LABOUR IN MADRAS 235 out you? Could they have organised themselves and placed themselves before the public without you ?... I doubt it. In your Memorandum you say that you have had in vitations from Calcutta, Bombay and various other places to organise their unions. Does not that seem to suggest that there is at all events an imperfect capacity for organisation among the labourers themselves ?...The labourers themselves, yes; but at the same time you must bear in mind this that any particular set of labourers who come forward to organise trade unions at the present moment in India would be marked men and would naturally suffer in their factories and in all organisations to which they belonged. You think there is organising capacity among the people ?... I am sure of it. Do you in fer from that that they would be capable of organising themselves for political purposes?-I should think so, yes. We were asked the other day why it was that there was no representation of labour. I think it was Bombay factory labour, but labour at all events, upon Lord Southborough's Committee. Would it have been possible to have found a single man in one of the mills who, if he had been selected for that Committee, could have spoken English or any language which was common to the whole of his colleagues ?... If the language bar could be removed I am sure that you could find men in Bombay. I have now in mind a man in Madras who could very well advise such a committee as the Southborough Committee if his own language
