PREFACE History in the making, however romantic, does not strike its makers as either bistory or romance. Like the gentleman who spoke prose without knowing it, alm ist all makers of history are unaware of the fact that they are such worthies. In rare instances when Nature is moving forward, as is sometimes her wont, in leaps, events of yesterday stand glaringly revealed to-day already as facts of history. One such instance is provided by the Labour Movement in Madras. When it was started in the early part of 1918, no one dreamed of the effect it would have on its environment generally; it was hoped that besides bettering the lot of the poor drudges and slaves of the economic system it might slowly tend to the creation of class consciousness among the Indian workers. In very unexpected ways, in quarters the least suspected, the labour work in Madras produced effects. Who could have anticipated the aid it rendered to the cause of Indian Homé Rule in Great Britain, especially with the British Labour Party in the summer of 1919? Very few could have dreamed of the readiness and capacity of the Indian workers to unite and organise, to educate themselves in the matter of their owo rights and prerogatives and to
