HEN the Swadeshi agitation for promoting Indian industries was inaugurated, those behind the movement did not know that

events would happen which would be more convincing than their rhetorical outbursts and prove conclusively to the people of India the disadvantages of being dependent entirely upon other countries for their daily necessities. The world is now at war and India's exports and imports, in common with those of other countries, do not flow as freely as before the Huns laid waste the fair country of Belgium. The disturbance in trade was not unexpected when the extent of the conflagration was first realised, but very few people in India had any conception of the difference it would make in the ordinary routine of the bazaars. India has not ceased to produce the raw materials which formerly found ready markets in the world, the people have not been impoverished suddenly by the war and in other directions also, life in India shows very little indication of the abnormal times through which the world is passing, but the foreign trade of the country has naturally decreased in volume and owing to other conditions created by the war, bartering is not carried on as smoothly as a year ago. In the bazaars, the prices are rising; in some cases owing to natural causes and in others owing to the greed of the vendors. The cheap and fairly serviceable goods manufactured in Germany and Austria have by now entirely disappeared from the bazaars, and the manufacturers of other countries are trying to secure the position formerly occupied by the enemy countries. British manufacturers outside India have not the time to make a bid for the custom of India in goods which in years gone by gave to Germany and Austria a commanding position in the trade of the country. The enterprising Japanese manufacturers have already taken time by the forelock and redoubled their efforts to give German and Austrian trade its deathblow, and judging by the latest trade returns of India, they have begun their campaign under exceptionally favourable circumstances. The United States of America would probably have also entered the arena against the German and Austrian merchants but they have found more profitable openings for their capital in other directions, and it is also doubtful, even if the American merchants had done so, whether they

would have been able to compete successfully against the Japanese without adopting the latter's system of maintaining a regular steamship service with India by means of State subsidies. But while new merchants are taking the places of the old in the bazaars, the people of India are now beginning to realise more clearly than they ever did before the vast possibilities which lie before them in the field of industries.

The opportunity they had of comparing their own products with those of Germany and Austria at the exhibition promoted by the Government of India has convinced them that it is not the Indian workman who is at fault but it is rather the Indian capitalist who is to blame for India's backwardness in industries. It is also partly the fiscal system of India and of the Empire as a whole which allows foreign nations to capture the markets of the Empire at the expense of the merchants of the Empire. One saw at the exhibition, paper, cutlery, glassware, pencils, matches and other articles of merchandise manufactured in India which in every way compared very favourably, both in point of price and quality, with similar goods of German or Austrian manufacture, and it was surprising to find that in many cases, the foreign manufacturers purchased their raw material for the manufacture of these goods from India and yet contrived to undersell their Indian competitors. The responsibility for the disadvantageous terms on which the Indian manufacturers met their German or Austrian rivals lay entirely with the Indian capitalists and with the Indian fiscal system.

Whether one upholds the policy of State subsidies for industries in India or not, it is undeniable that a fiscal system which allows a nation or a people likely at some future date to use its wealth against a State to become rich at the expense of its traders is economically and politically wrong, whatever use it may be from a sentimental point of view. In the competition against the German and Austrian merchants, not only the Indian manufacturers but other British merchants as well were seriously handicapped by their fiscal system. The Indian manufacturers were simply starved out by the Germans by a ruthless war of prices. In other directions in commerce also, the Germans showed no compunction in stamping out competition. The history

of their doings in the hide trade, for instance, is now ancient history.

Admitting however that the fiscal system had much to do with the unequal war in trade waged by British merchants in India against the German and Austrians, it cannot be denied that Indians having large hoards of gold hidden away either underground or in safes have been to blame even more for the slow pace of progress of their country industrially. They have never identified. themselves as intimately with the industrial movement in their country as was expected of them. In fact, it may be stated without any fear of contradiction that in India, the men with capital have been the main obstacle in the way of those of their countrymen, who have endeavoured to start new industries. There are, it is true, a few Indians who have used their wealth as it should have been used and as many others are now using it, but it is also true that by far the greater majority of men with substantial means have not kept themselves aloof from the industrial movement but also dissuaded others from taking part in it. They have either deposited their gold in strong safes in their houses or if they wanted to see their hoard increase, they have invested their money in gilt edged securities. Those who have adopted the latter course have of course committed no economic crime but they have, at the same time, always shown themselves wanting in the moral courage which takes risks in the initiation of new industries for the benefit of the people. It cannot be said that they have bought, for instance, Government Paper with the full consciousness of the fact that their money so invested would be used by the Government for promoting works of public utility; they have given their money simply because by doing so, they were sure of earning three and a half per cent. interest on their money. But other Indian capitalists have absolutely abused their wealth by using it as a means for extorting abnormally high rates of interest from their victims. Hundreds of these capitalists would refuse to look at an honest industrial scheme in which the profits are small, simply because they state they can earn as much as 75 per cent. per annum in the business of money lending.

