FIRST SESSION OF PLENARY LABOUR CONFERENCE 105
become a social problem and its solution has occupied the thoughts of all those who believe in the betterment of human life. There has been an enormous energy spent in enunciating the rights of man and the different sorts of freedom which must be regarded as his inalienable birthright. All this, of course, is very good, very cheering. What I wish to say is that there will be very little security unless and until, to use the words of the Report of the Economic Group of the Pacific Relations Conference, these rights are translated into terms which the common man can understand, namely, peace, a house, adequate clothing, education, good health, and, above all, the right to walk with dignity on the world’s great boulevards without the fear of a fall.
For Dignified Existence
We, in India, cannot fail to recognize these problems or bypass them. We must be prepared for the revaluation of values. It will not be enough to make industrial development of India as our goal. We shall have to agree that any such industrial development shall be maintained at a socially desirable level. It will not be enough to bend our energies for the production of more wealth in India. We shall have to agree not merely to recognise the basic right of all Indians to share in that wealth as a means for a decent and dignified existence but to devise ways and means to insure him against insecurity.
Before I conclude there is one matter to which I would like to make reference. Discussions at our meetings have sometimes tended to be rather discursive and unbusinesslike.
I have no intention to be over-critical in this matter, but I would ask delegates to be as brief as possible and to keep to the point at issue. I do not wish to restrict the opportunities of any delegate to participate in the discussion and to make his contribution but I would ask you to remember that what we want to get at is the view of the delegate. He is welcome to explain his views. But the statement of his views need not always be accompanied by an elaborate chain of reasoning, at any rate where the reasoning is of the obvious kind. I am sure every one of you is as anxious as I am to make our proceedings thoroughly businesslike and thereby avoid laying ourselves open to the charge which Carlyle levelled against the House of Commons.
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