II
In the words of the summary prefixed to the report:
“The first chapters of the report deal with India as an industrial country, her present position, and her potentialities. They show how little the march of modern industry has affected the great bulk of the Indian population, which remains engrossed in agriculture, winning a bare subsistence from the soil by antiquated methods of cultivation. Such changes as have been wrought in rural areas are the effects of economic rather than of industrial evolution. In certain centers the progress of Western industrial methods is discernible; and a number of these are described in order to present a picture of the conditions under which industries are carried on, attention being drawn to the shortage and to the general inefficiency of Indian labor and to the lack of an indigenous supervising agency. Proposals are made for the better exploitation of the forests and fisheries. In discussing the industrial deficiencies of India, the report shows how unequal the industrial development of our industries has been. Money has been invested in commerce rather than industries, and only those industries have been taken up which appeared to offer safe and easy profits. Previous to the war, too ready reliance was placed on imports from overseas, and this habit was fostered by the Government practice of purchasing stores in England. India produces nearly all the raw materials necessary for the requirements of a modern community; but is unable to manufacture many of the articles and materials necessary alike in times of peace and war. For instance, her great textile industries are dependent upon supplies of imported machinery and would have to shut down if command of the seas were lost. It is vital, therefore, for the Government to ensure the establishment of those industries in India whose absence exposes us to grave danger in event of war. The report advocates the introduction of modern methods of agriculture and in particular of labor-saving devices. Greater efficiency in cultivation, and in the preparation of produce for the market would follow; labor now wastefully employed would be set free for industries and the establishment of shops for the manufacture and repair of machinery would lead to the growth of a huge engineering industry.”
The summarized statements will be made more clear by the following extracts from Chapter I on rural India.
“Famine connotes not so much a scarcity or entire absence of food as high prices and a lack of employment in the affected areas.... The capital in the hands of the country traders has proved insufficient to finance the ordinary movements of crops and the seasonal calls for accommodations from the main financial centers are constantly increasing. This lack of available capital is one cause of the high rates that the ryot has to pay for the ready money which he needs to buy seed and to meet the expenses of cultivation. On the other hand, money is largely invested in the purchase of landed property, the price of which has risen to very high figures in many parts of the country.... But the no less urgent necessity of relieving the ryot from the enormous load of debt with which he has been burdened by the dearness of agricultural capital, the necessity of meeting periodic demands for rent and his social habits, has hitherto been met only to a very small extent by co-operative organization. The farmer, owing partly to poverty and partly to the extreme sub-division of the land, is very often a producer on so small a scale that it is practically impossible for him to take his crops to the larger markets where he can sell at current rates to the agents of the bigger firms.... A better market system, co-operative selling, and education are the promising remedies.”
Coming to the industrial centers of the country apart from the rural areas, the report says:
“A characteristic feature of organised industry and commerce in all the chief Indian centers is the presence of large agency firms which, except in the case of Bombay, are mainly European. In addition to participating in the export and import trade, they finance and manage industrial ventures all over the country, and often have several branches in the large towns. The importance of these agency houses may be gauged by the fact that they are in control of the majority of the cotton, jute and other mills as well as of the tea gardens and the coal mines.”
The general remarks about the industrial deficiency of the country will be better understood from the following extracts:
“We have already referred to the dependence of India on outside sources of sulphur and the necessity for insisting on the local smelting of her sulphide ores. In the absence of any means for producing from purely Indian sources sulphuric, nitric, and hydrochloric acids, and alkalis, our manufactures, actual or prospective, of paper, drugs, matches, oils, explosives, disinfectants, dyes and textiles are dependent upon imports which under war conditions, might be cut off. Sources of raw materials for heavy chemicals are deficient. The output of saltpeter could be raised to 40,000 tons per annum and supplementary supplies of nitrates could be produced, if necessary, from atmospheric nitrogen; but for this again, cheap electric power is needed. Salt occurs in abundance and the establishment of caustic soda manufacture, preferably by an electric process, that would also yield chlorine, is a necessary part of our chemical programme. There are available in the country, in fair quantity, many other raw materials necessary for heavy chemical manufacture, in addition to those referred to under other heads; among them may be mentioned alum, salts, barytes, borax, gypsum, limestone, magnesia, phosphates of lime and ochres. The installation of plants for the recovery of by-products in coking has recently been undertaken, but for the recovery of tar and ammonia only. The recovery of benzol and related products has so far not been attempted nor has anything been done to utilise the tar by re-distillation or other chemical treatment.
