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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.