162 ESSAYS IN NATIONAL IDEALISM.

The Swadeshi movement has created a new demand for
India-manufactured textiles. This has been a true instinct,
but the essential weaknesses of the Swadeshi ideal, as hitherto
conceived, have limited the value of the result. It matters
very little to the village peasant whether his work is
stopped by the competition of factories in Lancashire or in
Bombay, or whether a few Indian or a few Manchester
mill-owners get rich quickly. Just what the factory
system is beginning to mean for India may be guessed
from some details and extracts from the recent report of
the Indian Factory Commission. In daylight mills, the
average working time for the whole year is 12 hours and 5
minutes; in mills fitted with electric light, 13-13| hours;
but the Commissioners say, " in some provinces the law is
ignored to an extent not hitherto imagined." The law re-
ferring to the half-hour's recess, " is generally disregarded
in rice-mills, ginning factories, presses and flour mills
throughout India."

A writer in the Modern Review for October 1908
commenting 011 the Report, makes the following extraordi-
nary statements regarding women's work.

" Coming to the restrictions imposed upon the employment of
women by the present Act, the Commission very fairly and reason-
ably opine that they are neither suitable to the operatives nor to
the employers. That has been the general experience of all factory-
owners who have to employ a large number of females. In Bom
bay, it is seldom the case that they have to work for more than ten
hours a clay. So that they have no need to avail themselves of
the hour's mid-day rest prescribed for their benefit bv the
existing Act. In practice it has been proved beyond cavil that
the women prefer to come late to their work and ermtinuallv work
at their winding or reeling machines for the whole time that th^v
wish to work, generally from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m." y

Italics are mine.

I quote this statement to show what modern India is
prepared to accept for the sake of commercial « progress/