 by natives. The Indians have no control whatsoever over their own taxation, nor any voice at all in the expenditure of their own revenues. The entire civil government is now carried on by men who live lives quite remote from the people they govern, who have no permanent interest in their well-being and who return home, which they have frequently visited in the meantime, at forty-five or fifty-five years of age with large pensions. India is, in fact, now administered by successive relays of English carpet-baggers, men who go out with carpet-bags and return with chests, having ordinarily as little real sympathy with the natives as they have any deep knowledge of their habits and customs.

These District Officers, as they are called, are the real rulers of India. They have the well-being of millions upon millions of people at their disposal. They land in India, nowadays, already full-grown young men, brought up and educated in a totally different society, by no means well-versed in the native languages, convinced of their own great superiority, and prejudiced on many points to a degree which even the best of them cannot materially overcome for years.

And these are the duties which the District Officer has to perform in a tropical country among a strange people: He is:

Collector of the Land Revenue.

Registrar of the landed property in the District.

Judge between landlord and tenant.

Ministerial officer of the Courts of Justice.

Treasurer and Accountant of the District.

Administrator of the District Excise.

Ex officio President of the Local Rates Committee.

Referee for all questions of compensation for lands taken up for public purposes.

Agent for the Government in all local suits to which it is a party.

Referee in local public works.

Manager of estates of minors.

Magistrate, Police Magistrate and Criminal Judge.

Head of Police.

Ex officio President of Municipalities.

Now what does this all mean? No human being, had he the versatility of an admirable Crichton and the endurance of a Hadrian, could possibly do this work efficiently himself. Consequently, the business falls into the hands of that worst class of natives, who are eager to play the part of jackals to the governing white minority. There have here and there been administrators of exceptional genius who, having landed early in India, became habituated to the ways of the people and were able to exercise reasonable supervision over their subordinates. But these cases were exceptional even under the Raj of the old East India Company: to-day they are almost unknown. According to practically universal testimony, European officials are becoming less and less capable of thoroughly understanding the people they are sent out to govern. The most important work also is perforce, done in a hurry and such work is necessarily bad work.

Such is the alien civil administration. The military is like unto it. In the last resort we English hold India by the sword. A well known Anglo-Indian official of high rank, walking with a great Afghan chieftain, many years ago, on the ramparts of Peshawur, held forth to him on the importance of the British power in India and the overwhelming forces it could bring to bear. “Your power in India” replied the Khan coolly “is 70.000 men well armed.” The European forces in India are now somewhat in excess of this and the native army, officered in all the higher grades by Europeans amounts, including reserves, to 180,000 men, without artillery since the mutiny. The cost of this army is entirely thrown upon the revenues of India and amounts to upwards of £19,000,000 a year – a terribly heavy tax in itself on a very poor population, and the heavier that so large a proportion is paid away in salaries to foreigners.

It is claimed by the supporters of European domination that this army, though admittedly entailing heavy charges, is cheaply purchased; seeing that, by its presence, peace is ensured from one end of Hindostan to the other. But the horrors of peace, even in the Western World, are often worse than the horrors of war, and in India this is unfortunately still more apparent. The vigour and intelligence of one-fifth of the human race is being kept down by this despotic peace. Beautiful arts are falling into decay. Native culture is being crushed out. Agriculture is steadily deteriorating. Anything in the shape of patriotism or national feeling is discouraged, and its advocates are persecuted and imprisoned. Denunciation of the wrongs of British rule is treason and legitimate combination to resist tyranny is a pernicious plot. Peace is not worth having at such a price, even if accompanied by increasing wealth. But when such peace goes hand in hand with growing impoverishment for the mass of the people, then clearly we are face to face with an utterly ruinous and hateful system.

It is true that India is inhabited by many races and peoples; true that there exist between them many racial and religious causes of quarrel; true, also, that the Mohammedan minority of 60,000,000 or so scattered throughout British and Native territory conceives at times that it has grave wrongs to adjust against the vast Hindoo majority of some 240,000,000 or 250,000,000. Internecine war is, therefore, quite possible, should we withdraw. But, even so, there are more terrible fates in the world than to die fighting, and the slow starvation of tens of millions of human beings is far worse than any slaughter on the battlefield yet heard of. The marvel is that India, overborne as she is by excessive, costly and unsympathetic administration in every direction, is able to hold her own at all, and that Indians under existing conditions ever show that high distinction in so many branches of human thought and learning that they unquestionably display.

