132 LABOUR IN MADRAS blackmail the Tramway Company. That is a deliberate falsehood, and all we can say is that the writer of this particular article has uttered that falsehood in sheer ignore ance. But the thing which is of intimate importance to us is the presumption on the part of the writer of that article that you can hold out for fifteen days more with out outside help and that, after that, you will require some kind of financial aid from the people of Madras. He says that you struck work after getting your pay ard therefore you will be able to hold out for one month only. Now it is our duty plainly to tell those who are concerned and interested in this article that it will not come to pass that after another fifteen days you will return to your work. You must therefore make it abundantly, clear in your talk, that at the end of another fortnight i.e., after a whole month's strike you will not go to work again and that you are prepared to go on with the work of the strike for a longer period. It is a fact that your friends who helped you and worked with you are trying to raise financial aid in this city and elsewhere. This work which you have undertaken and which you have kept up with admirable spirit for more than fifteen days will continue and does not entirely depend on the financial outside aid. It does not depend altogether on the money aid that comes to us from outside but primarily it depends on the moral strength which you have so admirably displayed and which I am sure you will continue to express in the days that lie in front. And, therefore, I would repeat the advice that I gave you in the first instance, viz., remain united as you have remained united during the last fortnight. I am very much pleased at the way in which