“Although India exported raw rubber valued in 1917-1918 at 162 lakhs, rubber manufacture has not been started in the country and goods to the value of 116 lakhs were imported in 1917-1918. This industry is one of those that are essential in the national interest and should be inaugurated, if necessary, by special measures.
“Though textile industries exist on a large scale, the range of goods produced is still narrow, and we are dependent upon foreign sources for nearly all of our miscellaneous textile requirements. In addition to these, the ordinary demands of Indian consumers necessitate the import of some Rs. 66 crores worth of cotton piece-goods, and interference with this source of supply has caused serious hardship. Flax is not yet grown in appreciable quantities and the indigenous species of so-called hemp, though abundantly grown, are not at present used in any organized Indian industry.
“Our ability to produce and to preserve many of our foodstuffs in transportable forms or to provide receptacles for mineral or vegetable oils depends upon the supply of tin plates which India at present imports in the absence of local manufactures.
“Our few paper factories before the war stood on an uncertain basis and we are still dependent upon foreign manufacture for most of the higher qualities.”
India produces enormous quantities of leather on a relatively small scale by modern processes; and the village tanner supplies the local needs only, and with a very inferior material. To obtain the quantities and standards of finished leather which the country requires, it will be necessary to stimulate industries by the institution of technical training and by the experimental work on a considerable scale.
“Large quantities of vegetable products are exported for the manufacture of drugs, dyes and essential oils, which in many cases are re-imported into India.
“The blanks in our industrial catalog are of a kind most surprising to one familiar only with the European conditions. We have already alluded generally to the basic deficiencies in our iron and steel industries and have explained how, as a result, the many engineering shops in India are mainly devoted to the repair or to the manufacture of, hitherto mainly from imported materials, comparatively simple structures, such as roofs, bridges, wagons and tanks. India can build a small marine engine and turn out a locomotive provided certain essential parts are obtained from abroad but she has not a machine to make nails or screws, nor can she manufacture some of the essential parts of electrical machinery.[1]
“Electrical plant and equipment are still, therefore, imported, in spite of the fact that incandescent lamps are used by the millions and electric fans by the tens of thousands. India relies on foreign supplies of steel springs and iron chains and for wire ropes, a vital necessity of her mining industry. We have already pointed out the absence of any manufacture of textile mill accessories. The same may be said of the equipment of nearly all industrial concerns. The list of deficiencies includes all kinds of machine tools, steam engines, boilers and gas and oil engines, hydraulic presses and heavy cranes. Simple lathes, small sugar mills, small pumps, and a variety of odds and ends are made in some shops, but the basis of their manufacture and the limited scale of production do not enable them to compete with imported goods of similar character to the extent of excluding the latter. Agriculturists’ and planters’ tools such as ploughs, mamooties, spades, shovels and pickaxes are mainly imported as well as the hand tools of improved character used in most cottage industries, including wood-working tools, healds and reeds, shuttles and pickers. Bicycles, motor cycles and motor cars cannot at present be made in India though the imports under these heads were valued at Rs. 187 lakhs in 1913-1914. The manufacture of common glass is carried on in various localities, and some works have turned out ordinary domestic utensils and bottles of fair quality, but no attempt has been made to produce plate or sheet glass or indeed any of the harder kinds of commercial glass, while optical glass manufacture has never even been mooted. The extent of our dependence on imported glass is evidenced by the fact that in 1913-1914 this was valued at Rs. 164 lakhs. Porcelain insulators, good enough for low tension currents, are manufactured, but India does not produce the higher qualities of either porcelain or china....
“The list of industries which, though their products are essential alike in peace and war, are lacking in this country, is lengthy and almost ominous.[2] Until they are brought into existence on an adequate scale, Indian capitalists will, in times of peace, be deprived of a number of profitable enterprises; whilst in the event of war which renders the sea transport impossible, India’s all-important existing industries will be exposed to the risk of stoppage, her consumers to great hardship, and her armed forces to the gravest danger.”
In discussing the part played by Indians of all classes in the industrial development of the Country the Commission observes:
“It is obvious that the great obstacles are the lack of even vernacular education and the low standard of comfort. The higher grade of worker, the mechanical artisan, in the absence of adequate education has been prevented from attaining a greater degree of skill. He finds himself where he is, less by deliberate choice than by the accident of his obtaining work at some railway or other engineering shop, or by the possession of a somewhat more enterprising spirit than his fellows. There is at present only very inadequate provision for any form of technical training to supplement the experience that he can gain by actual work in an engineering shop, while the generally admitted need for a more trustworthy and skillful type of man is at present met by importing charge-men and foremen from abroad.”