But it may be urged: Look at the results of European management as applied to India. The great cities of Anglo-India, Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Agra, Delhi give an impression of wealth and magnificence worthy to be ranked with anything that can be seen in the West. Fine railways admirably built and handsomely equipped conduct the traveller from one end of the Empire to the other; affording not only the best convenience for passengers but enabling transport of goods to be conducted with ease, cheapness, and rapidity thus, also, putting it in the power of districts which have a surplus of food to provide for the shortcomings of those where drought and short harvests prevail. Irrigation works on a large scale, though not equalling the complete systems of water provision which existed under the best of the old native rulers, are being pushed forward as rapidly as possibly, and rendering famine from drought practically impossible in those parts of the country where their influence is directly felt. Afforestation is being carried on under careful and systematic control, so that the harmful denudation of large districts observable in countries supposed to be much more advanced, such as the United States, is permanently averted. Elaborate arrangements have been made whereby in periods of famine relief works are at once started and the afflicted people are employed on useful enterprises close to their own homes. Disease, epidemic and endemic alike, is treated with a thoroughness and knowledge previously unheard of; while the best known principles of sanitation in tropical climates are applied wherever possible.

Not only so but many drawbacks of the ancient native society have been swept away. Thugs have been suppressed for three generations. Suttee was put down as long ago. Dacoity and highway robbery are rarely heard of. Justice is administered without corruption, and torture is now almost unknown. Indians, if not admitted to prominent posts in the government, have opportunities in the way of acquiring the higher European education never at their disposal before. The press is in the main fairly free and rights of speech and combination are allowed which no foreign prince certainly has ever consented to before.

Much of this if, not the whole of it, is correct. The English have introduced into India continuous peace and many of the advantages of Western civilisation. Had their influence then been confined to such work as was done by a few of the old East India Company’s servants, who knew, were known and were loved by the people; had they restricted their efforts to remedying admitted evils in Indian administration, as was done to some extent very successfully in more than one of the great independent States; had they recognised that what was needed for improvement was not complete Europeanisation but sympathetic cooperation of really capable white men, thoroughly versed in Indian habits and customs and divorced from constant life among Europeans, with the Indian themselves; had they in short regarded India always from the Indian standpoint: it is undeniable that great benefit might have resulted to the country. But, all this notwithstanding, had the economic relations remained the same, India would still have been as desperately impoverished as she is to-day.

The total gross value of all the produce of British India for 225,000,000 of human beings cannot be put at the outside at more than £1 per head. The late Mr. William Digby put it at not more than 12/6 per head. No such dire poverty over so large an area was ever before known on the planet. And the impoverishment is increasing. Mr. Digby, himself an official of one of the great Famine Agencies, and with special opportunities for obtaining information, calculated that the ryots in the Districts outside the permanent settlement get only one half as much to eat in the year as their grandfathers did, and only one-third as much as their great-grandfathers did, Yet, in spite of such facts, the land tax is exacted with the greatest stringency and must be paid to the Government in coin before the crops are garnered! Thus, apart from other drawbacks, our system forces almost the entire agricultural population into the hands of the native money-lenders, from whom alone money to meet the tax can be obtained; and then we hypocritically lament the usurious disposition of the men who lend on the crops! When it is remembered that every improvement which a ryot makes in his holding he is taxed for; that fallow land in British territory is taxed as high as cultivated land; and that little allowance is made for famine periods, it is easy to comprehend the crushing effect of our ruinous system upon the miserable agriculturists, who constitute four-fifths of the Indian population. But for the money-lenders – if, that is to say, the native usurers refused to lend on growing crops – the Government of India would at once be bankrupt.

It is argued, however, that, as population is increasing, the idea of impoverishment on any large scale is absurd and a German Social-Democrat, Mr. Edward Bernstein, who has been acting as advocate-in-chief on the continent for the British India Office, in place of M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu retired from the field, contends on this and other grounds that English government in India has been beneficial. The same argument was used in relation to Ireland prior to 1847. Population was rapidly increasing in that island; therefore the people of Ireland must begetting richer in spite of all the absentee proprietors and of all the talk about the drain of wealth to Great Britain. In that year, however, came the cataclysm, in the course of which millions of people perished or were expatriated; and it was then discovered that Adam Smith himself had said that “poverty seems favourable to generation.” Not only seems but is; as Russia can testify as well as Ireland and India. There are more people in British India than ever there were, but they are living on an ever-falling standard of subsistence. How long we shall have to wait until the cataclysm comes in this case it is difficult to say; but is certainly not far off.

