interests with his own interests. It is even born of that hatred of capitalism fostered by tradesunions and by propagandist socialist associations such, for instance, as the the Fabian Society in England. The working class in the West knows what it is about. It has been taught that of the three primary factors of production, land, labour, and capital, the second alone is an active agent and that therefore to it alone is due the fruits of production. Its final goal is thus the elimination of capital, either gradually and peaceably as the moderate section of labour advocates, or immediately and violently as the Syndicalists desire. The education of labour in political economy has not advanced in this country to this dangerous pitch. The recent strikes are not due to a reasoned understanding by Indian workmen, of their own rights and of capitalistic usurpation, but must be attributed to a more or less temporary cause. The suggestion that the present industrial unrest has been fomented by certain interested political malcontents may be at once dismissed with scant courtesy as both malicious and without foundation. As the Bombay workmen stated in their petitions to their emlpoyers, the real cause for their striking work was the increased cost of necessaries, which made it impossible for them to make both ends meet with the old wages. The plea was certainly true, but what gave additional force to their argument was the knowledge that their employers had made enormous profits during the war, and the feeling that it was but just that they should part with a little of it to the needy workmen who had helped them to gain the profits. Everyone knows that the price of food-stuffs has more than doubled, and even at these enhanced rates it is difficult to obtain them in several places. The food-riots will always be an interesting episode in Indian economic history. In ordinary years, when the monsoon did not grievously disappoint, the 200 million acres devoted to food production in India not only easily supplied her own wants but made it possible for her to export considerable quantities of food-stuffs, especially wheat, to Europe. The acuteness of the present situation, however, cannot be attributed to failure of the monsoon rains but rather to the impolicy of the Government of India in allowing export of enormous quantities outside the country, without considering the requirements of the population in the country. It is now patent to all that there is a world-shortage of food-stuffs, and unless the harvests in the present year make up for their past remissness, we shall be plunged into deeper misery and starvation. As regards cloth, the hand-loom industry of India together with her power-driven mills, had, in the pre-war days, not only supplied the coarser kinds for home consumption but had also exported further East. Lancashire supplied us only the finer kinds of cloth, chiefly used by the comparatively well-to-do classes. But looking at the present cloth situation, it is the poorer classes, who went in for coarser stuff, that suffer most, The Indian workman, or for the matter of that, all people near the tropics are satisfied with a minimum amount of covering for the body, consistent with decency. In such a country for the prices to rise to the present abnormal level, the scarcity must be phenomenal indeed. In view of the lack of tonnage and the slump in the export of raw cotton to England owing to the labour situation there, we should have expected an unprecedented expansion in the native cloth production. So there was; but the increased output was more than counterbalanced by the new and insistent demand created by the war. Never before, as statistics prove, has there been such huge production of piecegoods, and never before was there such enormous export. The quantity (of piece goods) exported was more than double that in the preceding years and nearly three times the average export during the pre-war quinquennium. There was thus more reason for the prices to rise than to fall. The high prices, however, not being confined to one or two articles, but being general, there is reason to believe that there has been an inflation of the currency. To whatever causes the high level of prevailing prices may be due, it certainly gave the strikers ample cause for their action. Should, then, the prices return to normal level, which by the way is improbable, will the strike cease? There may be a cessation of strikes for a period, but not for long, for contentment is not a virtue of humanity. The Indian workman is intelligent,and intelligence is the mother of ambition. It makes him understand his surroundings better; it plants in him the desire for emulation; it opens to him the vision of a more commodious house, better clothing, and an improved standard of life. This desire for the good things of the world, however, means higher wages and slender profits to the capitalist. When the Indian working-class has fully realised what it wants and how to set about to gain its objects, we would have a real labour problem. The world of industry will not then be marked by a strike here and a strike there, in order to gain a paltry four annas a week, but by a more intelligent and universal demand for a "living wage would be amply sufficient for the workman and his family to provide the necessaries of life. To bring about this situation labour must be strong, and only organised labour can be strong; hence our workmen in mills and factories must form themselves into associations. "" which But the question may well be asked: Is it desirable to have a strong, well-organised labour population in the country? This is a difficult question to answer, for it determines whether the struggle with capital shall be prolonged or cut short. The stronger the combatants the longer the fight, Solidarity among labourers will so strengthen their hands that they will collectively stand on an equal footing with the capitalist. We desire industrial peace, but if conflict between labour and capital is an inherent evil of the present industrial system, which cannot be avoided, then our sense of fairness requires that one party shall take advantage of the weakness of another, that capital shall not always crush labour. Hence, unless a solution is found which would give the quietus to this fundamental antagonism, it is