LABOUR IN MADRAS 113 Fourthly a public meeting of the citizens of Madras was held at the Gokhale Hall on Dec. 15th to sympathise with the labourers locked-out. Mrs. Annie Besant presided. Mr. Wadia made the following speech : . After waiting for over a fortnight some of us who have been trying to help the labourers at Perambore have thought it fit to convene a public meeting of the citizens of Madras. I want to put to you first the broad and most important issue on which this great struggle is being carried on. I shall tell you frankly at the very outset that the great factors which dominated both sides now taking part in this struggle is whether Indian labourers or Indian capitalists will succeed in the first struggle between Labour and Capital in India. It has little to do with stocks, it has little to do with hours, it has little to do with wages, it has little to do even with the illtreatment that is reported to be given to the labourers by the employers, but the central fact is this that when la bour has been for the first time organised in India, the capitalists who in this particular instance happen to be foreigners are fighting a hard strenuous fight, and in a way I am glad that the fight has been strenuous. As Mrs. Besant pointed out to you, our Labour Union is young, our funds are scanty, but in the course of six or seven months with the help of our weekly meetings we have accumulated a moral force which is so powerful that it has been a surprise, I am certain, to Sir Clement Simpson and his assistant. Gentlemen, the fight therefore lies on the moral principle. So far Indian labour has been intimidated, cowed down and at our Labour Union meetings the first thing I and my colleagues did was to instill self-respect in the hearts and heads of the