The evidence as to increasing poverty is absolutely conclusive. According to official report after official report it is clearly established that an increasing proportion of the population is yearly getting less and less to eat, and Mr. Digby’s contention is in the main verified. Taking only the period of direct British rule since the Mutiny in 1857, we have conclusive evidence from Viceroy Lord Lawrence down to Mr. C. J. O’Donnell, Mr. Smeaton and Mr Thorburn that, economically at any rate, our rule is a complete failure. None indeed has put the matter more clearly as to the impoverishment than Sir William Hunter, who for many years prior to his death had filled the post of literary advocate-general of British domination, and who admitted that even in 1880 no fewer than forty millions of our Indian population lived in permanent starvation. Matters have become very much worse since.

The reason for this continuous depletion of wealth and destruction of well-being is not far to seek. And this reason applies to the entire population under British control. Here, at any rate, race, colour, religion make no difference. All are subject to the same terrible disadvantage of the drain of produce away from India on English account without any commercial return. This drain, or economic tribute, from which most conquered dependencies suffer, is specially severe in the case of India. Making every possible allowance, it is clearly established that, comparing the Indian Exports and the Indian Imports, the overplus of Exports for which there is no commercial return now amounts to more than £35,000,000 a year, or considerably in excess of fifty per cent more than the total Land Revenue obtained from all British India This drain has been going on in an increasing ratio, and necessarily with deepening effect, ever since the British occupation. It means that India, naturally a country with the greatest possibilities for wealth-production in every department, is being steadily bled to death, in order to pay pensions, interest, home charges, dividends and remittances in Great Britain to the capitalist and landlord classes with their hangers-on Wherever it is possible to throw a charge upon the Indian revenues this is at once done and, as the Indians are wholly unrepresented either in India or in Great Britain, they are unable to complain effectively in any way whatever. It is very doubtful whether the Spaniards ever exacted anything approaching to this tremendous tribute from their American possessions, even in the heyday of their ruthless extortions. When to this drain of £35,000,000 annually is added the amount paid for the services of Europeans in India, including the 75,000 white soldiers, which runs up to many millions Sterling, it is clear we need look no farther for the real cause of India’s frightful impoverishment and the continuous famine and plague which now steadily prevail in some part or other of our territory.

Yet when famine on a larger scale comes, as the inevitable result of this terrible drain of wealth to England, the possessing classes in Great Britain itself, who receive this huge tribute and fill the appointments in India with their relatives, consider they are performing a deed of wondrous beneficence if they return to India £500,000 in one-year out of the £1,000,000,000 or more they have taken out of the country in unpaid-for produce during the past fifty years. No wonder that under such circumstances the agricultural population is drifting into the hopeless position already referred to. The poor ryots overtaxed and heavily indebted “except in the richer irrigated lands eat or sell every saleable article the land produces, use the manure of the cattle for fuel, and return nothing to the soil in proportion to what is taken away. Every increase of population increases the danger. Crop follows crop without intermission, so that Indian agriculture is becoming simply a process of exhaustion. Even in some tracts of canal-irrigated land, where water is lavishly used without manure, crops have ceased to grow. An exhausting agriculture and an increasing population must come to a dead-lock. No reduction of the assessment can be more than a postponement of the inevitable catastrophe.”

This was written by the celebrated agriculturist Sir James Caird in his report as Special Famine Commissioner nearly thirty years ago. Mispredictions are being fulfilled under our eyes. The “catastrophe” he foresaw is close at hand.

To borrow money at interest from England in these conditions, in order to build more railways, is only to intensify the drain and multiply the number of syphons to suck out wealth for foreigners. Even to create more irrigation works, likewise with borrowed money, can have no permanently good effect, so long as the drain of produce without return goes on upon a greater scale. That drain and the excessive employment of Europeans in India at heavy rates of pay render ruin certain whatever else may be done. There are two Indias: Anglo-India with fine European quarters and luxurious arrangements battening upon the wholesale impoverishment of the country; and India proper, undergoing misery such as has never been seen on a like scale elsewhere, even under twentieth century capitalism.

But now matters are becoming so unendurable that the industrious, thrifty, patient Indians themselves are beginning to feel that some change must be made in their lot. The educated classes are beginning to understand what European tyranny, economic and social, means to all who are brought under it, and to know that their impoverishment is occasioned by British rule and not by the forces of nature. Famines occurred in India before our conquest; but continuous famine such as now afflicts some part of India every year was wholly unknown under Hindoo or Mohammedan rule. Black plague has been known as an epidemic in India for centuries; but black plague as an endemic pestilence working death all through the year had never been heard of till we brought to Hindostan, within the past generation, the full blessings of European civilisation.

