Report of the Committee of the Muslim Chamber of Commerce 1941

Abstract

It has been my privilege to welcome you to the Annual General Meeting of the Chamber on more than one occasion. But in doiDg so to-day I am conscious of the great honour done me when you again entrusted me with the responsibilities attached to the office of the President of this Chamber, for 1940, and I sincerely believe that if it were not for the co-operation I received from the Committee and members of the Chamber, I would not have been able to discharge the onerous duties to any degree of satisfaction. The Report and the Audited Statement of Accounts and the Balance Sheet which have been in your hands for some time clearly indicate the measure of success we have achieved in the working of this institution. The year which has just closed has seen changes which would have been hard to believe if they- had not happened in our own life time. The fate of countries and peoples is hanging in the balance and besides the enormous destruction that, has been going on in countries engaged in the war, there are other factors which have changed the complexion and the nature of problems in almost all spheres of human activity. It is not, therefore, possible to speak of trade and commerce on the basis of theories and principles which we all had learnt to cherish as fundamentals governing the economic relationship of countries and peoples. We can, at best, try to grasp the present difficulties and devise means to tackle them. Events have moved in Europe with such dramatic suddeness in the year under review that it was not possible to apply remedies to keep pace with them. The reverses experienced in Europe, coming one after the other, culminated in the fall of France' in May-June. This was a signal for disruption, prices fell and markets crashed which resulted in the dislocation of the entire export trade. India lost most of her European markets and trading with the few remaining countries has become extremely difficult. The loss of these markets has cost India Bs. 32 crores per annum. The gap which has been thus created is hard to fill up.