the duty of labour to protect itself by organising. And India has now to learn the first lessons in organisation; but the task is less difficult, for the excellences and defects of the Western trades-unions are at once an encouragement and a warning. The history of these trades-unions furnishes us with one or two very important points, essential to the success of any association of workmen. A labour-union is not a mere combination. This, the earliest, the easiest, and the weakest form of organisation to oppose capital, has long ago been abandoned for better methods of securing the interest of labour. The permanence and unanimity of the members are not assured in a mere association. The men have to be held together by the golden thread; common financial interest must be the binding force and strength of the organisation. The vitality of a labour-union depends upon its common fund to which all the members have contributed. This has been again and again demonstrated in the early history of English and French trades-unions. Strikes are wars of attrition, the greater the financial efficiency of the strikers, the longer they can maintain, and the nearer the victory. Belgium and Germany, which before the War possessed the best organised trades-unions in the world, have set the pattern in regard to sound financing, centralisation, and leadership. Haphazard co-ordinations, and overlapping federations have been a source of inefficiency in England and in the United States, though in respect of leadership and finance they are second to none. In India, however, we are not concerned with problems of co-ordination and concentration, but with the creation of local unions with strong funds and sagacious leadership. Too much emphasis cannot be laid upon leadership, for whether the union shall be a force for good or for evil, whether it shall make or mar the progress of the working man, depends upon the choice of a successful leader-one who is distinguished for his character, integrity, sense of justice and zeal for the uplift of labour. Organising labour is like training an army; and as an army without a leader or with a bad one, is capable of inflicting enormous injuries, so is organised labour liable to inflict serious damage to trade and industry under similar circumstances. Capable leaders, however, are not common, especially in the ranks of labour; and they must therefore be secured from among the well-to-do classes until labour itself produces suitable men. Even in England, which is a pioneer trade unionist, some of the labour leaders have always belonged to other classes. It is a disappointment to think that labour and capital should always be in a state of war, that preparedness should be the test of the efficiency of labour. But human ingenuity has not been idle; voluntary concilliation was tried, and compulsory arbitration too, but with little success. We now await with interest the result of the proposal for international regulation of labour over which the Peace Conference is sitting. A LONDON LETTER BY "A FRIEND OF INDIA.” N February 4, members of the new Parliament will commence to meet in order to take the oath, with a view to the forthcoming opening of Parliament by the king. It will be a very different House of Commons from the last one, and most of the well-known friends of India will no longer find a place there. The Government will have such a huge majority that they will not know what to do with it. The House could not contain all the members even before their number was enlarged; but no one supposed that such a stage of affairs would be reached that one party alone would have an absolute majority over all other parties in the House, assuming that they all attended. As it is, the Government majority will be obliged to spread themselves over to the opposition side of the House. I say "the Opposition side" advisedly, for no one knows exactly who will be the Opposition. Ordinarily, the honour, if it be one, would fall to the largest of the minority parties. But this happens to be Sinn Fein, and Sinn Fein has sworn a vendetta against all kinds of English institutions, including Parliament, which it has decided to boycott. It has meanwhile set up its own "Parliament " in Dublin, appointed a secret Cabinet (evidently thinking that the elect might otherwise see the inside of one of His Majesty's Jails), and proclaimed the Irish Republic and its independence. What will come of this political freak remains to be seen. Whilst I am on the subject, it is as well to record two other phenomena in Irish politics. The first is the disruption of the Unionist party, owing to the secession of the Southern Unionists who are opposed to the Ulstermen's panacea of separation of Ulster from Ireland and its attachment to England for purposes of political administration. The other is the formation of a centre party by Captain Stephen Gwynne, one of the few survivors of the Nationalist wreck. Reverting to the House of Commons, the next largest party is the Labour party, which wishes to occupy the front opposition benches. But the Asquithian Liberal rump does not like this idea at all. It is not anxious to be dispossessed of its ancient dignities and prerogatives, even in favour of Labour, and claim that its members of the Privy Council. should be entitled to sit on the coveted bench, side by side, at any rate, with the Labour leaders. It is not to be expected that there will be any attempt on the part of either to eject physically the others. When Parliament meets, it will have to face a very difficult and dangerous industrial situation. Labour unrest is everywhere. The workers are kicking over the traces rather viciously, and strikes are breaking out all over the country, with or without obvious provocation. Some of them are sympathetic strikes, but all are symptomatic of the chaotic conditions with which the country is faced at the commencement of the period of reconstruction, which finds the Government so far apparently unprepared with a definite industrial programme. The worst strike centres at the moment are in Belfast and on the Clyde. The Labour element in Ulster is becoming much stronger, and is spreading its influence to Dublin, where it will contest the control of the situation with Sinn Fein, on the one hand, and with the Roman Catholic Church, on the other. On the