at knowledge and
ability in a very instructive article contributed last January to the
_Asiatic Quarterly Review_ by Mr. A.C. Chatterjee, an Indian member of
the Civil Service. Amongst the many instances he gives of industries
clamouring for the benefits of applied science, I will quote only the
treatment of oil seeds, the manufacture of paper from wood pulp and wood
meal, the development of leather factories and tanneries, as well as of
both vegetable and chemical dyes, the sugar industry, and metal
work--all of which, if properly instructed and directed, would enable
India to convert her own raw materials with profit into finished
products either for home consumption or for exportation abroad. It is at
least equally important for India to save her home industries, and
especially her hand-weaving industry, the wholesale destruction of
which under the pressure of the Lancashire power loom has thrown so
many poor people on to the already over-crowded land. Here, as Mr.
Chatterjee wisely remarks, combination and organization are badly
needed, for "the hand industry has the greatest chances of survival when
it adopts the methods of the power industry without actual resort to
power machinery." The articles on the Indian industrial problem in
_Science Progress_ for April and July, by Mr. Alfred Chatterton,
Director of Industries, Madras, are also worth careful attention. He
remarks quite truly that her inexhaustible supplies of cheap labour are
"India's greatest asset"; but he too wisely holds that the factory
system of the West should only be guardedly extended and under careful
precautions. The Government of India have at present under consideration
important legislative measures for preventing the undue exploitation of
both child and adult labour--measures which are already being denounced
by the native Press as "restrictive" legislation devised by the "English
cotton kings" in order to "stifle the indigenous industries of India in
their infancy"!

What Government can do for the pioneering of new industries is shown by
the success of the State dairies in Northern India and of Mr.
Chatterton's experiments in the manufacturing of aluminium in Madras.
There is an urgent demand at present for industrial research
laboratories and experimental work all over India, and above all for
better and more practical education. But it would seem that, in this
direction, the impetus given by Lord Curzon has somewhat slackened under
Lord