LABOUR IN MADRAS 217 lie ahead you will be able to build up a trade union movement among factory workers in India ? ...... I think so. I can speak there with a certain amount of confidence, because, as I say in my Memorandum, I have had invitations from various centres like Calcutta, Bom• bay, Cawnpore, Lucknow, and so on where factories in good shape and on a large scale exist and where the labourers are anxious to be organised. Work even now is going ahead. Of course we understand that about 90 per cent of the workers in India are agricultural workers ; do you think it will ever be possible to associate them together in any kind of trade union ? .........I think so, and I think at a very early date-in fact I had, just before I started, a few requests, one especially from the district of Cuddalore in the Madras Pres. where agricultural labourers are anxious to unite themselves into a trade union. Will this movement go pretty much along western lines ?...... I should think so. I ask that question because we are constantly reminded that any comparison between industrial conditions in India and industrial conditions, say, in this country or in other parts of Europe is quite impossible. I know it has been suggested now more than once, that really improvidence is responsible for the evil conditions which exist in certain parts of India rather than any individual or collection of individuals ?......I do not think so, I think the masses in India have of late taken very great interest in their own welfare and also in the big general problems that concerned Indian people, and one of the signs of the times is the desire on
