228 LABOUR IN MADRAS You have not considered as to whether the Franchise recommended by the Southborough Report would enfranchise the labour population in those big industrial centres, or to what extent ?...No; I have not gone in a direct fashion into the matter. Under the recommendations that have been made, certain municipal rates and taxes have to be paid. Now I do not think that the ordinary labourer in Madras would be in a position from the earning capacity that he possesses to pay those taxes. Would they come in under the rural franchise, because I understand most of these people labour only in the factories for a portion of the year and go back to the land during the rest of the year ?... Well, that is so to a very limited extent, and the Indian factory labour is getting less than less in that direction. It is not that for a few months they work in the factories and they go away, but rather that for a few years they work in the factories and then go away. At any rate your position is that the Franchise proposals of the Southborough Committee do not enfran• chise the labourers in those industries ?... That is so. You would not put it higher than that ?...I would not put it more emphatically than that because I have no first hand information on the subject. CHAIRMAN You would not say that you had sufficiently examined the facts and figures with regard to Madras to see how far they would have affected your view of the Franchise proposals ?...No; I read the Franchise Report after leaving India, and I lave written to Madras, and in the course of a few weeks we may get
