Page:Labour in Madras.djvu/242

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216 LABOUR IN MADRAS something like 4,000,000 to be enfranchised in the one Presidency alone. Observing the way in which the reforms are shaping themselves and advocating the enfranchisement of the factory labourers especially, I make two suggestions which I have given in my Memorandum. I do not think I could put thero more shortly than I have put them in my Memorandum. There is only one more point I would like to put before the Committee, and that is on the question of the much discussed non-Brahmana problem. Having worked among those 20,000 labourers in Madras, who are mostly non-Brahmana, I beg to bring to the notice of the Committee, that there is no feeling against the Brahmanas amongst the poor people in Madras. I do not think, my Lord, I have anything more to say. MR. SPOOR You are over here I believe, as delegate to the Labour Party and the Trades Union Congress ?...... I am. And you have been received and recognised by those two bodies ?......I think so. I have not yet had an official answer from the Trades Union Parliamentary Committee, but I hope to have it in a day or two. In the first part of the Memorandum, the statement rather, you have submitted to-day, you refer to the Union you have formed in Madras. How many members have you got in that Union ? ............Altogether in those five Unions about 20.000 people. Twenty thousand people confined to Madras. How long is it since you began to form that Union ?... About sixteen or seventeen months now. Have you reason to believe that in the days that . . .