INDIA AND LANCASHIRE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20989, 28 September 1931, Page 6

INDIA AND LANCASHIRE.

By his visit to Lancashire, Mr. Gandhi is putting to the proof his belief that the Indian boycott of foreign cloth can be sympathetically understood even by English operatives who have suffered through it. The khaddar movement —khaddar is the village-woven cloth made by communal hand-spin-ning and hand-weaving—represents his panacea for all the ills to which the poverty-stricken Indian is heir. It is his chief enthusiasm. He has plainly said that he sees no hope of relieving their poverty unless there is a revival of the two old staple industries related in the making of this cloth. In addition to it, there is an Indian mill cloth, but Mr. Gandhi looks to the homespun sort as of major importance in his plans for improved economic cond.tions among the villagers. As a result of the boycott, which he has aimed to make an integral part of the nationalist movement, very little foreign cioth has recently entered India. In normal conditions, it amounted to 40 per cent, of the cloth worn. There has been an associated outcome of the boycott in a premium on the product of the mills, but the main result has followed Mr. Gandhi's prophecy that the village production would greatly increase. Beside this, there has been a distinct improvement in the quality of the yarn spun in the villages, while it has come down in price sufficiently to compete with the mill-made article. That is the Indian side of the picture, at which Mr. Gandhi wants the Lancashire employer and operative to look. It has been essential to his plan that there should be only the Indian mill-made article in competition with the village product. The news published to-day reveals him in a less obdurate attitude : India will import, he says, a quantity of British cloth, although not so much as was imported before the boycott; but he makes this contingent on the establishment of what he calls proper relations between India and Britain. As of yore, he is seen in his role of astute politician. Whether he can break down Lancashire resentment and at the same time clear away an economic difficulty facing the Round Table Conference, remains to be seen.