Day .40- JAWAHARLAL NEHRU - The Discovery of India (Continued)

The Congress and Industry: Big Industry versus Cottage Industry

The Congress, under Gandhiji's leadership, had long championed the revival of village industries, especially hand-spinning and hand-weaving. At no time, however, had the Congress been opposed to the development of big industries, and whenever it had the chance, in the legislatures or elsewhere, it had encouraged this development. Congress provincial governments were eager to do so. In the twenties when the Tata Steel and Iron Works were in difficulties, it was largely due to the insistence of the Congress party in the Central Legislature that government aid was given to help to tide over a critical period. The development of Indian shipbuilding and shipping services had long been a sore point of conflict between nationalist opinion and government. The Congress, as all other sections of Indian opinion, was anxious that every assistance should be given to Indian shipping; the government was equally anxious to protect the vested interests of powerful British shipping companies. Indian shipping was thus prevented from growing by official discrimination against it, although it had both capital and technical and managerial ability at its disposal. This kind of discrimination worked all along the line whenever any British industrial, commercial, or financial interests were concerned.

That huge combine, the Imperial Chemical Industries, has been repeatedly favoured at the expenses of Indian industry. Some years ago it was given a long term lease for the exploitation of the minerals, etc., of the Punjab. The terms of this agreement were, so far as I know, not disclosed, presumably because it was not considered 'in the public interest' to do so.

The Congress provincial governments were anxious to develop a power alcohol industry. This was desirable from many points of view, but there was an additional reason in the United Provinces and Bihar. The large numbers of sugar factories there were producing as a by-product a vast quantity of molasses which was being treated as waste material. It was proposed to utilise this for the production of power alcohol. The process was simple, there was no, difficulty, except one—the interests of the Shell and Burma Oil combine were affected. The Government of India championed these interests and refused to permit the manufacture of power alcohol. It was only in the third year of the present war, after Burma fell and the supplies of oil and petrol were cut off, that the realization came that power alcohol was necessary and must be produced in India. The American Grady Committee strongly urged this in 1942.

The Congress has thus always been in favour of the industrialization of India and, at the same time, has emphasized the development of cottage industries and worked for this. Is there a conflict between these two approaches? Possibly there is a difference in emphasis, a realization of certain human and economic factors which were overlooked previously in India. Indian industrialists and the politicians who supported them thought too much in terms of the nineteenth century development of capitalist industry in Europe and ignored many of the evil consequences that were obvious in the twentieth century. In India, because normal progress had been arrested for 100 years those consequences were likely to be more far-reaching. The kind of medium-scale industries that were being started in India, under the prevailing economic system, resulted not in absorbing labour, but in creating more unemployment. While capital accumulated at one end, poverty and un-employment increased at the other. Under a different system, with a stress on big scale industries absorbing labour, and with planned development this might well have been avoided.

This fact of increasing mass poverty influenced Gandhi power-fully. It is true, I think, that there is a fundamental difference between his outlook on life generally and what might be called the modern outlook. He is not enamoured of ever-increasing standards of living and the growth of luxury at the cost of spiritual and moral values. He does not favour the soft life; for him the straight way is the hard way, and the love of luxury leads to crookedness and loss of virtue. Above all he is shocked at the vast gulf that stretches between the rich and the poor, in their ways of living, and their opportunities of growth. For his own personal and psycho-logical satisfaction, he crossed that gulf and went over to the side of the poor, adopting, with only such improvements as the poor themselves could afford, their ways of living, their dress or lack of dress. This vast difference between the few rich and the poverty-stricken masses seemed to him to be due to two principal causes: foreign rule and the exploitation that accompanied it, and the capitalist industrial civilization of the west as embodied in the big machine. He reacted against both. He looked back with yearning to the days of the old autonomous and more-or-less self-contained village community where there had been an automatic balance between production, distribution, and consumption; where political or economic power was spread out and not concentrated as it is to-day; where a kind of simple democracy prevailed; where the gulf between the rich and the poor was not so marked; where the evil of great cities were absent and people lived in contact with the life-giving soil and breathed the pure air of the open spaces.

There was all this basic difference in outlook as to the meaning of life itself between him and many others, and this difference coloured his language as well as his activities. His language, vivid and powerful as it often was, drew its inspiration from the religious and moral teachings of the ages, principally of India but also of other countries. Moral values must prevail, the ends can never justify unworthy means, or else the individual and the race perish.

