“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.”