Clyde, however, the position is somewhat different. Here Labour extremists have been preaching their doctrines for a very long time, and the Government were unable to deal effectively with a situation of peculiar difficulty during the war owing to the great need of ship-building specialists. It was in Glasgow, it will be remembered, that the only avowed British Bolshevist candidate for Parliament stood, and it is believed that the hostility aroused against his candidature spread to the neighbouring constituency which Dr. G. B. Clark was contesting, and at least partially accounting for the latter's defeat. There is no doubt that a considerable section of labour has become restive, and is unwilling to listen to the warnings of the older Labour leaders. Men like Mr. J. H. Thomas, Mr. Clynes, and others of like calibre are beginning to realise that, unless they and the country take heed, the control of labour politics will have passed from their hands. It is not easy to say what will be the immediate results of this unrest; but meanwhile the process of reorganising the National life is impeded by reason of uncertainty. It is very natural that the workers should demand far better conditions than obtained when the war broke out. They are entitled to take their proper place in the life of the country and this position they certainly did not enjoy before. Many of the employers are still however, living in the dark ages, and do not recognise that a new light has dawned, and that the old conditions will not be tolerated nor can they be revived. On the other hand, a large portion of the industrial population is in the hands of younger leaders, who have never really had to work their way up like their predecessors. They have found things much easier for them, and have been nurtured on a pabulum consisting chiefly of incitements to a class-war. As eloquence is cheap among them-like other strata of society in other countries-their stock-in-trade is not expensive to acquire. The mass of the workers are dangerously ignorant still and only too docile, and they thus provide good material for the energetic extremists to work upon. It is because of this spread of industrial unrest, for bad reasons as well as good, that American Industrial heads have encouraged the campaign against the sale, purchase, manufacture or distribution of liquor throughout the United States. Almost at the same time that the announcement was made here that the campaign had succeeded with wholly unexpected rapidity, another announcement was made here that, in response to a growing demand on the part of the British worker, the Government was making arrangements to increase the quantity and quality (which means the strength) of beer. It is a very sad commentary upon the fact that we are in many ways a generation behind the States, in this country, in matters of social reconstruction. One cannot write a letter for public perusal to-day and ignore the Peace Congress that is now sitting in Paris, with its Inter-Allied Conferences, its War Cabinet meetings, its Supreme Councils of War and of Food, and all the other subordinate or connected bodies conferring among themselves on one subject or another intimately related to the matter on which all are anxious to see a settlement. Not only is a definite peace urgently needed, in order to put an end to the present uncomfortable intermediate period, in which no one seems to be able to determine whether he is at war or peace with his neighbour, but the peoples of the world demand insistently that they should, so far as is humanly possible, for ever be free from a repetition of the menace from which, it is hoped, the world has escaped. Permanent peace may be a mirage, a beautiful fiction of imaginative minds. But it must be attempted, everyone feels, for otherwise the burden of armaments will be unbearable, and the nations will be crushed, unless they are driven into the arms of Bolshevism, which implies the same result by another and scarcely more acceptable means. It has so far been decided that a League of Nations must at any cost be founded. What will be built upon the foundations, even if they are well and truly laid, we are all waiting to see. It is not anticipated that a perfect building will at once arise; but it is earnestly hoped that, with good-will and inspired by right desires and ideals, a good, sound, storm-proof structure will result. President Wilson is working hard to that end, and it would be unfair to other statesmen to suppose that they are not animated by like principles, though they may differ among themselves as to the method of their expression. But under the observation of the democracies of the world, whom, and not the Governments, the Peace delegates represent, it may be accepted that they will not rise from their labours until they have devised some working plan that will diminish the possibilities of international ill-will and friction, and so create a favourable atmosphere for the spread of ideas of mutuality, concord, co-operation, and brotherliness. Mrs. Besant's appeal to the Privy Council for the reversal of the decisions of the Madras High Court in regard to "New India" will come on early next week, and it will be known, probably before this reaches you, what the result will be, unless, as frequently happens, the Judicial Committee reserves judgment. Another case of very great interest in India is the libel suit of Mr. B. G. Tilak against Sir Valentine Chirol and Messrs. Macmillan and Co., which commenced in the King's Bench Division yesterday, before Mr. Justice Darling and a special jury. Six separate libels are complained of in the book "Indian unrest," and the jury will have a very difficult task before it, and at the conclusion of the trial, some dozen Englishmen, at least, will know a good deal more about Indian affairs than the majority of their countrymen do to-day. Sir John Simon is leading for Mr. Tilak, who is now under cross-examination, and Sir Edward Carson, for Sir Valentine Chirol. The case promises to take several days yet, and the decision should be known immediately, for the jury is bound to give a verdict. The Court is thronged with interested Indian visitors. There is one Indian counsel in the case, young Mr. Padshah, nephew and stepson of Mr. B. J. Padshab, so well-known in connection with the Tata enterprises. |