UNREGULATED FACTORIES. 91

regulation, here as in other countries, has been gradually to extend the
area of protection afforded to the industrially employed worker. This
principle has been effected in three ways—Dby regulation affecting specific
classes of workers, by regulation affecting specific classes of establishments
 and by powers given to local Governments to include under
such regulation smaller places of a similar kind. The value of a policy
of gradualness has been clearly demonstrated in the history of factory
legislation in India in the past and ‘the dictates of common sense and
practicability confirm us in the belief that the same policy should continue
 to actuate future developments in factory legislation, :
Utilisation of Local Governments’ Powers.
The power granted to local Governments under Section 2 (3) (b) of
the Act of 1922 to extend the Factories Act to smaller factories has been
used by different Governments in very varying degrees. The following
table shows the number of factories so notified in the veay 1929:

Madras - ..
Bombay .. »
Bengal ve wi
United Provinces ..
Punjab ve ie
Bihar and Orissa ve
Central Provinces and Berar
Assam .e wie ..
North-West Frontier Province
Ajmer-Merwara a
Delhi .. % ..
Coorg . “s “
Bangalore .. vs Hin
Burma and Baluchistan Lo.

9

uJ

1
6

* a

A

In some cases the power of notification has been used in respect
of individual establishments which have tried to evade the law by a
reduction in the number of operatives to the border line (i.e., 19 persons)
or by dividing the operatives into shifts, In other cases the Act has
been extended to groups of factories belonging to the same industry.
Types of establishments in specific industries covered by such means
in different provinces include saw-mills, type-casting foundries and yarndyeing
 premises. Most of these come under the category of those using
power machinery. A few factories which do not use machinery have
also been notified either on account of the large numbers employed or
because of the danger of the processes or for other reasons. These
include 13 hand match-making factories in the Bombay Presidency.
The inaction in some provinces is explained mainly: by the fact that the
burden of factory inspection could not be increased without adding to
the existing staff. Some examination has been made of the conditions
prevailing in specified trades hitherto industrially unregulated. Instances
 in point are enquiries made by the Central Provinces in 1923
in regard to small ginning factories, those of the Bombay and Bengal
Presidencies in 1924 into the employment of children in match factories.

Total

184.