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CHAPTER XVIII, 
unfavourable to disputes than with machinery for their settlement. 
It is precisely here, in our view, that Indian industrial organisation is 
weakest. We believe that an important factor at work in creating 
industrial unrest in India is the lack of contact which too often exists 
between employers and employed. There are employers who, by special 
efforts, have established reasonably close touch with their workers, but 
they ave exceptional. In practically every centre and every industry* 
the lack of contact and understanding is evident. In the interests of all 
concerned, we urge that every effort should be made to bridge the gulf. 
An immense amount of thought and toil has been devoted to surmount- 
ing the technical, financial and commercial difficulties in the way of in- 
dustrial development in India. But it will fail to secure the results it 
deserves unless much more attention is given to the difficult sphere of 
human relationships. Weakness in this direction has already produced 
serious effects, and the outlook in some of the centres we visited was 
menacing. Unless a vigorous effort is made to effect an improvement, 
the development of large-scale industrial enterprise is likely to be difficult 
and precarious. 
Differences of Race. 
The lack of contact to which we have referred may be traced 
to several factors in the Indian industrial system. In the first place, 
it is almost universally true that the management and supervision of 
industry is in the hands of men not only of a different class but also 
of a different race from those of the workers. Many of the firms which 
control the larger industrial establishments are British, and a still larger 
proportion of concerns are under British, American or other foreign 
management. Even where the control and management are Indian, it is 
the exception for the management and the workers to belong to the same 
race. We are referring not merely to the differences created by caste 
or religion ; it is rarely the case that the workers and their masters belong 
to the same big division of the Indian nation. Indeed, we believe that 
Ahmedabad is the only one among the larger industrial centres where the 
bulk of both the employers and the employees are drawn from the 
same part of India, and it is significant that in Ahmedabad there is 
greater understanding, if not sympathy, between employers and employed 
than is usual elsewhere. In Bengal industry is mainly in the hands of 
Europeans and, to a less extent, Bengalis and Marwaris, while the workers 
are mainly drawn from up country. In Bombay the workers come 
largely from Maharashtra and the Konkan, while the employers are 
mainly Parsis, Gujeratis and Europeans. In Jamshedpur the control 
of policy rests mainly in Bombay, over a thousand miles away, and the 
managing staff at the works is mainly American and British. In the 
coalfields the control of policy rests with various Calcutta firms, and we 
do not know of any case where the manager belongs to the same race 
as the workers. Burma perhaps presents the strangest phenomenon of all, 
for here both employers and employed are mainly drawn from across 
* We are not dealing here with plantations in which strikes are rare. These 
are discussed separately.