MINES. 
111 
in a lead process by the medical staff of the Corporation. The manages 
ment has also established a system of periodical medical inspection with a 
view to excluding persons who appear to be suffering from lead poisoning 
or constitutionally unsuited to employment in alead process. In spite of 
these precautions, however, a number of cases of poisoning are report- 
ed annually and additional measures appear to be necessary. Secondly, 
we observed that, in applying the Mines and Factories Acts to the Shan 
States, sections 23 and 28 of the former and sections 21, 22, 27, 28, 31 and 
35 of the latter have not been applied. These sections include the pro- 
vision for a weekly holiday and the limitation of weekly hours in mines, 
and all the important provisions relating to hours and holidays in fac- 
tories. We were unable to ascertain the grounds on which these exemp- 
tions were made, and we recommend that the omission of these sections 
be now reconsidered. 
Mineral Oil. 
Petroleum is produced in India in the Punjab, in Assam and in 
Burma, nearly 9/10ths of the output coming from Burma. We received 
very full memoranda and every facility for enquiry from the Burmah Oil 
Company, which, with its associated Company in Assam, is responsible for 
about 4/5ths of the Indian output. We visited a small subsidiary field 
in Assam, and the main field at Yenangyaung, on the east bank of the 
Irrawaddy. What we say below must not be read as necessarily appli- 
sable to other companies, from which we received no evidence. Yenang- 
yaung is dependent entirely on the oil wells and a pipe line 260 miles long 
conveys the oil to the large refineries near Rangoon. The field is thickly 
studded with rigs, the wells numbering nearly 2,500 in this small areq. 
The settlement of the Burmah Oil Company includes offices and workshops, 
housing for the staff and more than half the workers, recreation grounds 
and a large and well-equipped hospital. Approximately half the em- 
ployees are Burmans and half Indians, the proportion of skilled labour 
being high. The normal week is one of 56 hours, worked either in 
8 hour shifts or in five 10 hour days with a short Saturday. Some 
15% of those employed work 8 hour shifts on continuous processes, 
without a rest day. Practically no women or children are employed. 
After a period of labour unrest, the Company decided in 1923 
that it was essential to get into closer touch with the workers and the 
conditions under which they work. They therefore established a labour 
bureau with a labour superintendent in charge, whose duties include all 
engagements and dismissals as well as the numerous tasks ordinarily 
undertaken by a welfare officer. We were informed that, from the 
Company’s point of view, the superintendent is the representative of the 
workers, and it is his business to find out their needs and aspirations 
and to endeavour to obtain Justice for them. The experiment appears to 
us to be justifying itself by the results obtained. Of the 17,000 workers 
employed by this Company on the actual oilfields, about 12% are sub- 
ject to the Factories Act, but the bulk of their workers and of those em- 
Ployed by other oil companies are subject to no statutory control in the 
matter of hours and health and to few statutory regulations in respect of