138 LABOUR IN MADRAS the growth and development of our social life. You might enquire why we ask in this resolution that the Govern. ment of Madras should form Arbitration Boards to bring about harmonious relationships between Capital and Labour in this city. I think that Government intero vention is necessary at the present stage. Capital and Labour have at present no connecting link between them. The Capitalists, Iudian as well as European, bave their own interests and those interests naturally clash with the interests of the labourers. It is necessary that some organization with a certain amount of autho“ rity should step in and give a helping hand in the creation of machinery which is going to produce harmonious relationships between Capital and Labour. Where is an organization now which will be able to produce such a result? Look at the two troubles we have had in the city of Madras : first the lock-out in the Buckingham and Carnatic Mills and now the strike of the Tramwaymen. The Government sits quiet. This second strike is a matter which affects our civic life and makes that life for thousands of people more difficult, and yet the local Government has not a word to say in the matter. There is a Labour Union but employers have taken up an attitude that they will not recognize that Union. You must have seen from the correspondence that was published in New India how several times the Pree sident of the Union, my friend Mr. “Kumaraswami Chettiar, wrote to the Agent of the Tramway Company and got no reply. I will tell you why he got no reply: not because the authorities of the Tramway Company have nothing to say, but because they do not want to address. Mr. Kumaraswami Chetty.