And yet he was no dreamer living in some fantasy of his own creation, cut off from life and its problems. He came from Gujarat, the home of hard-headed businessmen, and he had an unrivalled knowledge of the Indian villages and the conditions of life that prevailed there. It was out of that personal experience that he evolved his programme of the spinning-wheel and village industry. If immediate relief was to be given to the vast numbers of the unemployed and partially employed, if the rot that was spreading throughout India and paralysing the masses was to be stopped, if the villagers' standards were to be raised, however, little en masse, if they were to be taught self-reliance instead of waiting helplessly like derelicts for relief from others, if all this was to be done without much capital, then there seemed no other way. Apart from the evils inherent in foreign rule and exploitation, and the lack of freedom to initiate and carry through big schemes of reform, the problem of India was one of scarcity of capital and abundance of labour—how to utilize that wasted labour, that manpower that was producing nothing. Foolish comparisons are made between manpower and machine-power; of course a big machine can do the work of a thousand or ten thousand persons. But if those ten thousand sit idly by or starve, the introduction of the machine is not a social gain., except in long perspective which envisages a change in social conditions. When the big machine is not there at all, then no question of comparison arises; it is a nett gain both from the individual and the national point of view to utilize man-power for production. There is no necessary conflict between this and the introduction of machinery on the largest scale, provided that machinery is used primarily for absorbing labour and not for creating fresh unemployment.

Comparisons between India and the small highly industrialized countries of the west, or big countries with relatively sparse populations, like the U.S.S.R. or the U.S.A., are misleading. In western Europe the process of industrialization has proceeded for 100 years, and gradually the population has adjusted itself to it; the population has grown rapidly, then stabilized itself, and is now declining. In the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. there are vast tracts with a small, though growing, population. A tractor is an absolute necessity there to exploit the land for agriculture. It is not so obvious that a tractor is equally necessary in the densely populated Gangetic valley, so long as vast numbers depend on the land alone for sustenance. Other problems arise, as they have arisen even in America. Agriculture has been carried on for thousands of years in India and the soil has been exploited to the utmost. Would the deep churning up of the soil by tractors lead to impoverishment of this soil as well as to soil erosion? When railways were built in India and high embankments put up for the purpose, no thought was given to the natural drainage of the country. The embankments interfered with this drainage system and, as a result, we have had repeated and ever-increasing floods and soil erosion, and malaria has spread.

I am all for tractors and big machinery, and I am convinced that the rapid industrialization of India is essential to relieve the pressure on land, to combat poverty and raise standards of living, for defence and a variety of other purposes. But I am equally convinced that the most careful planning and adjustment are necessary if we are to reap the full benefit of industrialization and avoid many of its dangers. This planning is necessary to-day in all countries of arrested growth, like China and India, which have strong traditions of their own.

In China I was greatly attracted to the Industrial Co-operatives—the Indusco movement—and it seems to me that some such movement is peculiarly suited to India. It would fit in with the Indian background, give a democratic basis to small industry, and develop the co-operative habit. It could be made to complement big industry. It must be remembered that, however rapid might be the development of heavy industry in India, a vas field will remain open to small and cottage industries. Even in Soviet Russia owner-producer co-operatives have played an important part in industrial growth.

The increasing use of electric power facilitates the growth of small industry and makes it economically capable of competing with large-scale industry. There is also a growing opinion in favour of decentralization, and even Henry Ford had advocated it. Scientists are pointing out the psychological and biological dangers of loss of contact with the soil which results from life in great industrial cities. Some have even said that human survival necessitates a going back to the soil and the village. Fortunately, science has made it possible to-day for populations to be spread out and remain near the soil and yet enjoy all the amenities of modern civilization and culture.

However that may be, the problem before us in India during recent decades has been how, in the existing circumstances and restricted as we were by alien rule and its attendant vested interests, we could relieve the poverty of the masses and produce a spirit of self-reliance among them. There are many arguments in favour of developing cottage industries at any time, but situated as we were that was certainly the most practical thing we could do. The methods adopted may not have been the best or the most suitable. The problem was vast, difficult, and intricate, and we had frequently to face suppression by government. We had to learn gradually by the process of trial and error. I think we should have encouraged co-operatives from the beginning, and relied more on expert technical and scientific knowledge for the improvement of small machines suitable for cottage and village use. The co-operation principle is now being introduced in these organizations.