Whatever the defects in the fiscal system, the obstacles placed in the way of promoters of industrial enterprises, as far as it is concerned, are not insurmountable, but the attitude of Indian capitalists is undoubtedly a serious stumbling-block in the path of industrial

progress. No legislation merely can improve matters although a strict law against usury seems to be most desirable, and by closing to capitalists an easy way of amassing wealth is likely to turn their attention to industries. Merely legislation, however, is not likely to bring about a change for the better. What is needed is concentrated effort on the part of those able to influence public opinion to induce men having money to invest it in lucrative industrial enterprises.

The present opportunity for making a start in new industries and for strengthening the position of old ones is not likely to occur again.* There is not only no serious rival in the field but what is more, there is no lack of raw material, and the demand for India's produce abroad is not so keen as to occasion anxiety to the Indian manufacturer. If steps are taken to open new factories as soon as possible, those interested in their working will have time enough by the time normal conditions are restored to gauge exactly how they stand, and with raw material at their elbow at lower prices than it is available to the manufacturers of other countries and abundance of cheap labour, they need have no anxiety as to the future.

There are at least three industries in which Indian capital can even now be profitably employed: First, glassware. The glassware factories already in existence in the country have given a rich promise, and they hold out a richer one for the future. There is absolutely no reason why India should not regain its old position, for instance, in the bangle industry. It is waste of time trying to match the village bangles industry against the industry as it exists, for instance, in Japan. The Indian manufacturers should meet their competitors on level terms and introduce an up-to-date machinery. Even if their competitors engage in a war of prices against them, they must come out triumphant in the end only if they have capital at their backs, and it would be courting disaster to engage in the industry with insufficient capital. In fact, from a moral point of view it is probably advisable that Indian manufacturers should be left alone to meet their competitors under circumstances as they naturally exist without any artificial advantages given them by protective tariffs or subsidies. From a business point of view, the system of protective tariff's has more to recommend itself than the system of subsidies. In any case, the glass industry is one

Since this article was written, the Industrial Commission has been appointed,

in which alone there is ample scope for Indians to employ their capital and ability to the best possible advantage. Not only will it give good returns to the capitalists, and provide hundreds of workmen with the means of earning a decent livelihood but it will also act as an incentive to the revival of the old village industry. Once the manufacturers have gained an assured position in the market, there will also be an opening for the worker in the villages not only in India but in other parts of the world. The trade in glassware in India is by no means small; it totals nearly two million pounds. Of course this includes glassware which, for the time being, it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to produce in India but there is no reason why a start should not be made with goods which can be produced in India at the present moment provided capital is forthcoming.

Then there is the matches industry. Japan has gradually worked its way to the leading position among the importers of matches in India. It has secured nearly 50 per cent. of the total trade of the value of nearly a million pounds in less than a decade, and it occupies this favourable position simply because it can command cheap labour and abundance of raw material. From every point of view, India stands in a much more favourable position than Japan; it has not only all the material necessary for the manufacture of matches ready at hand, it can also justly boast of possessing cheaper labour than Japan and greater facilities for placing its goods on the markets. Here again, large capital and efficient management is all that is needed. The half-a-dozen match factories that already exist in the country have not been able to make much headway owing to lack of capital and faulty management.

Besides the glassware and matches industries, there are at least a score of other small industries which might with profit be started in India. There is no reason, for instance, why India should be dependent for its supply of ordinary paper on other countries. The paper trade of India is of the value of nearly two million pounds and this includes paper of a description which can be produced in India at a much and smaller cost than is usually paid for it in the markets.

India, as regards its industrial possibilities, is, to adapt an expression used by a responsible Government official, a land of undefined dimensions, but the difficulty is to persuade its capitalists to abandon the pernicious habit of hoarding and to use money for the promotion of new industries,

