or build houses or start gratuity funds. The factor to be borne in mind in this connection is the innate culture of the Indian labourer, which loathes the idea of slavery in any shape or form. The Indian labourers want to have schools for their children, houses for themselves, better wages and shorter hours-all as a matter of right and justice. The efforts on the part of the employers to patronize the labourers are seen as fetters of slavery, albeit golden fetters instead of iron ones. I have not referred to the iron fetters of personal abuse, kicking and other brutal practices that still prevail on plantations and in factories. The Madras Labour Union is trying to put a stop to them by legal means. The new spirit is in evidence among Indian labourers who will not tolerate such brutalities any more; but it is well to recognise that even the above-named golden fetters are resented and the Indian labourer feels that he is pot only a "hand," but also that he has a head and a heart, and aspires to come into his own.
Non-Factory Labour.
While there is a semblance of factory legislationnam ke vaste, for the sake of the name, as we say in India-labour outside the factory has not even that much of protection. Agricultural labour, on plantations and other places, has its own untold woes. The conditions in the mine settiements -e. g., Kolar goldfieldare not easily describable. Let me speak of the large body of clerks in shops---especially shops in the wholesale Indian markets. There is no Shops Closing Act to limit the duration of their working day; there is no shop-Inspector; the twelve-hour day of the factory labourer does not apply to the shop-worker ; they are
