10
*The Indian Finance Bill
The Honourable Dr. B.R. Ambedkar (Labour Member) : Sir, I rise to reply to the criticism made by Honourable Members during the course of this debate on certain points or acts of commission and omission with which the Labour Department is concerned. Sir, I will begin with the points raised by Sir Frederick James. As the House is aware so far as the Labour Department is concrened these were two points to which he devoted special attention. The first one is the point which relates to paper. Sir Frederick James paid great attention to the point how Government of India was extravagant in the use of paper and how in every direction Government was responsible for what he called waste. Sir, this question of paper, as the House will recall, was once debated in the course of this Session on an adjournment motion when I gave a reply on behalf of Government. It is quite clear that my Honourable friend Sir Frederick James was not satisfied with the reply that Government then gave and has returned to the subject again. I make no complaint of his returning to the subject again for I am glad that it does give me another opportunity to explain what Government is doing in the matter of conservation of paper. Sir, before I enter into the subject matter it might be desirable to tell the House that as far as I have any information it seems to me that the House is exhibiting, if I may say so, a certain degree of over-anxiety that there is a shortage of paper, but I am not quite convinced that there is what we might call acute suffering in the matter. It might be interesting to the House, if I present to Honourable Members a few figures with regard to the publications that have been issued in Great Britain and in India. Sir, in 1939 in Great Britain, fifteen thousand books were issued and in 1940 eleven thousand were issued, in 1941 the figure was fourteen
*Legislative Assembly Debates (Central), Vol. II, 16th March 1943, pp. 1130-34