This horrible disease with its ravages bids fair to do more to break up native society and to turn the mass of Indians against us than anything else. At the time of writing the mortality in India by plague alone is at the rate of 90,000 a week. Now plague is above all other dangerous sicknesses the disease of poverty. Where in hot countries there is great poverty, there the plague finds its most congenial habitat. No other proof of the increasing poverty of India is needed than the increasing fatality and persistence of this scourge. The natives are panic-stricken, and the very measures of scientific precaution taken by European doctors and their subordinates to prevent its spread, involving as they do constant interference with the most cherished and even sacred native customs, render the foreign despot more hateful than he was before. Such is the irony of events, when once an Empire has entered upon the downgrade. All the efforts of the unscrupulous Anglo-Indian press in India and at home to stir up the old ill-feeling between Mohammedans and Hindoos will have little influence as against the discontent and hatred engendered by the manufactured plague and the methods used for its suppression.

Meanwhile, too, a new spirit is being displayed in the towns. Meetings and protests against British mistakes are becoming rather the rule than the exception, when discontent is felt, even in patient Bengal. There is movement and stir in Bengal on political grounds; in Punjab and the Mahratta country on economic grounds; while all over India a propaganda in favour of boycotting European, meaning of course English, goods in favour of Indian and Asiatic goods is going steadily forward. Slowly but surely the economic situation of India is being appreciated and the cry of “India for the Indians” is being systematically raised. Even at the “Indian National Congress,” which meets every year, and which strongly protests its loyalty to the British Government, an advanced party has been formed, which undoubtedly looks to complete independence for India as the only hope of the future. This party is gaining strength daily and the more determined of its members have taken a vow never in any circumstances to serve under or to aid the foreign Raj. Indians visiting England are even more outspoken as to the future. They take courage from the example of Japan and argue that if it has been possible for little Japan to place herself in the front rank of the nations within a space of forty years, with very little assistance from Europeans, it is surely quite possible for India with her 300,000,000 of people, and her fighting races, whose numbers alone are fully treble the entire population of Japan, to take courage by her example and, even unarmed, to sweep out of Hindostan by one great and simultaneous effort the 200,000 of Europeans and Eurasians who at present despotically control her fortunes and are ruining her future.

There is no longer any hope of improvement by peaceful or constitutional means. Thirty years, perhaps even twenty years, ago it was still possible to have so reorganised British administration, by reestablishing native rule under British leadership and by stanching the drain, as to give India full outlet towards a new and prosperous period. But, lately, both capitalist factions in England have shown a firm determination to continue in the course of wrong-doing and tyranny. Mr John Morley, the sham Radical placeman acts as Secretary of State with even less of real sympathy or statesmanship towards Indians than the late Viceroy, the Tory Lord Curzon, who, by common consent of Europeans and natives of all grades in India, was the worst Governor-General Hindostan ever had. Attempts are even being made at the present time, in view of the growing discontent and threatening demonstrations against our system, to maintain our domination, as it was originally established, by stirring up internecine animosities. Even official organs are not ashamed openly to appeal to the fanaticism of Mohammedans against Hindus for the special purpose of weakening the rising agitation against unendurable economic, social and race oppression. But this shameful policy will be unsuccessful and neither Moslem bigotry nor European rifles and artillery can permanently maintain a foreign despotism which has proved a failure in every direction. White capitalist rule, now doomed to an early overthrow, will seem but a short and hideous nightmare in the long and glorious life of India. Upon the withdrawal of the English the Indians will begin afresh their old career of internal development, side by side with the other progressive peoples of the world.

But India is only the most conspicuous instance of the ruinous effect of European capitalism upon subject races. Other nations, so far as their opportunities permitted, have been as injurious in their dealing with the less-developed peoples as the British. France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Belgium and now the United States and Germany have carried on the same system on a smaller scale. It is for the International Social-Democratic Party of the World, representing the classes that gain nothing whatever from the tyranny which, hitherto, while suffering under, they have helped to uphold, to organise and assist any efforts that may be made to destroy for ever the pernicious domination of capitalism in all its forms, and to bring about the emancipation of all mankind regardless of race, colour or creed.

May 1st, 1907. H.M. Hyndman.

