Now these commodities normally fall within the provincial sphere. They were put in the Concurrent List. In other words, if the Central Legislature thought it wise that these commodities should be controlled centrally, that could be done for a period not exceeding five years. The list of such controlled commodities as the House will recall includes eight items : foodstuffs, cotton and woollen textiles, paper, petroleum and petroleum products, spare parts of mechanically propelled vehicles, coal, iron and steel and mica. Now at one stage it was thought that raw cotton also was included within the description of cotton and woollen textiles. But later on it was pointed out that cotton and woollen textiles meant cotton textiles and woolen textiles. If it meant cotton and woollen textiles, then cotton textile would go out of the purview of such a definition : which of course would become an absurd thing. Cotton, therefore, as the law at present stands, is a commodity which can be dealt with in the provincial sphere and in that sphere alone. Last year, after textile control had been re-imposed, it was the unanimous opinion of the provinces and other parties involved that cotton also had be controlled. We had no legal power to do it. We therefore drafted a Cotton Control Order and asked the provinces to pass legislative measures in pursuance of such control order. Some provinces did so and some provinces delayed. Then the States also came into the field and it took us quite a considerable time before we could persuade all the States to adopt a similar measure. Later on when it came to giving executive directions for enforcing such control order, a lot of complications arose because the Central Government had not the legal power to pass legislation or to take executive action. The matter was referred to the Provincial Governments and the Provincial Governments now all agree that it will be desirable to put cotton as one of the centrally controlled commodities. Of course, whether cotton will continue to be controlled or not, will depend on various factors which may change from time to time.
