CHAPTER XXIV. 
for the administration of the Factories Act, the Trade Unions Act and the 
Workmen’s Compensation Act in the principal industrial centres where 
there is insufficient work to justify a specialist officer for this purpose. 
He would also be responsible, with such additional staff as might be re- 
quired, for the collection, collation and publication of all labour statistics 
and general intelligence. He should be empowered under the Factories 
Act and other Acts, if necessary, to enter all industrial establishments 
and should be generally accessible both to employers and labour. He 
should also act as a conciliation officer and undertake those duties 
to which we have referred in dealing with trade disputes. He will then 
be qualified and should be expected to act as the chief adviser of Govern- 
ment in all labour matters. He should have his permanent office in 
the chief industrial centre of the province. 
Whole-time and Part-time Appointments. 
As we have observed, there is already a Commissioner of Labour 
in Madras, and in three other provinces there are appointments which 
can be converted into such commissionerships. Of the provinces where 
an entirely new appointment is required, the need is greatest in Bihar 
and Orissa and the United Provinces. In the Central Provinces and the 
Punjab, owing to their smaller industrial importance, even the duties 
we have enumerated may not justify a whole-time appointment. If, 
here or elsewhere, part-time appointments have to be made, we urge 
that the principle advocated by us be followed, namely, that there 
should be an officer with expert knowledge of labour matters who should 
be retained in the post for a reasonably long period. As regards combina- 
tion with other duties, we have noted the tendency in some provinces 
to give the Director of Industries responsibility for labeur matters, and 
we recognise that this officer’s work tends to give him familiarity with 
certain aspects of labour. But in our opinion this combination is undesir- 
able, as the officer who properly discharges his duties in the one appoint- 
ment tends to diminish his own usefulness in the other. We therefore 
recommend that this combination be avoided. A better combination 
would be to give the Labour Commissioner some secretariat duties. 
A number of officers in various provinces combine administrative and 
secretariat functions and the combination, though not an ideal one, 
gives the administrative officer closer contact with Government and 
reduces the amount of correspondence necessary. 
Duties of Central Labour Commissioner. 
We recommend a somewhat similar appointment for the 
Central Government. The Government of India retain expert advisers 
in what are primarily provincial subjects such as education and 
public health, but they have no such officer in respect of labour matters, 
for which they have a considerable measure of direct responsibility. 
Whatever the allocation of subjects in future, we believe that the Govern- 
ment of India will retain some measure of responsibility for labour. 
They are likely to remain by far the largest employers of labour in India, 
and have responsibilities in the minor provinces. A Labour Commissioner.