In short, the industrial deficiencies of India are directly due to
(a) lack of education, general, scientific, and technical.
(b) lack of encouragement by the Government which has so far deliberately purchased most kinds of stores needed for government requirements from England.
The agricultural deficiencies are due to the same causes plus the poverty of the ryot and his inability to secure the capital necessary for improvements on reasonable terms of interest. Yet, in spite of this we find the Commission laying unwarranted emphasis upon the creation of new posts divided into Imperial and Provincial branches for Industrial, Agricultural, and scientific experts. One should have thought that the first recommendation should be the immediate inauguration of general education throughout the country with adequate provision for technical, scientific, agricultural and commercial instruction.
The industrial development of the country needs these things: (1) general education, (2) cheap capital, (3) skilled labor, (4) protection against improper foreign competition. Expert advice and research are needed very much, but no amount of research or expert advice will advance the cause of industries unless the level of general intelligence has been raised and some provision made for cheap capital and skilled labor. Says the Honorable Malaviya in his separate note:
“If the industries of India are to develop, and Indians to have a fair chance in the competition to which they are exposed, it is essential that a system of education at least as good as that of Japan should be introduced in India. I am at one with my colleagues in urging the fundamental necessity of providing primary education for the artisan and laboring population. No system of industrial and technical education can be reared except on that basis. But the artisan and laboring population do not stand apart from the rest of the community; and therefore if this sine qua non of industrial efficiency and economic progress is to be established it is necessary that primary education should be made universal. I agree also in urging that drawing and manual training should be introduced into primary schools as soon as possible. In my opinion, until primary education is made universal, if not compulsory, and until drawing is made a compulsory subject in all primary schools, the foundation of a satisfactory system of industrial and technical education will be wanting. Of course this will require time. But I think that that is exactly why an earnest endeavor should be made in this direction without any further avoidable delay.”
In support of his opinion he quotes the following pertinent observation of Mr. Samuelson:
“In conclusion, I have to state my deep conviction that the people of India expect and demand of their government the design, organization and execution of systematic technical education and there is urgent need for it to bestir itself, for other nations have already sixty years’ start of us, and have produced several generations of educated workmen. Even if we begin to-morrow the technical education of all the youths of twelve years of age, who have received sound elementary education, it will take seven years before these young men can commence the practical business of life and then they will form but an insignificant minority in an uneducated mass. It will take fifteen years before those children who have not yet begun to receive an elementary education shall have passed from the age of 7 to 21 and represent a completely trained generation; and even then they will find less than half of their comrades educated. In the race of nations, therefore, we shall find it hard to overtake the sixty years that we have lost. To-morrow, then let us undertake with all our energy our neglected task; the urgency is twofold—a small proportion of our youth has received elementary education, but no technical education: for that portion let us at once organize technical schools in every small town, technical colleges in every large town and a technical university in the metropolis. The rest of the rising generation has received no education at all, and for them let us at once organize elementary education, even if compulsory.”
To provide for a new department of experts on a lavish scale before making an adequate provision for general education is putting the cart before the horse. This has been pointed out in a very able article by one of our premier scientists (who has taken a leading part in the development of Indian industries) published in the Modern Review, Calcutta, for March, 1919.
Says Sir P. C. Roy:
“We always begin at the wrong end. I should be the last person to disparage the necessity for scientific research. The simple fact is, however, overlooked that our agricultural population, steeped in ignorance and illiteracy and owning only small plots and scattered holdings, are not in a position to take advantage of or utilize the elaborate scientific researches which lie entombed in the bulletins and transactions of these Institutes. Mr. Mackenna very rightly observes: The Famine Commissioners, so long ago as 1880, expressed the view that no general advance in the agricultural system can be expected until the rural population had been so educated as to enable them to take a practical interest in agricultural progress and reform. These views were confirmed by the Agricultural Conference of 1888. The most important and probably the soundest proposition laid down by the Conference was that it was most desirable to extend primary education amongst agricultural classes. Such small countries as Denmark, Holland and Belgium are in a position to send immense supplies of cheese, butter, eggs, etc., to England, because the farmers there are highly advanced in general enlightenment and technical education and are thus in a position to profit by the researches of experts. The peasant proprietors of France are equally fortunate in this respect; over and above the abundant harvest of cereals they grow vine and oranges and have been highly successful in sericulture; while the silk industry, in its very cradle, so to speak, namely Murshidabad and Malda, is languishing and is in a moribund condition.
