Page:Gandhi - The Wheel of fortune.djvu/77

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
"HANDLOOMS OR POWERMILLS?"
59

or country, whether it is the handloom or the power-mill? Handicrafts or machine industries—that is the real issue."

It is not quite clear from the above what the notions of the correspondent are about the economic and political power of this country. We cannot imagine him to seriously believe—though his argument runs as if he does—that that power can be achieved without feeding and clothing the millions of our half-starving and half-naked men, women and children. The political and economic power of a nation depends even, in this "age of mechanical industrialism," not on its powerful machines but on its powerful men. Germany was equipped with the best and most powerful and modern machinery, but it failed because at the last moment the power of its nation failed. We want to organise our national power. This can be done not by adopting the best methods of production only but by the best method of both the production and the distribution. Production that is the manufacture of cloth in this particular instance can be brought about in two ways;