for certain Bombay cotton mills during the exceptionally favorable years 1921 and 1920 are declared as follows:

In the same publication the jute mills of Bengal declared dividends as follows for 1919,1 some being almost as high and some higher for 1920:

The F. W. Heilgers & Co.'s Kennison mills declared the following dividends for the five years from 1916 through 1920:

What share in these enormous profits has the poor mill worker or jute cultivator received? "The inarticulate peasant himself has to work in the fields during the monsoon, often standing waist deep in the water. He is saturated with malaria in these mosquito-ridden districts, and

1 "In the years 1914-1920 the jute shares in one company went up from 145 to 1,160. The interest paid on the capital invested in the company went up from 15 per cent before the war to 160 per cent. But the price paid to the jute cultivator went down, from $4.50 before the war to $2.00 in the year 1920." C. F. Andrews, “Christ and Labour," pp. 43-45.

the continual dampness brings on ague, rheumatism and fever. All round his village he has to bear the stench of rotting jute fibre, the stagnation of standing pools of water, and a hundred other evils. . . Directors of jute companies have been congratulating their shareholders on bumper dividends, and not a hint has been given in their glowing reports about the condition of peasantry from whom those dividends were extracted."

We visited certain typical jute mills near Calcutta. In one we found excellent conditions and an honest effort for the welfare of the workers. In another we found very different conditions. The Indian workers were driven here by hunger and would escape back to their impoverished villages if they could. Most of the Europeans were here to make money and get out of India as soon as they could. The mill seemed a penal settlement for both. In the light of recent and present profits the wages seemed pathetically small. Unskilled men were receiving $1.00 a week, women 82 cents and boys 57 cents a week; coolies were paid 20 cents a day. The young European who showed us over the factory naively informed us that they "managed to break up all the unions" which the men tried to form to improve their miserable condition. This European spoke with contempt of the workers. "They have to be driven," he said.

In the roar and dust of the driving machinery we saw the dull toilers plodding at their work. They are handicapped by tropical heat, hookworm, illiteracy, poor pay, bad housing and the low moral conditions reported by the inspecting lady doctor in these jute mills. Not they, but the machines and the money behind them are masters here. There lies a baby of one of the working mothers asleep on the floor in the din and dust. What chance will this child have in life? It may grow up to aspire to earn a dollar a week in this

1 Ibid. pp. 43-45.

mill. It will join the thirty million children and youth already in India for whom there is no school. What chance have these women and children, or these helpless unorganized men against the vast forces of the industrial revolution in India? But, still, "they must be driven." How long? How long will they stand it? Crushed humanity even in obedient India, China and Japan is turning at last. The days of the fleecing of labor for the profiteer are numbered, thank God, all over the world.

We desire to bear testimony to the fine spirit of many employers. Some of them showed an attitude not only of fairness, but of real human concern for their workers.

Regarding hours of work, at the beginning of the Indian factory system, the working time lasted from sunrise to sunset, or about 12 hours. The Factory Act of 1921 limited work to a maximum of 11 hours a day or 60 hours a week, with 6 hours for children from 12 to 15 years of age, and one day's rest in seven. Unlike China very few modern mills in India have any night work. An inquiry showed the actual average working time in the mills of Bombay at present was ten hours a day for men and women, and about five hours, or half time, for children from 12 to 15 years of age. When we contrast this with the frequently inhuman hours of unprotected labor in China, and even with conditions in some of the backward states of America, we see how far advanced India is in her labor legislation. Several leading manufacturers testified that labor in India is now producing more in 10 hours of work than it did formerly on 12 or 14 hours.

There are several evils which exist in India that greatly affect conditions of labor. The system of forced labor so widespread under Indian zemindars and native princes in certain parts of the country has been mitigated, and in

most parts of India abolished, under the British Government.

An even worse practice was the recruiting of immigrants under the system of indentured labor to go abroad. The plan of contract, loans and debt often reduced the poor coolies to a practical state of peonage in some colonies. It was the long battle for the rights of the oppressed Indians in South Africa that led Mr. Gandhi repeatedly to go to prison with his fellow-countrymen until they won more humane treatment. The revelation of the immoral and inhuman conditions made by Mr. C. F. Andrews and others in Fiji and other colonies finally led to the proclamation of the Viceroy on May 25, 1917, that the indenture system of Indian labor had been finally abolished. The whole question of emigration has now been delegated to the Indian Legislative Assembly.1

There is also the opium evil affecting Indian labor in some parts of the country. After investigating the industries of Bombay, Dr. Barnes reports to the Government, "the universal usage of opium in Bombay. Ninety-eight per cent of the infants born to women industrial workers have opium administered to them. This is used as a household remedy for every ailment of infancy and childhood. . The great necessity for the control of the sale of opium, which is a poison, is indicated."2

The poor working mother who leaves her baby alone for the day before going to the mill gives the child an opium pill to keep it torpid or asleep during her absence. We even found these ignorant mothers, where in rare instances

1 The Fiji Government Medical Report of 1916, Council Paper, No. 54, revealed the whole immoral system in its statement: "When one indentured Indian woman has to serve three men as well as numerous outsiders, the results, as regards syphilis and gonorrhea, cannot be doubted."

2 Bombay Labor Gazette, September, 1922, pp. 31, 32.

créches were provided for the care of the children, feeding the children opium each morning on general principles, even though the children were to be kept under the care of a trained nurse.3

A further fact which handicaps Indian labor is the almost universal illiteracy. There are approximately 8,500,000 in school in India and 30,000,000 without schooling. That is, 3.4 per cent of the population is in school, compared to over 20 per cent in America. It is officially stated that 39 per cent of the children educated in India lapse into illiteracy within five years after leaving school. The vast bulk of the workers are totally illiterate. This must be altered if their condition is to be improved. There is deep need of a progressive movement for universal education among the young and for a Workers' Education Movement similar to that in England among adults.

The housing of the workers is a serious problem in India. We found the worst conditions in Bombay among the "chawls" or dark tenements of the workers. The official report of the inspection by the lady doctor to the Government says: "For some 14 hours of the 24, the family inhale an atmosphere laden with smoke and other impurities. Nearly every chawl contained animals such as goats, fowls, cats and in some cases monkeys. Rats were also in evidence in most rooms visited. I have several

"The Drink and Opium Evil," C. F. Andrews, pp. 3-13. He writes, "It was the usual practice to poison the little babies with the opium drug in order to keep them asleep while the poor mothers went out and worked in the factories. Two of the best social workers in Bombay had told me that 95 per cent of the mothers were obliged, in this distress and poverty, to drug their own little children; and the workers who went to visit them saw these 'opium babies' with their wizened faces, looking prematurely old. The practice of the daily pill led to bowel complaints at the very beginning of life, which could never be got rid of afterwards The Government had

refused to shut up one opium shop in a poor slum in Calcutta when petitioned to do so, because (this was the stated reason of the Excise Officer) 2,300 people frequented it daily." Young India, 1923, p. 235.

•Progress of Education in India, 1912-1917, p. 122.