CHAPTER II.—MIGRATION AND THE FACTORY WORKER.
(1) DISTRIBUTION OF FACTORIES.
We consider in this and the three following chapters the labour
employed in what may be described as perennial factories, i.c., we
exclude from ccrsideration at present all the factories which, dealing
mainly with agricultural products in the raw state, work for part of the
year only and we also exclude all those establishments which either use
no mechanical power or, using power, employ less than 20 persons.
Unfortunately the available statistics do not classify perennial and
seasonal factories separately. They classify factories in groups according
bo their products, and while large groups of factories are entirely perennial
and others entirely or predominantly seasonal, there are groups which
include both seasonal and perennial factories. The figures for the peren-
nial groups are as follows :(—
Industries.
Cotton spinning and weaving
Jute spinning and weaving
Other textiles
Textiles ..
Engineering and Metal Works
Others (Non-textiles) .
Total
Factories,
2905
05
AK
A58
R'71
1.122
2.451
Average
daily
number
employed.
338,000
347.000
11,000
696,000
315.000
155,000
1,166,000
The above figures and others given throughout this chapter relate
to 1929 except when otherwise stated.
We give in Chapter VI some statistics of the predominantly
seasonal and partially seasonal groups. Making an estimate of the
number of factories included in these groups which are really perennial,
we believe the number of perennial factory workers to be approximately
2 million and a quarter and the number of perennial factories to be in the
neighbourhood of 3,500. Roughly speaking, then, the workers in the
cotton spinning and weaving mills. the jute mills and the engineering