xvi LABOUR IN MADRAS The educated classes in India have so far failed to realise the great value of the Labour Movement as a factor in the general political advancement of the country. Without the masses there can be no true Democracy. For that reason, on the 1st June, 1918, addressing an open Letter to the Home Rulers, I said : "We want to bring the masses into line with the educated classes. Much lecturing work has been done already and what seems now necessary is to combine them in all sorts of ways. Agricul. tural Societies, Trade and Labour Unions, Ryot Combines, Craft Guilds—these should be started. Let common interests in each taluq and village combine to remedy the evils from which they are suffering. The masses do possess political outlook ; they have lost the art of making themselves heard, and our task should be to persuade them into speech and action.” It is very necessary to recognize the Labour Movement as an integral part of the National Movement. The latter will not succeed in the right direction of democracy if Indian working classes are not enabled to organize their own forces and come into their own. Unless this is done for all classes of labourers-peasants, plantation coolies, factory “hands ” and miners-even the Montagu Reforms will only succeed in transferring the power of bureaucracy from foreign to native
