The Manager. 27 



Correspondence with agents and Home proprietors 

 is a task which few managers like, although perform- 

 ed with fair regularity. The Calcutta letters and the 

 weekly letter Home are betes noirs, but the Manager 

 looks upon them as part of his duty, and they are 

 written. In correspondence with the agents, the 

 Manager reports on the progress of the "concern," 

 arranges for his seed, and orders all stores required dur- 

 ing the current season. He keeps the Home proprietor 

 en courant with the state of affairs generally, and of 

 lawsuits and mamlahs (negotiations) particularly ; to 

 the agents he yearly sends his estimate for the coming 

 year's outlay, which they either approve on receipt 

 or forward Home for orders. Once approved, the 

 wherewithal for the ensuing year is steadily supplied 

 by the agents, to whom monthly abstracts of expen- 

 diture are forwarded. 



Another branch, still, of the Manager's office work, 

 is the conduct of suits at law ; some managers have 

 more to do in this way than others. Some factories 

 are comparatively free of these pests, whilst in others 

 the Manager's time and mind are both much exercised 

 by them. The immunity or otherwise from such 

 suits seems mainly to depend upon locality, and 

 whether the zemindars and ryots have acquired 

 a taste for litigation or not. Be this as it may, 

 no manager is quite exempt. The factory mokadama 



