| Order number: |
OA4, Memories of the British in India, Sound Cassettes, Box 1 [CLOSED]
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| Summary: |
Comments on the management of the tea estates owned by James Finlay and Company in the High Range of Travancore.
Summary: Playback Cassette Side 1: Family and educational background; reasons for going to India; class background of James Finlay recruits; history and organization of James Finlay & Co; strong position of Finlays in South Indian tea production; growth in world tea trade; Ceylon 'creeper' system of training tea plantation managers; feelings on journey out to India; meeting with member of 'tragic' Eurasian community; moplah rebellion.
Summary: Playback Cassette Side 2: Maplahs; [long pause]; Mackay's written memoir; race relations between Europeans and Indians; Company policy on labour relations; British insensitivity to Indian way of life dating from Macaulay; Indian mistresses kept by some plantation managers; Indians not normally accepted in Club; isolation of High Range; comments on tea planting community in Ceylon;: social life in High Range and its limitations; heavy drinking but little alcoholism; Mackay's interest in Hinduism (not often shared by fellow managers).
Summary: Playback Cassette Side 3: Attitude of Europeans to Indians; general honesty of Indians Indians as businessmen; reasons for British failure in India; lack of proper training for British sent to India; failure of British to make effort to understand Indian way of life; James Finlay's labour relations good but Company discouraged imagination; Company's failure to Indianize its management before independence exacerbated its difficulties after; labour problems after independence; beginnings of Trade Unionism; failure of British to understand the Indian mind a contributory factor in commercial failure; typical day's work of an assistant manager on tea estate; Europeans rarely went into tea factories and knew little of how leaves were processed; assistant manager's day; accounts of wages due to workers made up each evening; skills involved in plucking leaves; importance of Indian 'N.C.O' staff; Mackay learned all he knew from his 'N.C.O’, Thomas, a Syrian Christian. Thomas; Mackay's managers taught him little; Company's failure to promote Indian talent; corruption; opportunities for fraud in tea factories; labour relations chief problem for an assistant manager; worth of Tamil workers; Mackay becomes acting manager in 1930 and manager in 1931; manager's typical day; from mid-1930's, Managers took more interest in tea factories; Mackay's enjoyment of work; recreations; leave entitlement; High Range a state within a state; Company in practice dealt with law and order; story of murder case not pursued by police; manager's pay and standard of living.
Summary: Playback Cassette Side 4: Conditions of Indian labour on tea estates; housing; food; pay; post war improvements in pay, and reasons why Company compelled to make them; contract labour system; indebtedness; introduction of 4% annual bonus scheme by Sir CP. Ramaswami Aiyar at end of war; Finlay's refusal to pay this bonus in 1953 began breakdown in labour relations; sanitary and medical conditions; sick care; contract labour served for 9 month periods; labour force reduced during hot weather; no unionization before independence; Staff (i.e. 'N.C.O's') Association started in 1946; ill-judged speech by Senior Executive; Congress and communist contacts with labour from 1946 onwards, but little political activity among plantation labour before then; attitude of Indian labour to managers; war and approach of independence made no difference; death of Gandhi; Indians appointed as assistant managers and admitted to club; club traditions still continued by Indians. Right of British to be in India unquestioned when Mackay first went out, and Raj seemingly permanent; war brought realization that British Rule would end; hope that India would evolve in same way as Canada; planters reactions to Cripps Mission, Labour Government, Attlee and early independence; Mackay's generation of planters confident of a future after independence; failure to realize that loss of India meant loss of Empire; opinion of Mountbatten; Mackay's belief that British should have stayed on longer to effect gradual transfer of power.
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| Main author: |
Mackay; Walter Smith Sutherland (b 1904); tea planter |
| Other authors: |
Blake; David M (fl 1983); librarian and interviewer |
| Previous numbers: |
OA2/166/1-4
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| Extent: |
2 sound casettes
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| Admin history: |
Walter Smith Sutherland Mackay - Employed by James Finlay & Co. in the management of tea estates in the High Range of Travancore of which Finlay were the Managing Agent. Assistant Manager 1924-32, Manager 1932-46, Assistant General Manager 1946-57. |
| Custodial history: |
Recorded as part of the ’Memories of the British in India’ project by India Office Library & Records [subsequently the Oriental and India Office Collection, British Library]. This recording was previously held at SOAS Library as part of the 'British in India Oral Archive Project' collection [Reference OA2], removed from this collection in August 2014 to reflect the recording’s alternative provenance as part of the ‘Memories of the British in India’ project. |
| Access status: |
Closed
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| Access conditions: |
Sound recording currently unavailable at SOAS Library due to preservation reasons. Researchers can access a copy of this audio recording at the British Library Listening & Viewing Service. For more details see www.bl.uk/listening or contact listening@bl.uk / 020 7412 7418.
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| Copyright: |
Copyright held by British Library |
| User restrictions: |
Private study only. For publication or broadcast please refer to Archivist |
| Language: |
English
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| Originals: |
Original sound recording of interview available at British Library Listening & Viewing Service [Reference: C63/116-121]
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| Format: |
Archive
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