232 LABOUR IN MADRAS ... It would be to give my own perscoal experierce, too short a time to judge; but I think from the general movement that is taking place in India it is on the increase, I have come into contact with them for the last sixteen or eighteen months, and it is too soon for me to say whether it is appreciably increasing. Do you know of any movement that is takiug place in Madras to found schools or anything of that kind, where they would learn to read and write ?... Since the establishment of the Labour Unions we have done certain constructive work like opening dispensaries, selling rice and others stores, and a night-school for the labourers and there are other night schools in the vicinity of the Mills now. There is just one thing I would like to understand about the ordinary life of men of this class. You said that generally they spent some years of their lives in working in a factory in the town and other years in the agricultural districts. I am much impressed with the low rate of wages you quote to us. Is the general system that they come in and do the work in the factories for a certain number of years until they have earned and accumulated a certain amount of money which they carried back to their country districts, or is it, as one would perhaps be more led to think from your evidence, the fact that they appreciate life in the town so much that they come in from the country with the money they have made in the country, until they have spent it all in supplementing their wages in the town ?... I think I can explain that in this way: Generally the factory labourer is some kind of an agriculturist in a village. He is there living under very bad conditions, with an increasing debt and so
