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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

بلسي

Reference :-

C.O.88

+885

17 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

27529

134

No. 199.

MR. C. P. LUCAS to THE VISUAL INSTRUCTION COMMITTEE.

MY DEAR

Downing Street, October 8, 1907. Committee on Visual Instruction.

VARIOUS questions of detail in connection with the appointment of our photographic-artist, and the issue of the "Composite " edition of the lectures have arisen for decision; and as it would have been very inconvenient to me, and I think to the other members of the Committee also, to call a meeting before November, I have ventured to settle the points with Mr. Mackinder on my own responsibility. I enclose a set of the correspondence which has taken place since our meeting of the 31st of July, which will, I hope, explain the situation.

Attached to 27529

DEAR MR. FISHER,

No. 200.

Yours, &c.,

C. P. LUCAS.

MR. H. J. MACKINDER to MR. FISHER.

London School of Economics, Clare Market,

Kingsway, W.C., October 21, 1907. INSTRUCTIONS TO PHOTOGRAPHER-ARTIST.

ACTING under the direction of the Committee at the Colonial Office which is administering the Princess of Wales's Fund, I have the privilege now of handing you your instructions for your forthcoming visit to India and to certain other parts of the Empire for the purpose of obtaining sketches and photographs. I need not refer to the general objects of your mission, since these are set out in the letter dated October 4th, 1907,† which the Secretary of State is addressing to the Governor of Ceylon, and also in the letter addressed by the Colonial Office to the India Office on the same date, copies of which are in your hands.

2. You will go direct to Colombo, where you should arrive on or about the 11th November. You will remain in Ceylon for not more than three weeks and will then cross to India.

You will find it necessary in India, owing to the immense area to be covered, to select a certain number of typical places for study. It will be quite possible to supplement your work in these places by photographs, obtained by purchase or gift, of the places which you omit, but it is obvious that you would not be able to carry out the instructions given below if you attempted yourself to visit every place of interest. You will therefore make Trichinopoly, where you should arrive about the 4th December, your place for sketches in the South of India, and will thence proceed to Madras, arriving there about the 7th December. After some work in Madras, you will cross by steamer to Rangoon, and after studying in Burma will proceed to Calcutta, where you should arrive about the 22nd January, 1908. It is obvious that what you do in Burma must to some extent be conditioned by the dates of the steamers from Madras and to Calcutta.

You will probably find it desirable to spend until the 7th February in Calcutta, but during your stay there you should make an excursion to Darjeeling. While at Calcutta you will, of course, be careful to consult such people as may help you in your mission, and will obtain such introductions for your further journey as may be possible and desirable.

From Calcutta you will proceed up the Ganges Valley, and it is proposed that you should select the following places for study :-Benares, Lucknow, Cawnpore, Agra, Delhi, Hurdwar, and Dehra Dun. From the last-named place you may, it is hoped, have time to visit Mussooree. It is calculated that you should leave Dehra Dun on or about the 7th March.

You will now give about a fortnight to the Punjab, making Lahore your centre. There you will, of course, accept the advice of the local authorities, but it is desired that in addition to the capital you should study Amritsar and Peshawar.

On or

No. 196.

See No. 160.

† No. 198.

135

about the 21st March, you should proceed to Rajputana, halting at Bikanir, Jaipur, Udaipur, Ajmere, and Mount Abu. From the last-named place you will probably find it necessary, for reasons of time, to go direct to Bombay, where you should arrive about the 3rd April. While there you should make an excursion to Poona, and if time permits, to Haidarabad, the Nyzain's capital. You will leave Bombay about the 15th April.

The intention is that you should be home in England not later than the 15th June, so that you may be ready to start on your journey to Canada on or about the 15th July. You will, therefore, have six weeks or two months for your journey home from Bombay, and it is desired that you should work at Aden, Malta, and Gibraltar, and, if possible, that you should pay flying visits to some port in Somaliland, and also to Cyprus. By this time, no doubt, experience will have shown you how to make the best use of very short visits.

3. In selecting subjects both for photographs and for sketches, you will bear in mind that the object of the Committee is to obtain illustrative material for educational lectures in the United Kingdom. Their wish is to convey to the citizens of the Mother Country and of the other States of the Empire, such an idea of each of the component parts of the Empire as might be obtained by an intelligent traveller who was favoured with the guidance of the authorities on the spot. You will not, therefore, spend time on buildings which have merely an archæological interest, or on natural objects because of their scientific interest, but you will represent such buildings and natural objects as are essential to a broad and vivid impression of the country.

4. Roughly speaking, you will probably find it convenient to divide your subjects into two categories, the first being the native characteristics of the country and its people, and the second the super-added characteristics due to British rule. Thus in India you will naturally select for sketches examples of the old home industries, but you will also bear in mind that British citizens should be made to understand something of the new industrial conditions in places like Bombay and Cawnpore. Similarly, while you will present typical street scenes in the native quarters of the great cities, scenes in a typical village, pageants in the Native States and portrait sketches of great native rulers (where you are fortunate in your opportunities), and such great historic monuments as those of Agra and Trichinopoly, you will also, on the other hand, show a military cantonment, the Viceroy's travelling camp, if you happen to see it, scenes in railway stations and railway carriages, great engineering works, either connected with irrigation or communications, and the European quarters of such cities at Calcutta and Bombay. 5. Especially as regards India you will bring out the broad distinctions in the native life and in the natural conditions of the different regions of that vast sub-continent.

6. Some subjects there are, such as the greater monuments, which it will be well no doubt to show simply by means of ordinary photography, but on the other hand it is very desirable that we should be in a position to suggest to British audiences the typical colouring of the different peoples and countries. It is for this reason especially that I have suggested that you should spend two or three, and in some cases even more, days at selected centres rather than that you should attempt to visit all the places of interest in each section of your journey.

Another point to which I would draw your attention, as the result of the experience which we have now obtained in the selection of subjects for lantern slides, is the desirability of including as much suggestion of movement as possible. Thus you might show a scene with vultures and carrion crows rather than a mere portrait of a vulture or a carrion crow. Similarly the different human varieties of each country might in many cases be shown by means of groups actively employed in some characteristic way. Typical buildings might also be sketched when a funeral is passing or a wedding, or when a pageant is in progress, and even where the interior of a building has to be represented, it is occasionally possible to get striking effects from the light which pouring in through sunlit windows.

7. In a word, you will understand that the wish of the Committee is to assist you in producing a series of illustrations of an entirely fresh character, and that the subjects should therefore be selected not simply for their intrinsic interest, but in order that the collection, taken together, may present in perspective a picture of each country as complete and vivid as may be possible within the limits allowed by your travel, and by what is practicable in a short course of lectures.