REPORT ON AN ENQUIRY INTO THE WAGES AND HOURS OF 
LABOUR IN THE COITON MILL INDUSTRY IN 1926 
CHAPTER I 
Method of Conducting the Enquiry 
The Labour Office of the Government of Bombay conducted enquiries 
into Wages and Hours of Labour in the Cotton Mill Industry in the 
Presidency in 1921 and 1923, the Labour Office itself having been formed 
in April 1921. The method of obtaining the information in both enquiries 
was that of the schedule. Forms were sent to all the mills setting out the 
information that was required and these forms were filled up and returned 
by the mills, being followed up, in many cases, by visits from the 
Investigators of the Labour Office. Two reports containing the results 
of these investigations have been published and in them will be found 
details of the method followed and the results obtained. 
2. An entirely different method has been adopted for the present 
report because a careful examination of the forms used and the results 
obtained in the earlier enquiries, combined with the experience gained 
as the result of those enquiries by the Labour Office, and a more extended 
acquaintance with the complicated and confusing system of wage 
payments in the Textile Industry, led to the conclusion that the only 
satisfactory method of securing accurate wage statistics in the Textile 
Industry was to obtain those statistics from the muster-rolls themselves 
and to tabulate the results in the Labour Office. The ideal method is, 
of course, to obtain copies of the muster-rolls for a particular wage period 
for every concern in the industry that is being covered. The practical 
objection to this is the impossibility of handling the mass of figures that 
would have to be tabulated, unless a very large staff was engaged on the 
work—a staff far exceeding that possessed by the Labour Office. The 
only alternative is the sample, a well recognised method ok statistical 
enquiry. As has been pointed out by the International Labour Office, 
“ As it is not practicable to make frequent wage censuses concerning all 
undertakings in a given industry or groups of industries, the sampling 
method is generally adopted, representative establishments being selected 
in each district in which the industry is important.” In the United 
States, where the collection of statistics is far advanced, only 15 per cent. 
of the total number of persons employed in the cotton manufacturing 
establishments in the United States were covered by the last census in 
that industry. 
3. The Labour Office accordingly addressed a comprehensive letter 
on the subject to the Bombay Millowners’ Association on the 12th May 
1926 enquiring— 
(1) whether the month of June would be a suitable month for the 
enquiry, 
(2) whether muster-rolls could be adopted as the basis of the 
enquiry, and 
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