Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1850495947

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-233603

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: His Majesty's Stationery Off.

Year of publication:: 1931

Scope:: xviii, 580 S.; graph. Darst., Kt.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter XIV. - Health and welfare of the industrial worker

Collection:: Economics Books

2) CHAPTER XIV. the time for inaction and delay is past and that, particularly in regard to housing, it is imperative that an immediate beginning should be made. To those who assert that India cannot afford to spend more on public health. we would reply that she can no longer afford to do otherwise. The Importance of Health. In dealing with particular branches of industry we have had occasion to refer to a number of specific subjects relating to health, more particularly those concerning the worker while actually at work. We deal in this chapter with the wider general subject of the health of the industrial worker in its relation both to his welfare and to his work. This is a matter of cardinal importance to the worker himself, but it is scarcely less important to others directly or indirectly associated with industrial development and national progress. Government, employers and workers are all directly interested in promoting better standards of life and in reducing the losses sustained through sickness, accident and death in the industrial army. The problems associated with health are always difficult ; they are much more so in a country where both climate and the poverty and ignorance of the people contribute to recurring outbreaks of tropical and other epidemic diseases. Physique. Before suggesting methods for improving the health of the indus- brial worker, it is necessary to give some consideration to the important questions of his physique and dietary. We have had some difficulty in arriving at a fair estimate of the average physical condition, because of the variations which exist between different sections of the population and, indeed, between different races and castes working in the same industrial concern. We have observed that many industrial workers are neither the sons nor the grandsons of town-dwellers ; they have migrated from the villages and have only temporarily severed their connection with the land. They are to some extent selected immigrants. The move to the city requires a certain degree of enterprise and courage ; and most of those who go are, by their age and physique, better qualified than the average villager to face the more trying conditions inherent in industrial life. In addition the period of exile is often restricted in duration. The sowing and harvesting seasons, sickness, news of the illness or death of a relative may all lead to a return home. Some workers return every year, others every two or three years, and there is a constant stream from village to city and back again. These factors all play a selective part and tend to favour the appearance of a moderately good physique in many of the men industrially employed. Other influences work in an opposite direction. More often than not the villager lives under a burden of debt, and economic pressure and want compel a low standard of living which renders him unfit for hard work. He has perforce to accustom himself to a diet deficient in quality and often in quantity. Although cattle exist in enormous numbers, milk supplies are inadequate, and the villager is rarely able to obtain a sufficiency of the important animal fats contained in pure milk and ght. His staple grain diet may be supplemented from one source or another with small

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