It is not quite clear from the above what the notions of the correspondent are about the economic and political power of this country. We cannot imagine him to seriously believe--though his argument runs as if he does--that that power can be achieved without feeding and clothing the millions of our half-starving and half-naked men, women and children. The political and economic power of a nation depends even in this "age of mechanical industrialism," not on its powerful machines but on its powerful men. Germany was equipped with the best and most powerful and modern machinery, but it failed because at the last moment the power of its nation failed. We want to organise our national power. This can be done not by adopting the best methods of production only but by the best method of _both_ the production and the distribution. Production that is the manufacture of cloth in this particular instance can be brought about in two ways; (1) by establishing new mills and increasing the output or producing capacity of each mill and (2) by increasing the number of hand-looms and improving them. All these activities can go together. The notion of a competition between the hand-loom and the power mill has been shown by such an eminent economist as Prof. Radha Kamal Mukerjea to be "altogether wrong." Says Mr. Mukerjea in his _Foundations of Indian Economics_: "The hand-loom does not compete with the mill, it supplements it in the following way: (1) It produces special kinds of goods which cannot be woven in the mills. (2) It utilizes yarn below and above certain counts which cannot at present be used on the power-mill. (3) It will consume the surplus stock of Indian spinning mills which need not then be sent out of the country. (4) Being mainly a village-industry, it supplies the local demand, at the same time gives employment to small capitalists, weavers and other village workmen and (5) lastly it will supply the long-felt want of, and honest field of, work and livelihood for educated Indians."