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CHAPTER XXTIII.—BURMA AND INDIA. 
We completed our tour of the Indian provinces by March 
1930, but were unale to visit Burma during that season. While in 
London, we contemplated the possibility of submitting a proposal 
that Burma should be excluded from our terms of reference. The field 
to be covered in India proper was very Wide, and it seemed probable 
that the extension of our survey to a country differing from India in many 
respects would give little assistance on the questions which we were 
already examining, while it might raise a large number of new problems 
and add seriously to the difficulty of finishing our task in a reasonable 
time, In addition, some of our number were requested to participate 
in the Indian Round Table Conference and were unable to leave 
England till 1931. But serious trouble connected with the employment of 
labour in Rangoon broke out in May 1930 ; there were clearly questions 
calling for examination, and it was suggested to us that it would be 
aseful if we visited Rangoon. We therefore arranged to complete the 
programme eriginally contemplated, and the majority of us spent three 
weeks in Burma in October and November 1930. 
Industrial Differences. 
The wide general differences between Burma and India have 
been stressed on many occasions, and we do not need to dwell upon them 
here. Separated from India by a sea Journey of two or three days, 
its people present in race, religion, customs and outlook a great contrast 
bo those of India. For our purpose, it is the differences in the economic 
sphere that are chiefly important. Though not in general so wide or 
fundamental as those which exist in other fields, they are by no 
means negligible. There are important differences in respect of the 
distribution of industries. In India, the bulk of the factory population 
is employed in factories working throughout the year, and the textile 
factories, with nearly 700,000 operatives, form much the most important 
group. In Burma, textile factories using power are represented by 
three factories employing less than 700 operatives in all. The most 
important factory industry in Burma is rice milling, which is seasonal, 
followed by saw-milling and the refining of petroleum, which in India 
employ few persons: These three factory industries account for 
two-thirds of the 100,000 persons employed in factories in Burma. 
Turning to the extraction of minerals, in India coal, mica and 
manganese mines account for four-fifths of the workers in register- 
ed mines; these industries are non-existent in Burma.’ On the 
other hand, tin, wolfram, lead and silver mines, which do not exist in 
India, employ the majority of Burma’s mining population of about 20,000. 
More important than these is the production of mineral oil, an industry 
which is on a very small scale in India. In respect of transport, a feature 
in Burma is the part played by inland water transport. In India, planta- 
tions, and especially tea plantations, are of great importance ; in Burma 
the main plantation industry is rubber, and the numbers employed are 
not large.