Page:Labour in Madras.djvu/143

Rh 117 collecting donations. The affair of collecting is very difficult and it has been taken over by my friend Mr. E. L. Jiyar. We have divided work at the Labour Union. My young friend Mr. Sankara Aiyar is there at the Employment Bureau. We have been able to drift else. where where Messrs. Binny & Co.'s influence does not enter; nearly two thousand men have returned to their villages. We are trying as much as we can to minimise the economic distress and we have reached the point and cannot go any further. We have said our last say. We want justice and while you are arbitrating our men will go to the Mills. It remains for Sir C. Simpson to accept the arbitration. If labour succeeds it is a great advance that Indian labour will have made in this country, for once established the principle of arbitration and the difficulties will solve themselves in a harmonious fashion. At the present moment Mr. Andrews said there is war, a war where unfortunately or fortunately I do not know, human bodies are not killed, but human bodies are starving and not only male bodies but women and most pathetic and unfortunte, the children are starving. You can understand the spirit at Perambore when I tell you that when I go there in the afternoon and sometimes in the morning, children begin to notice the motor car which comes with the helpers of their fathers and brothers and they shout my name or someone else's name reminding us that they are starving. The other day I came across the case of a boy. It was the morning before Mr. Andrews arrived on the scene. There was a boy and he was there very early and he was feeling hungry. He told me that he had very little to eat the whole of the previous day. It was about 8-30