CHAPTER II, 
inspiration than a reality. But in most cases the contact has begun at 
birth ; the proportion of industrial workers whose birthplace is the city 
is small. Many workers leave their wives in the country, and of those 
wives who come to the city, all who can do so return to the village for 
their confinement. The steady expansion of Indian industry year by 
year and the higher mortality in cities increase still further the 
numbers that have to be supplied from rural areas. Generally, too, child- 
hood is spent in the villages ; the raising of the minimum age for industrial 
smployment has strengthened this tendency. After industrial employ- 
ment has commenced, the worker returns to the village as often as he 
can. Financial considerations form the principal obstacle to frequent 
returns : the man who succeeds in the mills returns more regularly as his 
income rises. In the Bengal jute mills and the Bombay cotton mills, a 
number secure an annual holiday of anything from one to three months’ 
duration : others may go every second year. Yet others, owing to lack of 
money or for various reasons, may not go back for many years. Butat 
any time illness or urgent family affairs may compel a return, even when 
it hasto be financed by borrowing. The returned industrial worker may 
give assistance in agricultural operations, or he may prefer to remain 
anoccupied. It is interesting to note, for example, that the holiday 
exodus from the Bengal jute mills is at its height during a slack season 
for agriculture in the workers’ villages. The duration of the holiday is 
asually limited only by the money available ; more rarely it is determined 
by the necessity of complying with the instructions of the employer in the 
city. At other times, if close relatives remain in the villages, remit- 
sances may be sent regularly to them and serve to maintain contact, but 
apart from these, correspondence is usually infrequent. Nor are relatives 
the only ones who look for money orders. The village money-lender 
may have claims which have to be met, and occasionally his assistance is 
sought to meet the initial expenses involved in the exodus to the 
city. Finally, the worker looks forward to a time when his work in 
she factory will be over, and he can return to the village for good. 
(4) CAUSES OF MIGRATION, 
Economic Pressure. 
Emigration has always arisen mainly from the difficulty of finding 
an adequate livelihood in one’s native place, and this is the predominant 
force which impels the Indian villager to seek industrial employment, 
Over large parts of India, the number of persons on the land is much 
greater than the number required to cultivate it and appreciably in 
pxcess of the number it can comfortably support. In most areas, 
pressure on the land has been increasing steadily for a long time and a rise 
in the general standard of living has made this pressure more acutely felt. 
There has always been a substantial class of landless labourers, earning 
3» meagre living in good seasons and apt to be reduced to penury in bad 
ones. The loss of land through indebtedness, the need or desire of a land- 
lord to increase his own cultivation, quarrels, the death of the title-holder 
and other causes, bring fresh recruits to this class. Among those who