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bhe sea. The control of the leading establishments is largely British 
while the bulk of the industrial labour is Indian. 
INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES. 
Language Difficulty. 
The employer or manager who is faced with the problem 
of establishing contact with his men starts, in most cases, with a 
heavy handicap. Brought up in a different tradition, with a different 
descent, in a different part of the country, indeed often in another 
continent, he is usually confronted also by difficulties of language. 
The imperfect knowledge of the language of their workers possessed 
by many who are responsible for management and supervision 
lowers efficiency and impairs understanding. It is not uncommon 
to find that the manager of an important establishment is far from 
proficient in the principal language spoken by his men. We would 
smphasise our conviction that no one can be regarded as fully qualified 
for a post of management or supervision who does not find it easy both 
to understand his employees and to make himself understood by them. 
The illiteracy of the workers, which prevents the management from uti- 
lising the written word to convey orders and rules directly to the rank 
and file, is an additional reason for laying stress upon language quali- 
fications. In many cases it may be hard for 2 man chosen, possibly 
when he is no longer young, largely on account of his technical train- 
ing, to acquire fluency in a foreign tongue, but we repeat that this 
Juency is mn itself a technical qualification which is indispensable for 
the competent discharge of managerial functions, Some employers 
offer special inducements to junior officers to acquire language qualifica- 
tions, but it is rare for an employer to insist on their acquisition by 
managers and others in the more responsible positions. 
Difficulties Arising from Industrial Organisation. : 
Further difficulties are created by industrial organisation. In 
all countries the growth of large-scale industry renders impossible 
the close personal relations between employer and employed which sub- 
sist when employees are few, and in consequence contact is generally 
difficult to establish. In India the method of organisation tends to 
enhance the difficulty. At the top, between the shareholders, who own 
the concern, and the manager, there is generally another company or 
firm known as the managing agents ; and private shareholders, even if 
they wished to take an interest in their labour, would ordinarily find it 
impossible to influence policy in such a matter. Much more serious, from 
the point of view of labour, is the tendency for managers to delegate 
some of their functions to subordinates and to interpose unreliable links 
between themselves and their men. We have already dealt with the 
power possessed by sardars, mukaddams and other chargemen or fore- 
men, who are too often able even to dismiss and engage workers. As 
a rule, the management depends on such-men. both for its knowledge of 
the minds and desires of the employees and for the interpretation to them 
of its own orders. Where thisis the practice, it is almost impossible for the 
Management to reach any stable understanding with the workers. There