Madhusudan_Das

His Life and Achievements 151
Madhusudan realised the value of industrial development and
for this, he had started the Orissa Art Wares in 1897and theUtkal Tannery
in 1905 with his own resources. The Utkal Tannery supplied shoes required
by the British Army in the first World War and in all the theatres of war in
West Asia and Africa. He was such a stickler for quality that in order to
maintain the good name of the Indian products, he threw away goods
worth lakhs of rupees on account of being substandard in quality. Because
of this unbusiness like attitude, he invited insolvency upon himself,
though he had earned crores of rupees in the war period. His 'Orissa Art
Wares' was intended to provide occupation to the skilled filigree workers
of Cuttack who had earned great reputation as craftsmen. He had said, "If
a bad pair of shoes or a badly tanned hide falls into the hands of a foreigner,
he will say that the Oriyas are cheats, I cannot earn such a bad name for
my nation". 13
He had a definite approach towards industrialism. In an article
entitled War is Trade and Trade is War in 1918 Madhusudan writes —
We have ambitions for Home Rule but we don not think to what
extent we are dependent on other nations. A people or a country
which supplies only raw materials to another country for the
manufacture of necessaries, is in the lowest state of industrialism.
We cover our shame by importing cloth from other countries.
Foreign countries supply all the luxuries and necessaries that we
need every day : still we want Swaraj. What is the extent and
objective of this Swaraj ? This Swaraj cannot retain Swadeshi
industries in its hands. Unless people develop industrial
enterprises country's trade cannot develop. The capitalists are
anxious to invest all their capital in land. Land can yield only
agricultural produce; it cannot supply cloth, shoes, umbrellas or
hessian cloth. So long as the financiers or capitalists or zamindars
control the economic forces of the country, there is no hope for
the growth of commerce. It is regrettable that capital is in the
hands of those who are ignorant of the elementary principles of
economics. They are rich but they do not understand the value of
education.
In the present day, there is no real co-operation between
the hands and the brain. The artisans or the manual workers are
one class. The society has been divided as intellectuals and
workers but human progress is possible only by the cooperation