" 24 SOCIAL SCIENTIST Along with the main findings and recommendations of the Committee, the Report encloses two appendices : the first dealing with details of strike incidence (in tabular form) and the second providing a list of witnesses examined by the Committee. Unfortunately, details of evidence collected from these witnesses are not included in the latter appendix. I do not know if they were ever published by the Committee or the Department of Industry (Government of Bengal) which was authorised for the first time to deal with labour problems of the province. On March 4, 1921, K.C. Roy Choudhury, nominated labour member of the Bengal Legislative Council, moved the following resolution in the Council : "This Council recommends to the Governor in Council that a Committee be formed to inquire into the causes of recent strikes of workmen in Bengal and to advise what remedial measures should be adopted." Explaining why such an enquiry was necessary, the mover in the course of his speech said: "Strikes and concerted refusal to work seem to be the order of the day and have lately as in the case of Tramways and Lilooah Carriage Workshop men, culminated in terrorism and violence unprecedented in the history of Bengal. It is therefore high time. Sir, that a serious and impartial enquiry into the root casue of the new industrial insurrection is made promptly and vigorously to allay panic and reassure public opinion and devise remedies." The motion was passed unanimously and the Governor appointed an Enquiry Committee consisting of nine members, including nominated labour members and representatives of British industries in the Council. It was presided over byJ.H. Kerr, Industry Member of the Government of Bengal and the report was published in July 1921. This was probably the only occasion when the Bengal Legislative Council, composed as it was of persons representing heterogeneous interests, agreed unanimously to support a motion brought forward by a non-official member. Not only that, but the government also lost no time in announcing the formation and composition of the proposed Committee, and, as we have mentioned earlier, the Committee completed its investigation and submitted its teport within four months from the date the motion was moved and accepted. Such prompt and urgent action on the part of the government indicates -how grave the situation was in the industrial belts of the province. "Strikes and concerted refusal to work" by the entire working class affecting almost all the industries, created such panic in the minds of all those who were, in some way or the other, linked directly or ideologically wi^h the "establishment", that they chose to forget all difference of race, caste or creed and joined ^ together unanimously to suggest means of restoring 'peace and order' in the arena of industrial relations. While previously for the purpose of maintaining a "peaceful relationship" between labour and capital, the government and the employers of labour could think of no other weapons in their armoury than that of repressive measures, the new situation demanded some other solution : creating appropriate (legal or semi-legal) machinery for handling labour trouble. Simultaneously, for the first time, a large section of political