THE INDIAN INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM 125 



(5) Fibre-Cleaning Machinery. — The cost of extracting fibres, 

 even with the cheap labour available for such work, is very 

 high and improvements in the machines already in existence 

 are urgently called for, especially for aloe and plantain fibres. 

 These machines should be of small capacity, as the quantity of 

 raw material from which the fibre is extracted is not usually 

 very large in any one place and the cost of carting it from a 

 distance is prohibitive. 



It is not necessary to give further examples of the oppor- 

 tunities for the display of mechanical ingenuity in meeting the 

 requirements of the people of India. The object of this paper 

 will be to a large extent gained if attention be directed by it to 

 the field which is open to original workers ; further inquiry will 

 probably reveal a large number of instances in which a com- 

 paratively small amount of capital expended on tools and plant 

 would greatly increase the efficiency of Indian labour. At the 

 outset, progress will be slow, chiefly because of the difficulty of 

 bringing the men with sufficient inventive skill into touch with 

 the rural communities whose wants have to be studied. India 

 now requires the services of many industrial experts and it 

 should be recognised that adequate rewards must be offered 

 to those who will take up Indian industrial problems. In 

 technical colleges, in trade schools and in demonstration 

 workshops, the science and engineering skill of the West must 

 be applied to the peculiar industrial problems which call for 

 solution. Scientific research having no other object than that 

 of enlarging the bounds of human knowledge is a luxury 

 which India cannot at present afford to indulge in, nor does 

 it greatly attract the Indian mind. Scientific methods have 

 first to be taught in the countr}^ and applied to the practical 

 problem of raising the industrial status of the people. This 

 work affords as much opportunity for the exercise of intellectual 

 attainments as will be found in any laboratory and it is that 

 to which men in the service of India must devote themselves 

 if they are to render her real assistance. 



