Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/700

 610 NON-COOPtRATiON

the call of love. And love is Swaraj, The spinning wheel will 'curb the mind* when time spent on necessary physical labour can be said to do so. We must think of the millions who are to-day less than animals, who are almost in a dying state. The spinning wheel is the reviving draught for millions of our dying countrymen and countrywomen. 'Why should I, who have no need to work for food, spin'? may be the question asked. Be- cause I am eating what does not belong to me. I am living on the spoliation of my countrymen. Trace the course of every pice that finds its way into your pocket, and you will realise the truth of what I write. Swaraj has no meaning for the millions if they do not know how to employ their enforced idleness. The attainment of this Swaraj is possible within a short time, and it is so possible only by the revival of the spinning wheel.

I do want growth, I do want self-determination, I do want freedom, but I want all these for the soul. I doubt if the steel age is an advance upon the flint age. I am indifferent. It is the evolution of the soul to which the intellect and all our faculties have to be devoted. I have no difficulty in imagining the possibility of a man armoured after the modern style making some lasting and new discovery for mankind, but I have less difficulty in imagining the possibility of a man having nothing but abit of flint and a nail for lighting his path or his match- lock ever singing new hymns of praise and delivering to an aching world a message of peace and goodwill upon earth. A plea for the spinning wheel is a plea for re- cognising the dignity of labour

I claim that in losing the spinning whel we l>it <dur left lung. We are, therefore, suffering from gallo- ping consumption. The restoration bSf the tohteel ar?es&

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