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 Minto's administration, owing, doubtless, to the absorbing claims of the political situation and of political reforms.
In speaking in the Calcutta Council on a resolution for the establishment of a great Polytechnic College, the Home Member was able to point to a fairly long list of measures taken at no small cost by the State to promote technical education in all parts of India, and he rightly urged that there would be little use in creating a sort of technical University until a larger proportion of students had qualified for it by taking advantage of the more elementary courses already provided for them. His answer would, however, have been more convincing could he have shown that existing institutions are always adequately equipped and that considered schemes which have the support of the best Indian as well as of the best official opinion are not subjected to merely dilatory objections at headquarters. Three years ago, after the Naini Tal Industrial Conference, the most representative ever perhaps held in India, Sir John Hewett, who had been made Lieutenant-Governor of the United Provinces after having been the first to hold the new portfolio of Commerce and Industry, developed a scheme for the creation of a Technological College at Cawnpore, which met with unanimous approval. Nothing has yet been done to give effect to it, and it was not only the Indian but many of the European members, official as well as unofficial, of the Viceroy's Legislative Council who sympathized with Mr. Mudholkar's protest when he asked with some bitterness what must be the impression produced in India by the shelving of a scheme that was supported by men of local experiences by the head of the Provincial Government, and by the Government of India, because people living 6,000 miles away did not consider it to be absolutely flawless.