Mahatmaji and the mill industry

IN the latest issue of Young India, Mahatma Gandhi states his attitude and policy in regard to the indigenous cotton mill industry. “I am not,” he writes, “indifferent to the mill industry of my country. I proclaim on every relevant occasion that I want all the protection that I can secure for that industry and that if I had the power I would impose prohibitive tariff on all foreign cloth.” This is a very clear statement, as far as it goes, but the reader is entitled to ask why, holding the view he does, the Mahatma does not join in the national demand for the abolition of the excise duty on cotton goods. The reason is thus stated: “I believe in putting before my readers only those things in which they will do something.” If “something” means “everything,” the position of the Mahatma is quite intelligible. If, however, the word means nothing more than its ordinary connotation, most people would think that the country has it in its power at the present time to do something in this respect by insisting upon its representatives in the Legislature putting forward a united demand for the abolition of the obnoxious and iniquitous duty and giving the government no rest until this standing disgrace to India is wiped off the statute book. Another and an equally important question which the public is entitled to ask is why in other respects also, with which the State has nothing to do and the people everything, the Mahatma has not hitherto given any practical expression to his sympathy with the industry. Here, again, the Mahatma is explicit in his reply. “The mill industry,” he writes, “stands in no need of other support from me.”