G. D. H. Cole, the economist, has said that 'Gandhi's campaign for the development of the home-made cloth industry is no mere fad of a romantic eager to revive the past, but a practical attempt to relieve the poverty and uplift the standard of the village.' It was that undoubtedly, and it was much more. It forced India to think of the poor peasant in human terms, to realize that behind the glitter of a few cities lay this morass of misery and poverty, to grasp the fundamental fact that the true test of progress and freedom in India did not lie in the creation of a number of millionaires or prosperous lawyers and the like, or in the setting up of councils and assemblies, but in the change in the status and conditions of life of the peasant. The British had created a new caste or class in India, the English-educated class, which lived in a world of its own, cut off from the mass of the population, and looked always, even when protesting, towards its rulers. Gandhi bridged that gap to some extent and forced it to turn its head and look towards its own people.

Gandhiji's attitude to the use of machinery seemed to undergo a gradual change. 'What I object to,' he said, 'is the craze for machinery, not machinery as such.' 'If we could have electricity in every village home, I shall not mind villagers plying their implements and tools with electricity.' The big machines seemed to him to lead inevitably, at least in the circumstances of to-day, to the concentration of power and riches: 'I consider it a sin and injustice to use machinery for the purpose of concentration of power and riches in the hands of the few. To-day the machine is used in this way.' He even came to accept the necessity of many kinds of heavy industries and large-scale key industries and public utilities, provided they were state-owned and did not interfere with some kinds of cottage industries which he considered as essential. Referring to his own proposals, he said: 'The whole of this programme will be a structure on sand if it is not built on the solid foundation of economic equality.'

Thus even the enthusiastic advocates for cottage and small-scale industries recognize that big-scale industry is, to a certain extent, necessary and inevitable; only they would like to limit it as far as possible. Superficially then the question becomes one of emphasis and adjustment of the two forms of production and economy. It can hardly be challenged that, in the context of the modern world, no country can be politically and economically independent, even within the framework of international inter-dependence, unless it is highly industrialized and has developed its power resources to the utmost. Nor can it achieve or maintain high standards of living and liquidate poverty without the aid of modern technology in almost every sphere of life. An industrially backward country will continually upset the world equilibrium and encourage the aggressive tendencies of more developed countries. Even if it retains its political independence, this will be nominal only, and economic control will tend to pass to others. This control will inevitably upset its own small-scale economy which it has sought to preserve in pursuit of its own view of life. Thus an attempt to build up a country's economy largely on the basis of cottage and small-scale industries is doomed to failure. It will not solve the basic problems of the country or maintain freedom, nor will it fit in with the world framework, except as a colonial appendage.

Is it possible to have two entirely different kinds of economy in a country—one based on the big machine and industrialization, and the other mainly on cottage industries? This is hardly conceivable, for one must overcome the other, and there can be little doubt that the big machine will triumph unless it is forcibly prevented from doing so. Thus it is not a mere question of adjustment of the two forms of production and economy. One must be dominating and paramount, with the other as complementary to it, fitting in where it can. The economy based on the latest technical achievements of the day must necessarily be the dominating one. If technology demands the big machine, as it does to-day in a large measure, then the big machine with all its implications and consequences must be accepted. Where it is possible, in terms of that technology, to decentralize production, this would be desirable. But, in any event, the latest technique has to be followed, and to adhere to out-worn and out-of-date methods of production, except as a temporary and stop gap measure, is to arrest growth and development.

Any argument as to the relative merits of small-scale and large-scale industry seems strangely irrelevant to-day when the world, and the dominating facts of the situation that confront it, have decided in favour of the latter. Even in India the decision has been made by these facts themselves, and no one doubts that India will be rapidly industrialized in the near future. She has already gone a good way in that direction. The evils of unrestricted and unplanned industrialization are well recognized to-day. Whether these evils are necessary concomitants of big industry, or derived from the social and economic structure behind it, is another matter. If the economic structure is primarily responsible for them, then surely we should.set about changing that structure, instead of blaming the inevitable and desirable development in technique.

The real question is not one of quantitative adjustment and balancing of various incongruous elements and methods of production, but a qualitative change-over to something different and new, from which various social consequences flow. The economic and political aspects of this qualitative change are important, but equally important are the social and psychological aspects. In India especially, where we have been wedded far too long to past forms and modes of thought and action, new experiences, new processes, leading to new ideas and new horizons, are necessary. Thus we will change the static character of our living and make it dynamic and vital, and our minds will become active and adventurous. New situations lead to new experiences, as the mind is compelled to deal with them and adapt itself to a changing environment.

