Harijan Ahmedabad—Sunday January 26 1947

At the moment there is a considerable amount of loose thinking in regard to the expansion of the textile mills in Madras which brings to the fore the question of centralization in industries. [...] The value of the milk from the natural point of view is the same whether it is consumed by the mill-owner or the producer's child. [...] We have to think in terms of the well-being of the people irrespective of the commercial value of the product. [...] The only difficulty that has always stood in the way of the prgress of Khadi is want of a suitable agency to carry on the necessary propaganda in villages to supply to villagers at their doors the needed charkhas and other spinning requisites also cotton and to receive the yarn spun and convert it into cloth. [...] We have cotton enough idle hands enough and skill enough to make cloth in our villages." In addition to not serving the province in the direction of supplying either the required yarn or cloth these mills are doing incalculable harm to the country by attracting from the villages by thousands the flower of 'the peasantry of able-bodied men and women to the great detriment of their health and m