P.S. – Since the above paper was in type, affairs in India have assumed a more critical aspect. Not only is the black plague extending its ravages, but even by official accounts, which, of course, minimise matters as far as possible, the mortality has now mounted up to just 500,000 every month! This, so far, is chiefly in the Punjab. The arrest and deportation of Mr. Lala Lajpat Rai, without even the form of a trial, or any justification whatever for such a proceeding, has aroused a bitter feeling of indignation among the educated classes of India from one end of the Peninsula to the other. Mr. Lajpat Rai is a man who has devoted his life and his fortune to the service of his poorer countrymen when suffering from the disasters of famine and earthquake. He was engaged at the time of his arrest, as Mr. O. Donnell, M P., a late member of the Anglo-Indian Civil Service in this very district, has clearly shown, upon a perfectly legitimate, sober and reasoning protest against the action of the Government in raising the Land Tax to famine point, and in exacting payment for lands, reclaimed by the Punjabi peasants, which had been specially exempted from assessment at the time of their reclamation. All this has been proved to demonstration. But Mr. John Morley, the philosophic Radical, speaking as Secretary of State for India on behalf the Liberal Government, has justified his infamous Muscovite methods in the House of Commons, and Mr Lajpat Rai is being slowly done to death in gaol. Thus, in England as in other countries, the Liberals and Radicals are again showing what cowardly tyrants at bottom they are. No attempt has been made by the government of India to defend itself against the overwhelming charges of the deliberate bleeding to death of India, formulated against it by myself and others who thoroughly know the facts. It has been distinctly shown by members of the Anglo-Indian Government themselves that the terrible drain of produce from India for nothing; the excessive demands for the Land Tax as well as the manner in which it is collected in cash before the crop is grown; and the Salt Tax which, though reduced, still acts as the direct promoter of disease for men and cattle due to insufficient consumption of this necessary of life: it is being proved, I say, not by the adversaries of British rule but by its supporters, that these shameful extortions are the direct cause of the frightful impoverishment and plague mortality of the Indian people. The so-called “unrest” is meanwhile extending throughout the country, and men in high place, who have had 40 years experience among the Indians themselves, have warned the Government that, unless a complete change of system is made, the end of our rule in India is close at hand. What the economic effect of that collapse would be on the middle classes of this island, it is not necessary for me to describe at length here. Enough to say that it would mean an immediate deduction from the incomes of the non-producers of Great Britain of not less than £ 35,000,000 a year.

Those who wish to go farther into the question of Hindoo achievement in various directions will find an admirable summary, largely drawn from European statements and admissions, in “Hindu Superiority” by Har Bilas Sarda published in English at Ajmere in November 1906. In his laudable anxiety to uphold the reputation of his race and country the author may, perhaps, take a somewhat optimist view of the capacity of his own people; but the quotations given and the facts adduced in this book of more than 450 pages ought to silence for ever the foolish and ignorant sneerers at Hindoo inferiority. It is not so very many years ago that I remember hearing the Japanese spoken of with similar lofty contempt by English traders and travellers.

Ordinary readers rarely follow calculations in the text. I prefer therefore to put the figures of the Indian trade in a note. It must be borne in mind that no analogy whatever exists between such a country as the United States and India. The excess of Exports from the United States may be and as a matter of fact are represented by the unseen import of bonded and other indebtedness redeemed from abroad, or by investments in foreign countries, which, also, would not in this case appear in the trade returns. It is certain that India’s debts are not being repaid but being added to, and it is equally certain that she has made and is making no investments abroad. Consequently, the actual net surplus of exports from India over exports into India, the exports and imports of treasure being duly taken account of, represent the total amount of the actual drain of produce from India without commercial return. Now the total excess of exports for the last three years as given in the corrected official returns are for 1902-3 £18,570,811; for 1903-4 £24,961,773 and for 1904-5 £20,144,132 or an average of £21,500,000. But this is far from being the amount of the drain. In order to arrive at the true figures and in order to balance correctly, we have (as the estimate of values is made at the Indian ports) to add at least fifteen per cent to the total of the exports in order to make up for a similar amount for profit, insurance and freight charged on the imports at the points of debarcation. If this is done in regard to the three years named, it will be found that upwards of £14,000,000 on the average should be added to the £21,000,000 of excess exports Thus the real yearly drain of wealth from India represents at least £35,000,000. In fact it is much more; as there can be no doubt whatsoever that much of the treasure retained in India on balance of treasure imported, as well as more than their proportion of trade imports, goes to the Native and Border States which are not under direct British control though their imports as well as their exports are calculated in with the figures of purely British territory.

Hyndman Archive

marxists

#India Colonial affairs Foreign despotism British domination

0 notes