It is well recognized now that a child's education should be intimately associated with some craft or manual activity. The mind is stimulated thereby and there is a co-ordination between the activities of the mind and the hands. So also the mind of a growing boy or girl is stimulated by the machine. It grows under the machine's impact (under proper conditions, of course, and not as an exploited and unhappy worker in a factory) and opens out new horizons. Simple scientific experiments, peeps into the microscope, and an explanation of the ordinary phenomena of nature bring excitement in their train, an understanding of some of life's processes, and a desire to experiment and find out instead of relying on set phrases and old formulae. Self-confidence and the co-operative spirit grow, and frustration, arising out of the miasma of the past, lessens. A civilization based on ever-changing and advancing mechanical techniques leads to this. Such a civilization is a marked change, a jump almost from the older type, and is intimately connected with modern industrialization. Inevitably it gives rise to new problems and difficulties, but it also shows the way to overcome them.

I have a partiality for the literary aspects of education and I admire the classics, but I am quite sure that some elementary-scientific training in physics and chemistry, and especially biology, as also in the application of science, is essential for all boys and girls. Only thus can they understand and fit into the modern world and develop, to some extent at least, the scientific temper. There is something very wonderful about the high achievements of science and modern technology (which no doubt will be bettered in the near future), in the superb ingenuity of scientific instruments, in the amazingly delicate and yet powerful machines, in all that has flowed from the adventurous inquiries of science and its applications, in the glimpses into the fascinating workshop and processes of nature, in the fine sweep of science, through its myriad workers, in the realms of thought and practice, and, above all, in the fact that all this has come out of the mind of man.

Government Checks Industrial Growth

 War Production is Diversion from Normal Production

Heavy industry was represented in India by the Tata Iron and Steel Works at Jamshedpur. There was nothing else of the kind and the other engineering workshops were really jobbing shops. Even the development of Tatas had been slow because of Government policy. During World War I, when there was a shortage of locomotives and railway carriages and wagons, Tatas decided to make locomotives and, I think, even imported machinery for the purpose; but when the war ended, the Government of India and the Railway Board (which is a department of the central government) decided to continue their patronage of British locomotives. There is obviously no private market for locomotives, as the railways were either controlled by Government or owned by British companies, and so Tatas had to give up the idea of making locomotives.

The three fundamental requirements of India, if she is to develop industrially and otherwise, are a heavy engineering and machine-making industry, scientific research institutes, and electric power. These must be the foundations of all planning, and the national planning committee laid the greatest emphasis on them. We lacked all three, and bottlenecks in industrial expansion were always occurring. A forward policy could have rapidly removed these bottlenecks, but the government's policy was the reverse of forward and was obviously one of preventing the development of heavy industry in India. Even when World War II started, the necessary machinery was not allowed to be imported; later shipping difficulties were pleaded. There was neither lack of capital nor skilled personnel in India, only machinery was lacking, and industrialists were clamouring for it. If opportunities had been given for the importation of machinery, not only would the economic position of India have been infinitely better, but the whole aspect of the war in the far eastern theatres might have changed. Many of the essential articles which had to be brought over, usually by air and at great cost and under considerable difficulties, could have been manufactured in India. India would have really become an arsenal for China and the east, and her industrial progress might have matched that of Canada or Australia. But imperative as the needs of the war situation were, the future needs of British industry were always kept in view, and it was considered undesirable to develop any industries in India which might compete with British industries in the post-war years. This was no secret policy; public expression was given to it in British journals, and there was continuous reference to it and protests against it in India.

Jamshedji Tata, the far-sighted founder of Tata Steel, had vision enough to start the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. This research institute was one of the very few of its kind in India; the others were some government institutions with limited objectives. The vast field of scientific and industrial research, which has thousands of institutes, academies, and special stations in the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union, was thus almost wholly neglected in India, except for the Bangalore institute and some work done in the universities. An effort was made, some-time after World War II started, to encourage research and, though limited in scope, it has produced good results.

While shipbuilding and locomotive manufacture were discouraged and prevented, an effort to build up an automobile industry was also scotched. Some years before World War II, preparations were started for this and everything was worked out in co-operation with a famous American firm of automobile manufacturers. A number of assembly plants bad already been functioning in India. It was now proposed to manufacture all the parts in India with Indian capital and management and Indian personnel. By arrangement with the American corporation their patents could be used and their skilled and technical super-vision was available for the initial period. The provincial government of Bombay, which was then functioning under a Congress ministry, promised assistance in various ways. The planning committee was especially interested in this project. Everything in fact had been fixed up and all that remained was to import the machinery. The Secretary of State for India however did not approve and gave his fiat against the importation of the machinery. According to him 'any attempt to set up this industry now would divert both labour and machinery which are more urgently needed for the war.' This was in the early months of the war, during the so-called phoney period. It was pointed out that plenty of labour, even skilled labour, was available and in fact was idle. War necessity was also a curious argument, for that necessity itself demanded motor transport. But the Secretary of State for India, the final authority, sitting in London, was not moved by these arguments. It was reported also that a rival and powerful automobile corporation in America did not approve of the starting of an automobile industry in India under someone else's auspices.

