BURMA AND INDIA. 429 
Employment through Intermediaries. 
The indirect employment of unskilled labour is a feature of 
industry in Burma, and especially in Rangoon. The great bulk of 
the Indian labour is pot engaged and often is not paid by the principal 
employer; he employs a maistry or a contractor and the labour 
is generally engaged by sub-maistries or sub-contractors. There are 
one or two striking exceptions, such as, for example, the Burmah Oil 
Company. But broadly speaking, there is no part of India where 
responsibility for labour is delegated to the extent prevailing in 
Burma. The extreme caseis that of the leading factory industry, 
rice milling. Here the head maistry who, on getting the contract, 
deposits a substantial sum of money, is responsible for the 
supply of unskilled labour. He may sub-let the contract, but whether 
he does or not, most of the labour owes its engagement to men who have 
no contractual relations with the employer. They hold the labour with 
the assistance of different types of monetary agreements, and the labourers 
are generally in debt to them. Mr. Bennison. in the report to which we 
have referred. states that :— 
“ Practically all the paddy carriers and the bagging and stitching coolies are in- 
debted to their sub-maistries.. .. The paddy carriers recrnited in India always arrive 
in this country indebted to the sub-maistries and usnally remain so for the rest of their 
lives. - Whenever they want to return to India, the sub-maistry allows them only 
an condition that thev come back when required.” 
Direct Payment of Wages. 
As has been noted elsewhere, the employment of labour through 
intermediaries tends generally to diminish the prospect of that labour 
securing reasonable conditions. This is especially applicable to the 
immigrant labour employed in Burma. Labour conditions for Indian 
immigrants are unlikely to be satisfactory until the employers assume a 
much greater measure of responsibility. The first and most obvious 
measure of responsibility is in respect of the payment of wages. So long 
as the worker is dependent for the reward of his labour on a subordinate 
agent of an employer, to whom he may be indebted and without whom he 
can neither obtain nor retain employment, there is little security 
against abuse. The first aim, therefore, should be the introduction of a 
system of direct payment of wages. In many cases employers, by assum- 
ing responsibility for the payment of wages and by controlling rates, 
could secure higher earnings for labour without additional cost. We 
recommend that Government approach the employers with a view to 
securing reform without legislation, and that, if this fails, the question 
of legislation for direct payment in certain sections of industry be 
taken up. The difficulty here is likely to be ome of enforcement, 
but even the compulsory maintenance of wage registers and insistence on 
payment by an approved agent of the employer would be of considerable 
value. It is relevant to observe that the protection of workers against 
anfair deductions from wages will be difficult to enforce in some Burmese 
industries unless some action is taken to secure more direct pay- 
ment