RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF LABOUR
[In response to the invitation of the Madras Central Labour Board during his visit to Madras in 1920, Mr. Gandhi addressed a monster meeting of the labourers at the Beach opposite the High Court on the question of the "Rights and Duties of Labour." Mr. B. P. Wadia presided on the occasion. Mr. Gandhi said:—]
Mr. Chairman and Friends,—It gives me very great pleasure to renew your acquaintance a second time, I think I told you last year, when I had the privilege of addressing some of yous that I considered myself a fellow-labourer like you. Perhaps you are labourers not by choice but by some compulsion. But I entertain such a high regard for labour. I entertain great respect for the dignity of labour that I have thrown in my lot with the labourers and for many, many years now I have lived in their midst like them labouring with my hands and with my feet. In labouring with your bodies you are simply following the law of your being, and there is not the slightest reason for you to feel dissatisfied with your lot. Oo the contrary, I would ask you to regard yourselves as trustees for the nation for which you are labouring. A nation may do without its millionaires and without its capitalists, but a nation can never do without its labour. But there is one fundamental distinction between your labour and my labour. You are labouring for some one else. But I consider that I am labouring for myself. Then I am my own master. And in a natural state we should all find ourselves our own masters. But such a state of things
