With such extraordinarily low wages and long hours of labour it might at first sight seem as though, given adequate capital and up-to-date machinery, the Orient could not only drive Occidental products from Eastern markets but might invade Western markets as well. This, indeed, has been the fear of many Western writers. Nearly three-quarters of a century ago Gobineau prophesied an industrial invasion of Europe from Asia,[220] and of late years economists like H. N. Brailsford have warned against an emigration of Western capital to the tempting lure of factory conditions in Eastern lands.[221] Nevertheless, so far as the Near and Middle East is concerned, nothing like this has as yet materialized. China, to be sure, may yet have unpleasant surprises in store for the West,[222] but neither the Moslem world nor India have developed factory labour with the skill, stamina, and assiduity sufficient to undercut the industrial workers of Europe and America. In India, for example, despite a swarming and poverty-stricken population, the factories are unable to recruit an adequate or dependable labour-supply. Says M. Metin: "With such long hours and low wages it might be thought that Indian industry would be a formidable competitor of the West. This is not so. The reason is the bad quality of the work. The poorly paid coolies are so badly fed and so weak that it takes at least three of them to do the work of one European. Also, the Indian workers lack not only strength but also skill, attention, and liking for their work.... An Indian of the people will do anything else in preference to becoming a factory operative. The factories thus get only the dregs of the working class. The workers come to the factories and mines as a last resort; they leave as soon as they can return to their prior occupations or find a more remunerative employment. Thus the factories can never count on a regular labour-supply. Would higher wages remedy this? Many employers say no--as soon as the workers got a little ahead they would quit, either temporarily till their money was spent, or permanently for some more congenial calling."[223] These statements are fully confirmed by an Indian economic writer, who says: "One of the greatest drawbacks to the establishment of large industries in India is the scarcity and inefficiency of labour. Cheap labour, where there is no physical stamina, mental discipline, and skill behind it, tends to be costly in the end. The Indian labourer is mostly uneducated. He is not in touch with his employers or with his work. The labouring population of the towns is a flitting, dilettante population."[224]