THE INDIAN INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM 563 



provide outlets for this newly awakened energy and to direct 

 it in such a manner as to satisfy the growing aspirations of the 

 vast population. Hitherto, the intellectual classes of the country 

 have held almost entirely aloof from the rest of the people, 

 whom they have looked down upon and despised. They have 

 left the working classes to face the growing difficulties of their 

 position, careless of everything outside the range of their own 

 immediate interests ; now that they are forced by internal 

 competition to take a broader outlook, they find themselves 

 incompetent to deal with the practical problems which await 

 solution ; to bring about a healthier state of things, it is 

 necessary that means should be devised whereby they may be 

 associated with the artisans and workers of the country to their 

 mutual advantage. The future progress of India largely depends 

 on the proper appreciation of her greatest asset — abundant 

 cheap labour — labour at present not without some measure of 

 skill but almost entirely untrained and unorganised. 



The Need of Studying Local Conditions 



Our work is to show the educated classes how they can 

 find useful careers, honourable and remunerative employment, 

 work that will benefit both themselves and the whole com- 

 munity in supplementing the deficiencies of the workers, in 

 dispelling their ignorance and softening their conservatism. 



First we must train them in our schools and colleges, then 

 in our workshops and laboratories and finally we must start 

 them in life, giving them practical work to do under com- 

 petent supervision until they get accustomed to the new 

 atmosphere and surroundings and are able to launch forth by 

 themselves. But we ourselves have to discover how this may 

 best be done ; we must call to our aid all the resources of 

 science and obtain the services of experienced men to study 

 the local conditions. It will be for them to train our students, 

 make surveys of the existing industries, take stock of the 

 natural advantages, search for hidden resources and suggest 

 new lines of work and innovations which may be introduced. 



In regard to matters purely agricultural, this procedure 

 has already been adopted by the Government of India and by 

 all the Provincial Governments. At Pusa an Imperial College 

 of Agriculture has been started, a staff of highly competent 

 scientific and practical experts appointed, an experimental 