Transport became one of the major problems of the war in India. There was the lack of motor trucks, of petroleum, of locomotives and railway wagons, even of coal. Almost all these difficulties would have been much easier of solution if the pre-war proposals on behalf of India had not been turned down. Locomotives, railway cars, motor trucks, as well as armoured vehicles would have been manufactured in India. Power alcohol would have helped greatly in easing the strain caused by scarcity of petroleum. As for coal there was no scarcity in India; there were huge reserves but only very little was produced for use. Coal production has actually gone down during the war years in spite of increased demand. Conditions in coal mines were so bad and wages so low that workers were not attracted. Ultimately the bar on women working underground was removed as women were available at those wages. No attempt was made to overhaul the coal industry and improve conditions and wages so as to attract workers. Owing to lack of coal, the expansion of industry has suffered greatly and even existing factories have had to stop working.

Some hundreds of locomotives and many thousands of rail-way cars were shipped from India to the Middle East, thus adding to the transport difficulties in India. Even the permanent way was uprooted in some places for transfer elsewhere. The casual way in which all this was done, without any regard to future consequences, was amazing. There was a complete lack of planning and foresight, and the partial solution of one problem led immediately to more serious problems.

An attempt was made at the end of 1939 or the beginning of 1940 to start an aircraft manufacturing industry in India. Again everything was fixed up with an American firm and urgent cables were sent to the Government of India and army headquarters in India for their consent. There was no response. After repeated reminders a reply was forthcoming disapproving of the scheme. Why make aeroplanes in India when you could buy them in England and America? In pre-war days a large number of medicines and drugs and vaccines used to come to India from Germany. War stopped this. It was immediately suggested that some of the more essential vaccines and medicines might be made in India. This could easily be done in some of the Government institutes. The Government of India did not approve and pointed out that everything that was necessary could now be obtained through Imperial Chemical Industries. When it was suggested that the same thing could be made in India at much less cost, and utilized for army as well as general public use without any private interest, high authority was indignant at the intrusion of such base considerations in matters of state policy. 'Government,' it was said, 'was not a commercial institution!' Government was not a commercial institution but it was very much interested in commercial institutions, and one of these was Imperial Chemicals. This huge combine was given many facilities. Even without such facilities it had such enormous resources that no Indian firm, except to some extent Tatas, could possibly compete with it. Apart from these facilities it had powerful support both in India and England. A few months after leaving the viceroyalty of India, Lord Linlithgow appeared in a new role as a director of Imperial Chemicals. This demonstrates the very close connection between big business in England and the Government of India, and how this connection must necessarily affect policy. Lord Linlithgow may have been a substantial shareholder in Imperial Chemicals even when he was Viceroy of India. In any event he has now placed the prestige of his Indian connection and his special knowledge derived as Viceroy at the disposal of Imperial Chemicals.

Lord Linlithgow declared as Viceroy in December, 1942: 'We have achieved immense things in the field of supply. India has made a contribution of outstanding importance and value... for the first six months of the war the value of contracts placed was approximately 29 crores. For the next months from April to October, 1942, it was. 137 crores. Over the whole period to the end of October, 1942, it was no less than 428 crores: and these figures exclude the value of work done in the ordnance factories which is in itself very considerable.' [The figures are in rupees. A crore is ten millions].

This is perfectly true and India's contribution to the war effort has grown tremendously since this was said. One would imagine that this represents a vast increase in industrial activity and a much larger index of production. Yet, surprisingly, there has not been much change. The index of India's industrial activity in 1938-39 was 111.1 (taking 1935 as 100). In 1939-40 it was 114.0; in 1940-41 it varied between 112.1 to 127.0; in March, 1942, it was 118.9; it fell in April, 1942, to 109.2, and then gradually rose to 116.2 in July, 1942. These figures are not complete as they do not include munitions and some chemical industries. Nevertheless they are important and significant.

