234 LABOUR IN MADRAS speak the same of all mills—but wben you take into consideration the wages which are actually earned by the Bombay labourer and the dividends which are declared by some mills, you will see where the grievance of the labourer lies. He wants something as a matter of riglit and not as a matter of patronage. Would you call that patronage which the great firm of Tata have exhibited in their mills in Central India where, as you know, they have established welfare schemes ; they have taken welfare experts from this country to assist them in establishing welfare mills ?... Yes. You speak in rather an ungracious way of services of that kind rendered by employers. However I do not think it is very relevant to the question. You represent, I think, five establishments in Madras. Have the people employed there shewn any capacity for organising for what we call nowadays self-government?... Yes. In those Unions we have various organising committees for various kinds of work and managing committees to carry on the work of the Unions, which are entirely composed of the labourers themselves. They elect their own representatives, they plan out their own work, and they carry through the work and really what I do for them there is to plead their cause and their grievances in public, and generally to keep the movement going from outside, but the entire work of organisation of those Unions is carried out by the men themselves, and visitors have been surprised at the intelligence and capacity which those labourers have displayed I do not want to put it in an invidious way, as you will understand, but could they possibly have done with.
