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CHAPTER VIII, 
On all grounds, we recommend the gradual supersession of the raising 
contractor as such, and the substitution of what ig known as sarkar: 
working. 
Labour Officers, 
If the raising contractor is eliminated, it will ordinarily be 
hecessary to strengthen the management in order to carry out the fune- 
tions he performed. There are very few mines employing raising con- 
tractors where the time of the manager is not fully occupied already, 
and we recognise that his other duties would normally make it impossible 
for him to give adequate personal attention to labour matters. In some 
cases we fear that the manager is imperfectly acquainted with the languages 
native to the workers. This may be one of the reasons for the survival 
of the raising contractor, but it does not make him indispensable. We 
recommend that in every important mine there should be a salaried 
officer directly responsible to the management for the supervision of 
labour, both in and outside the mine. There may be some among the 
existing labour contractors who are qualified by experience and tempera- 
ment for such positions ; but, whoever is appointed, it is essential that 
be should be able to secure and maintain the confidence of the workers, 
Regularity of Working. 
So far as working time is concerned, the principal aim should 
be greater regularity. The combined effect of seasonal absences and the 
short week worked by most miners is to reduce the number of the average 
miner’s working days to well below half the days of the year. Hours 
of work (with which we deal later) are also frequently irregular. These 
irregularities are disliked by coal owners and managers, but it is possible 
that the employment of raising contractors tends to obscure the extent 
to which they handicap the industry. In overhead charges, in the cost 
of housing and sanitation and in other ways the employment of men 
working, perhaps, on 150 days in the year greatly enhances the cost 
and lowers the remuneration of labour. Greater regularity of work 
would be to the immediate advantage both of employers and employed. 
We can put forward no panacea which will effect a revolution in 
the present irregular methods of work ; but there are directions along 
which progress is possible. In the first place, irregular daily attendance 
is associated with long working days. So long as a man, on the days 
when he goes underground, is required, or even permitted, to remain 
there for 12 hours at a stretch, it is unreasonable to expect him to present 
himself for work on 6 days of the week, even if it were legal for him to work 
more than 54 hours a week. No worker, least of all one who is drawn 
from the open fields, is likely to be ready, save in cases of dire necessity, 
regularly to spend long hours underground. The shortening of hours, 
therefore, to which we refer later, appears essential if greater regularity 
of attendance is to be secured. 
Drink and Drugs. 
A second factor, which has some influence on the regularity of 
work, is the consumption of intoxicating liquor. The extent of the