The amazing fact emerges that the total industrial activity of India in July, 1942, was, apart from munitions, etc., only slightly in excess of the pre-war period. There was a brief spurt in December, 1941, when the index figure went up to 127.0, and then declined. And yet the value of Government contracts placed with industries was progressively increasing. For the six months October to March, 1939-40, these contracts amounted to 290 million rupees, according to Lord Linlithgow, and for the six months April to October, 1942, they were for 1,370 million rupees.

All these tremendous war orders thus do not represent any increase in the total industrial activity, but indicate its large-scale diversion from normal production to production for specialized war purposes. For the moment they supplied war needs but at the cost of a terrific lowering of production for civilian needs. This inevitably had far-reaching consequences. While sterling balances in favour of India grew in London, and money accumulated in the hands of a few persons in India, the country as a whole was starved of essential needs, vast and ever-increasing quantities of paper money circulated, and prices went up and sometimes reached fantastic figures. Already by the middle of 1942 a food crisis was evident; in the autumn of 1943 famine killed its millions in Bengal and other parts of India. The burden of the war and of the official policy pursued in its connection fell on scores of millions in India who were least capable of shouldering it, and crushed out of existence vast numbers of people who died by the cruelest of deaths—slow starvation.

The figures I have given end with 1942; I have no later ones. Probably many changes have taken place since then and the index of India's industrial activity may be higher now [*It is not so. The Calcutta journal, Capital, of March 9th, 1944, gives the following figures for the index of industrial activity in India. (1935-36=100): 1938-39: 111.1. 1939-40: 114.0. 1940-41: 117.3. 1941-42: 122.7. 1942-43: 108.8. 1943-44: 108.0 (approx.). 1944 (January): 111.7.

These do not include armament production. Thus, after more than four years of war, industrial activity as a whole in India was actually somewhat lower than in the pre-war period.] But the picture they reveal has not changed in any fundamental aspect. The same processes are at work, the same crises follow one after the other, the same patchwork and temporary remedies are applied, the same lack of any planned and comprehensive outlook is evident, the same partiality for the present and future of British industry prevails—and meanwhile people continue to die from lack of food and from epidemics.

It is true that some of the existing industries, notably the textile, the iron and steel, and the jute industries, have prospered exceedingly. The number of millionaires among industrial magnates, war contractors, hoarders, and profiteers, has grown, and large sums have accumulated in the hands of small upper strata of India's people, in spite of a heavy super tax. But labour generally has not profited, and Mr. N. M. Joshi, the labour leader, declared in the Central Assembly that labour conditions in India had become worse during the war. Land owners and middle farmers, especially in the Punjab and Sind, have prospered, but the great majority of the agricultural population have been hard hit by war conditions and have suffered greatly. Consumers generally have been progressively ground down by inflation and the rise in prices.

In the middle of 1942 an American technical mission—the Grady Committee—came to India to inspect the existing industries and make suggestions for increased production. They were naturally concerned with production for war purposes only. Their report was never published, possibly because the Government of India vetoed publication. A few of their recommendations were, however, announced. They suggested the production of power alcohol, the expansion of the steel industry, more electric power, greater production of aluminium and refined sulphur, and rationalization in various industries. They also recommended the institution of high-powered control of production, independent of established Government agencies, on the American model.

Evidently the Grady Committee was not filled with admiration for the leisurely, casual, and inefficient methods of the Government of India, on which even total war had produced little impression, They were struck, however, by the efficiency and organization of the Tata Steel Works, a vast organization run entirely by Indians. It was further stated in the preliminary report of the Grady Committee that 'the mission has been impressed with the good quality and excellent potentiality of Indian labour. The Indian is skilful with his hands, and given satisfactory working conditions and security of employment, is dependable and industrious [Comrrenting on the shelving of the Grady Committee's Report, Commerce (Bombay, November 28th, 1942) wrote: 'The fact remains that powerful interests are operating abroad for the purpose of throttling further industrialization of this country, so that in the post-war world there would not be any dangerous competition to the west from the east.']

During the last two or three years the chemical industry has grown in India, shipbuilding has made some advance, and an infant aircraft industry has been started. All war industries, including jute and textile mills, have made vast profits, in spite of the super tax, and a great deal of capital has accumulated. The Government of India had put a ban on capital issues for fresh industrial undertakings. Recently there has been some relaxation in this respect, though nothing definite may be done till after the war. Even this little relaxation has led to a burst of energy from big business and huge industrial schemes are taking shape. India, whose growth has so long been arrested, appears to be on the verge of large-scale industrialization.