224 LABOUR IN MADRAS you ?...From one point of view it is beneficial, but from various other points of view, also, it is not beneficial. On the whole which weighs most ?...Unless a cer. tain amount of reform is introduced in the method of bringing in of British capital, I would rather not have British capital as matters stand at present. You demur to the reservation of the settlement of labour disputes do you not ?...Yes. I am not quite clear about that. Do you feel that if different Local Governments can deal with a question like that, it would be possible, so far as Government intervention occurred, if it must occur, to establish any. thing like uniformity of treatment ?...The question first to settle is this : Do you want, and that is what I am really driving at in my question, do you desire that the Government in future should be made responsible for the settlement of disputes between private capitalists and private labour? You have to recognize the new power that is now springing up of the united action of trade unions ; for instance, during the two strikes that we have had with the tramway men in Madras, and the two locks out that we have had in the Buckingham and Carnatic Mills in Madras, the Government did not think fit to interfere; it left the conditions as they stood, and all the interference that we got-and I think very wisely got_was from the Police Commissioner, who saw that things did not go into excess; but they do not ever settle disputes. But you think they did well ?...I think they did well. So do I.-Now as to the future, if the settlement of labour disputes is a reserved subject in all the provinces, and if the trade unions should claim the right to speak,
