Penetrating Analysis of Situation: Bombay's Strange Bedfellows: Cost of Gandhi's Agitation India were far more radical than those of Europeans here, Had the giving of the Reforms depended upon Britons in India it is fairly From Oun Own Calcutta, May 24, Bombay has been a revelation to people who have returned from there during the last few days, The situation in that city has gone beyond the stage of merely an agitation; it is now nothing less than. fopon revolt against the Government. Recent visitors have been startled by the evidence on every hand of the intensity of feeling against the Government. It ig remarkable, they say, how clearly Mr. Gandhi the whole of the Bombay Presidency under his thumb. One of the most curious facts is the extent to which Capitalists are supporting his movement. Several prominent millowners are said to be assisting the movement for the boycott of foreign cloth. The real me Aisobedience campaign in Bombay seems to lie in the fact that it is being carried on by a curious combination of men honestly believing non-violence, others who do not believe and Communists, Nationalists Communalists.
Theve ave unmistakeable signs that the movement to boycott foreign cloth has already begun to hit the Indian consumer serious! ledge of the industry, and especially those who watched a like phenomena on in the last, Swadeshi days, have apprehended that the first to suffer. would be the poorer sections of the consumers and that the profiteer would have the field to himself. As each day passes these fears ai shown to be justified.
From inquiries made from those connected with the trade, itis learnt that millemade Swadeshi cloth ice and, that the supply vapidly diminishing with the inevitable result that there ig no fixed price, and it may not be long before the dealers demand fantastic prier A khaddar famine is freely talked of as almost a certainty and there ino proper and extensive 01 ganization for the production of Khaddar it is difficult to understand how fresh supplies can be secured to meet the increasing demand. A. certain Calcutta khaddar store, which had a large quantity of khad-dav lying unsold for many months, cleaved the entire stock within the last eight weeks at a good profit.
Due to the sudden rush, the of Khaddar has risen by' about per cent. An endeavour is, how-ver, being made to put down the price, but it is extremely doubtful if such efforts can achieve any megusure of success as any attempt to interfere with prices by means other than what are in accord the law of demand and supply can, at best, have only transient effects, It is difficult to compare the price of Lancashire cloth with that of Indian mill-made cloth because each belongs to a different class. But speaking generally, it can be said that before the present movement: began, Swadeshi cloth was from ght to ten per cent. dearer. The difference is now 12 to 15 per cent. In the ease of one particular class of dhotis where' it is possible to compare prices, namely, dhotis made in India with fine imported yarns, the cost_above Lancashire quality is between 20 and 30 per in spite of the fact that and Ahmedabad mills have no accumulation of stocks representing an output of about three! months. When the stocks are reduced, an inflation of prices is unavoidable.
Tt is, of course, true that the Bombay Millowners' Association made an announcement recently' that special measures were under contemplation to. prevent profiteering and for otherwise protecting the interests of the consumer. A declaration of this kind is one thing but its fulfilment is another, as the question is enrively beyond the mills, themselves, even assuming that the mill agents are really determined to serve the consumers more than themselves.
Byen if big dealers in Calcutta and other important centres were ignore profiteering postion, ordinary ret fossil towns and villages could not be expected to show. simi lightenment or patriotism, with the result that the poorer people would still be bound to suffer.
An interesting development worthy of note in this connexion is that certain that much less would have been given. European opinion in India has changed enormously in the interval, as was clear enough when evidence was given before the Simon Commission. It has been! less shocked by the more violent developments of Indian political is less inclined to alter its whole standpoint although it has to face directly the consequences of Caleutta's imports include a kind of unrest. Bi opinion on the Chinese and Japanese grey sheeting] other hand has become strongly known as Salita, which after wash- reactionary. ing passed as "mixed"
The criticisms of the tolerance 'The difference between shown by Lord Irwin and his rand this imitation is such Government come to us from almost that it would not be ordinarly per-the whole Press, of every' complex: ceived by the average consumer. ion of polities in Great Britain, and It costs the importers about 44 find very faint echo from the Euro-annas per yard bat it is being sold pean commercial community here i in the bazar at nine annas. There India, The Englishman in India is a great demand for it upcountry. has become brave in giving; the The recent clearances of this quality Englishman at Home is nourishing have been so heavy that five doubts about an India that seems months? stocks have been sold out in him ungrateful and unreasoning two months. and that offers him a dangerous and perplexing problem just when he The new Government of India Wishes to have peace and time for Loan of £7,000,000 in the form of recuperation.
Six Per Cent. Bonds payable 1933- On this subject the "Statesman" 35 has been subscribed almost three writes that perhaps so far as Eng-times over within the same number Jand is concerned that is the nataral of days. result of a sudden awakening to the Things like non violent disobedfact that India is a problem, that ce and open revolutionary acti-it can no longer be ignored or lett confidence in to.the judgment. of a few experts. 's credit, The state of affairs here has come Dut recently standing almost as high with a shock of surprise to Great fas that of any country in the world, Britain; to the Englishman in India has been blown upon, and it is the] j has been a development, almost Indian people who have to pay. day by day, by which he has grown If we strike Dalance sheet, says (Calcutta) in the One veason of this difference the "Statesman course of n leading article, we find that to-day England has a Press that Mr. Gandhi and the Congress have already cost India some crores of rupees, and that /its money comes not out of the pocket of the Satanic Government, but from the toil of the peasants, Because of the political excite. ment and the distrust engendered by it the Indian Government has to pay six per cent for money repayable from 1933 to 1985 and to offer £100 of stock for £99. This it has to do in an era of cheap money, when the Bank of England rate of discount is 3 per cent. and when British municipalities are able to cover their requirements at five per cent. The one possible explanation that the bankers, who apply to all things the same measure of value, have lost confidence in India.
There is (points out the Calcutta Journal which I have named) another curious circumstance regard-Indian loans which is having} enormous influence on the movement capital at the present time. Indian sterling three per cents are quoted in London at £51 for the £100 stock, In Calcutta one hundred rupees three per cent. tock sells for 55 rupees. Much the same measure of difference is to be found among all the various _denominations of rupee and sterling loans. A holder of rupee loan who sells in Tndia can buy a larger nominal amount of stock in London for the money he receives. There has been an enormous amount of selling in India and rebuying in London. In ordinary circumstances that process. would quickly bring the two stocks to a level. It has failed to do so because the London market remains distrustful of India and there are eager sellers in London of all the Indian stocks which India is willing to buy.
It is natural that those at a distance should be more impressed by unvest in India than those who can measure the extent of that unrest fon the spot. India knows exactly what is behind the talk of repudis tion; London does not. But it is India that pays for the distrust excited in the world, and certainly' the terms of the new Joan will do nothing to strengthen the market prices of the older issues. India wants the money she is raising and must get it on the best terms she can. If those terms are not better the fault lies in India herself.
Editorial articles on Indian matters in the Home papers just to) hand illustrate to a nicety that) divorce between British opinion and the views of Europeans in India which 20 frequently arises. For in-that is interested in little but the sensational.
India proceeding on tention. An India in which the normal course attracted no, are riots and shootings, in which people go in crowds to boil seawarer, and in which repressive measures have to be taken is possible of illustration and explanation to the British people. This development is almost altogether a misfortune. That the English people and the world generally should betray interest in India is to the good; that the disturbances should be represented he one feature of interest in India to-day is bad.
"We know that beneath his surface froth is the stable India that goes about its daily work undistarbed and unperturbed and that the violent pol represent themselves a fraction of one per cent. of the popul England! does not learn that'
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.