2) 
CHAPTER XIV. 
the time for inaction and delay is past and that, particularly in regard to 
housing, it is imperative that an immediate beginning should be made. 
To those who assert that India cannot afford to spend more on public 
health. we would reply that she can no longer afford to do otherwise. 
The Importance of Health. 
In dealing with particular branches of industry we have had 
occasion to refer to a number of specific subjects relating to health, more 
particularly those concerning the worker while actually at work. We 
deal in this chapter with the wider general subject of the health of the 
industrial worker in its relation both to his welfare and to his work. 
This is a matter of cardinal importance to the worker himself, but it is 
scarcely less important to others directly or indirectly associated with 
industrial development and national progress. Government, employers 
and workers are all directly interested in promoting better standards of 
life and in reducing the losses sustained through sickness, accident and 
death in the industrial army. The problems associated with health are 
always difficult ; they are much more so in a country where both climate 
and the poverty and ignorance of the people contribute to recurring 
outbreaks of tropical and other epidemic diseases. 
Physique. 
Before suggesting methods for improving the health of the indus- 
brial worker, it is necessary to give some consideration to the important 
questions of his physique and dietary. We have had some difficulty in 
arriving at a fair estimate of the average physical condition, because of the 
variations which exist between different sections of the population and, 
indeed, between different races and castes working in the same industrial 
concern. We have observed that many industrial workers are neither 
the sons nor the grandsons of town-dwellers ; they have migrated from 
the villages and have only temporarily severed their connection with the 
land. They are to some extent selected immigrants. The move to the 
city requires a certain degree of enterprise and courage ; and most of those 
who go are, by their age and physique, better qualified than the average 
villager to face the more trying conditions inherent in industrial life. In 
addition the period of exile is often restricted in duration. The sowing and 
harvesting seasons, sickness, news of the illness or death of a relative may 
all lead to a return home. Some workers return every year, others every 
two or three years, and there is a constant stream from village to city and 
back again. These factors all play a selective part and tend to favour the 
appearance of a moderately good physique in many of the men industrially 
employed. Other influences work in an opposite direction. More often 
than not the villager lives under a burden of debt, and economic pressure 
and want compel a low standard of living which renders him unfit for hard 
work. He has perforce to accustom himself to a diet deficient in quality 
and often in quantity. Although cattle exist in enormous numbers, milk 
supplies are inadequate, and the villager is rarely able to obtain a sufficiency 
of the important animal fats contained in pure milk and ght. His staple 
grain diet may be supplemented from one source or another with small