“Various forms of cattle plague, e.g., render pest, foot and mouth disease, make havoc of our cattle every year and the ignorant masses steeped in superstitions, look helplessly on and ascribe the visitations to the wrath of the Goddess Sitala. It is useless to din Pasteur’s researches into their ears. As I have said before, our Government has the happy knack of beginning at the wrong end. An ignorant people and a costly machinery of scientific experts ill go together.
“The panacea recommended for the cure and treatment of all these ills is the foundation or re-organization of costly bureaus and Scientific and Technical services, the latter with the differentiation of “Imperial” and the ‘Provincial’ Services, which are in reality hotbeds for the breeding of racial antipathies and sedition. For the recruitment of the Scientific Services the Commissioners coolly propose that not only senior and experienced men should be obtained at as early an age as possible, preferably not exceeding 25 years. What lamentable ignorance the Commissioners betray and what poor conception they have of this vital question is further evident from what they say:
“‘We should thus secure the University graduate, who had done one or perhaps two years’ post-graduate work whether scientific or practical, but would not yet be confirmed in specialization. We assume that the requisite degree of specialization will be secured by adopting a system whereby study leave will be granted at some suitable time after three years’ service, when a scientific officer should have developed the distinct bent.’ In other words, secure a dark horse and wait till he develops a distinct bent! The writer of this article naturally feels a little at home on this subject and it is only necessary to cite a few instances to illustrate how, under the proposed scheme Indians will fare. At the present moment there are four young Indian Doctors of Science of British universities, three belonging to that of London. Two of them only have been able to secure Government appointments, but these only temporary, drawing two-thirds of the grade pay. One has already given up his post in disgust because he could get no assurance that the post would be made permanent. In fact, both of them have been given distinctly to understand that as soon as the war conditions are over, permanent incumbents for these posts will be recruited at “home.” In filling up the posts of the so-called experts one very important factor is overlooked. As a rule, only third rate men care to come out to India. The choice lies between the best brains of India and the mediocres of England and yet the former get but scant consideration and justice.... The creation of so many Scientific “Imperial” services means practically so many close preserves for Europeans.”
In the chapter dealing with Industrial and Technical training the Commission observes:
“The system of education introduced by the Government was, at the outset, mainly intended to provide for the administrative needs of the country and encouraged literary and philosophic studies to the neglect of those of more practical character. In the result it created a disproportionate number of persons possessing purely literary education, at a time when there was hardly any form of practical education in existence. Naturally, the market value of the services of persons so educated began eventually to diminish. Throughout the nineteenth century the policy of the Government was controlled by the doctrine of laissez-faire in commercial and industrial matters, and its efforts to develop the resources of the country were largely limited to the provision of improved methods of transport and the construction of irrigation works. Except in Bombay, the introduction of modern methods of manufacture was almost entirely confined to the European community. The opportunities for gaining experience were not easy for Indians to come by, and there was no attempt at technical training for industries until nearly the end of the century, and then only on an inadequate scale. The non-existence of a suitable education to qualify Indians for posts requiring industrial or technical knowledge was met by the importation of men from Europe, who supervised and trained illiterate Indian labor in the mills and factories that were started. From this class of labor it was impossible to obtain the higher type of artisan capable of supervisory work.”
After pointing out the lamentable deficiency and comparative failure of the half-hearted measures so far taken by the Government to provide some kind of technical education the Commission makes certain recommendations for meeting the needs of the situation, which are supplemented by some pertinent suggestions made by the Honorable Malaviya in his minority report. The aforesaid summary concludes with the following paragraph:
“To sum up, the Commission finds that India is a country rich in raw materials and in industrial possibilities, but poor in manufacturing accomplishments. The deficiencies in her industrial system are such as to render her liable to foreign penetration in time of peace and to serious danger in time of war. Her labor is inefficient, but for this reason capable of vast improvement. She relies almost entirely on foreign sources for foremen and supervisors; and her intelligentsia have yet to develop the right tradition of industrialism. Her stores of money lie inert and idle.[3] The necessity of securing the economic safety of the country and the inability of the people to secure it without the co-operation and stimulation of Government impose, therefore, on Government policy of energetic intervention in industrial affairs; and to discharge the multifarious activities which this policy demands, Government must be provided with a suitable industrial equipment in the form of imperial and provincial departments of Industries.”