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| Sunday, 8 February 2004 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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White man's burden by Anton Joseph Take up the white man's burden
These and the other trading companies were part of a private club, successors to the old East India Company, owned and run by Englishmen and, in the majority of cases, by Scotsmen. There was the usual token brown executive, but by and large they were a rare commodity in the top echelons of management. The ex-patriate Mercantile executives worked together and played together in such places as the Colombo Swimming Club which was then a "whites only" club. The clerks and the lower orders were, of course, the Ceylonese with little hope of promotion. Autocratic It was against this backdrop that in 1956, I as a 19 year old joined the august firm of Harrisons & Crosfield as a Junior Clerk, at the princely salary of Rs. 125.00 per month. Here I was able to observe, in the dying days of Empire, how the British Empire must have functioned in the 1920s and the 1930s Harrisons & Crosfield was a Scottish Company, incorporated in Glasgow, although its Head Office was near the Tower of London, in the City of London. The directors were Scottish and its head was a crusty, autocratic and unbending Scot by the name Sir. Eric Miller. Every floor in H & C's offices in Prince Street had his picture and a picture of the Queen on prominent display we were not to forget where our allegiances lay. The head man in Ceylon was The General Manager and at that time a humourless Scottish Chartered Accountant, David Champion. He was a man who believed that the "natives" should be kept in their place and was very happy to tell them so. There was a story, perhaps apocryphal, that did the rounds, when I was employed there. A clerk, who was getting married, had sent a wedding invitation to the General Manager. The invitation was returned with a short note which read "wedding invitations should be sent only to friends and relatives". We, the clerks, who were of varying ages, most of them fathers and some grandfathers, were made to sit at desks similar to school desks, but larger with a flap that opened upwards and served as a receptacle for papers, pens, private belongings etc. These desks faced a white executive who sat in isolated splendour at a proper writing desk and watched over his charges like a schoolmaster. Clerks had to sign the attendance register daily and at the stroke of 9.00 AM, this register was removed and placed on one of the white executives desks and a line drawn. Anyone who was late had the embarrassment of having to sign the register below the line under the watchful eye of his boss. Depending on his boss's mood and whether he was a habitual offender he received a dressing down in public. Achievements A culture of "them" and "us" pervaded everything. Separate toilets, separate rest areas, different working conditions and so forth. Smoking at the desk was forbidden, whilst the executives could smoke anywhere to their hearts content. The toilets served as the "smoking room" for the clerks. Here they spent their happiest hours, gossiping, cursing their employers, grumbling about their wives, their money problems and boasting about the achievements of their children. All this changed in 1957 when the Mercantile Employees Federation, representing the clerks and the peons (then under the leadership of Bala Tampoe) demanded a small cost of living increase which was denied by the Employers. There was a call for an all-out strike to which most of the members responded. On the day of the strike all of us arrived for work as usual, but congregated on the steps and near the entrance of the office building. Here we were joined by our friends from the adjoining banks and offices. One or two were from our next door neighbour, Messageries Maritimes, a venerable French shipping company, that had ships plying between France and Indo-China. The French were about to lose their empire after the debacle of Dien Bien Phu and the Vietnam conflict was yet to happen and this office would eventually close. One of the clerks from Messageries Maritimes was standing on the steps of Harrison & Crosfield, when Mr. Champion arrived in his chauffeur driven limousine. As he entered the building he asked the outsider to leave his building. Quick as a flash, the humble clerk replied "when you get out of my country I will get out of your building". The General Manager's face changed colour but he was left speechless. He turned sharply on his heel and walked into the building. A few months later, he resigned his post and left the island. The world and Ceylon were changing fast and "Ceylonisation" eventually arrived in the latter half of the sixties. I was glad that I was able to observe at first hand what life was like in the workaday world of the 50's. Has the plight of the employee changed for the better under new masters and their kith and kin? I doubt it. Some might even say that the white man was a better and fairer employer. There was a romance and a poignancy about it all - a young man setting off from England to seek his fortune in the empire. He might have been the black sheep of the family or a failure at home, but in the East he was a figure of authority with power enjoying an enviable way of life. I left for England in 1957 and when I arrived at the very heart of the Empire I was able to understand better the attitudes and aspirations of the men who were our masters during the glory days of the British Raj. |
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News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security Produced by Lake House |
The year was 1956. Although Ceylon (as it was known then) was an
independent country the white man's rule still held sway in the Mercantile
sector. The "Mercantile sector" was the collective name given to
the banks, trading and plantation companies that were created by the
British after they colonised the island. The roll-call of names were
impressive: Bartleet & Co. Bosanquet & Skrine, Walker & Greig,
Harrisons & Crossfield, Carson Cumberbatch, Mackinon Mackenzie,
Somerville & Co. Chartered Bank. Hongkong & Shanghai Bank,
Grindleys Bank.