It is true that the capitalists have some grounds for being suspicious of new enterprises, as new enterprises in the past have had a political complexion which no financial enterprise ought to possess and also because the promoters of new enterprises have not always been straightforward in their dealings, but the law now provides ample safeguard against fraudulent promoters of companies, and the capitalists have it within their power to keep the reins of control of a business in their own hands. There is, however, always the danger in India of a financier without any intimate knowledge of the inner workings of a concern appropriating to himself the position of a dictator and overriding the decisions of men who know how to guide a young industry to success. Further, Indian capitalists with interests in an industrial concern are also very prone to regard the undertaking as a means of providing all their remote cousins, however unfitted for the work, with lucrative posts. In one instance, the manager of an industrial concern, newly started, had to interview a cousin or aunt's relative of the man with the money in the business almost every day of his life in office and always had more or less definite instructions to provide each one of these with work in the factory. Had he done so, not only the profits in the working of the concern but a greater part of the capital would have been swallowed up by the salaries of the relatives of the financier and so to escape the odium of having ruined the concern, he sent in his resignation of the post of the His case is, by no means, the only one of its kind. Everywhere in India, the man who knows and is actually at the head of affairs in a concern is called upon by the financier to do things which are directly opposed to all business principles. In any industry, however, which is started, it is essential to its success that the man who invests his money in it should know that he has only to see that his money is not squandered by those working the concern and that every effort is made to make it a profitable concern. Once the man who has to manage the business has been selected with care, he should be left alone to do his work in the way he thinks best for the future of the concern. A great many failures in industrial ventures in India are due to the unnecessary interference of financiers, who know practically nothing about the way they ought to be conducted.

manager.

No words suffice the secret soul to show, And truth denies all eloquence to woe. - Byron. NE of the redeeming features of War, with all its brutal carnage and slaughter, is the legacy of interest which it enkindles in so many untold directions. Never in the history of modern civilisation has so much enthusiasm been awakened in the study of European geography as at the present time; never have the characteristics and traits of the nations been considered so freely and so advantageously. Possibly, in ordinary times, we are far too circumscribed in our ideas and opinions. Our horizon is much too narrow. Yet, when we imagine the grim-visaged fields of war, crowded with their heroic and noble dead, even the sanctity of natural death must make an irresistible appeal to the mind. many bright and prosperous careers have been shortened; how many a wife has been made a widow and children orphans and outcasts; how much more of the life-blood of the nations will be spilt ere this terrible carnage comes to its keenlyawaited end! Nobody can tell the possible duration of the War, but occasionally there flits across the thoughful mind matter in regard to the folklore of other climes which cannot fail to prove advantageous. It is well, indeed, to transport ourselves upon the magic carpet of the imagination and obtain a synoptical-though not a morbid -view of the "trappings of woe associated with

other climes.

How

Innumerable superstitions are associated in Serbia with death, which they believe occurs only when the Holy Archangel removes the person's soul from the body. It is always foretold, either by the person himself or by a member of the family and cannot take place without the day having been ordained. For each living man it is believed that there is a star in the sky, which ceases to shine directly the person happens to die. Everybody in France goes to funerals to which they have been invited by card. Nothing is allowed to stand in the way of this outstanding duty. It is considered absolutely sacred, as being the last sign of sympathy which can be offered. Hence French funeral processions present

such an imposing demonstration at times. The Belgian funeral is most impressive. The priests, escorted by two or more acolytes bearing the holy ensign, intone the lessons of the dead; and, as the procession moves to the Church, Chopin's Marche Funebre is often played. When the funeral is that of a young female, girls and children -often her playmates-attend as as an escort. The Belgian's respect towards the dead is one of his most cherished traditions.

"Aans

Deaths are announced in Holland by prekers," who are specially employed to go from door to door to bear the melancholy tidings. These functionaries are vested in a peculiar garb consisting of a black tan coat, black knee breeches, silk stockings and shoes with silver buckles. A white tie is worn round the throat, and arranged upon the head is an enormous cocked hat, with a huge rosette at the side, while two pieces of ribbon, each about 50 inches or so in length, hang down the back. The rosette is of white satin when the death is that of a child. Upon meeting these quaint individuals for the first time it is quite natural to mistake them for some high dignitaries of the Church. The sign of death in some parts of Holland consists of placing a black cross on the door-step in the case of Catholics, while the Protestants hang up a black mantle in the middle of the principal doorway. Both these signs remain visible until after the interment. is singular that, notwithstanding all the sympathy and kindness extended to an invalid during even the longest illness, all Italians shrink from witnessing the last struggles of expiring nature, and that the sufferer should be deserted in his last moments by those most dear to him. With that peculiar horror of death which characterises them, as soon as it is evident the dying person's hours are numbered, that the "agonia" has begun, and the passing-bell is tolled, the nearest relations are not only removed from the chamber but generally from the house, and often the priest alone remains to close the eyes, whose last gaze on earth had perhaps sought the faces of those most loved, and sought in vain.

It

When a Chinese person is lying at the point of death, his very best clothes are laid out on the