332 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
before the Conference in order to ascertain the opinion of the different Parties to those measures. The same, Sir, has been the case with regard to this particular measure. I have no particular information with me now as to how many times this measure had come before the Standing Labour Committee or the Labour Conference but I have not the slightest doubt in my mind that this measure was discussed threadbare in one of the two bodies (I forget which). We had come to know that the cotton millowners had certain difficulties and certain objections and it was to meet their point of view that a particular amendment was made. Having regard to that, I do not think that there is any substance in the point made by the mover of this amendment. As I said, if that was the ground and the sole ground, I would have resisted, but, Sir, the debate as it developed has taken a very curious turn.
Prof. N. G. Ranga (Guntur-cum-Nellore : Non-Muhammdan Rural): A very welcome turn.
The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : It is probably a welcome turn. I have noticed from the speeches that have been made from different part of the House that there is now a regular competition in love for labour. One section says one thing and another raises it as though it was an auction by making a higher bid and third one still further.
An Honourable Member : You can bid higher.
The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : In all these debates I am rather unhappy that there were persons in the House who were members of the Royal Commission and who ought to have taken a personal interest in seeing that the measures which they had recommended when they were members of the Commission were put forth, if not from the Government side, at least from the non-official side, should turn my inside out and represent that I was a Tory of Tories. I do not accept that charge but I do feel that it is necessary that this Bill should go to Select Committee so that all the statements that have been made, the claims that have been put forth and the view points that have been urged should be put to the test of actual voting in order to see whether the sentiments that have beeen expressed are mere sentiments or that they arc real convictions. If I did not do so, it is open to the members of the Opposition side to say that as I was a Tory and do not want to advance the Bill beyond the limits that have been fixed, that I on that