16

CHAPTER VII,

day, and debilitation is often experienced after 3 or 4 months of regular
work ”. In both provinces the workers are unorganised, but some of
the employers are persons of education and,in at least one province, are
well organised. We understand that suggestions made by the local
Government for improving the sanitary and general conditions of the
factories in a particular area have so far met with no response.

“Bidi ’ Making,
The making of the bids (the indigenous cigarette) is an industry
widely spread over the country. - It is partly carried on in the home,
but mainly in workshops in the bigger cities and towns. Every type
of building is used, but small workshops preponderate and it is here
that the graver problems mainly arise. Many of these places are
small airless boxes, often without any windows, where the workers
are crowded so thickly on the ground that there is barely room to
squeeze between them. Others are dark semi-basements with damp
mud floors unsuitable for manufacturing processes, particularly in an
industry where workers sit or squat on the floor throughout the working
 day. Sanitary conveniences and adequate arrangements for removal
 of refuse are generally absent. Payment is almost universally
made by piece-rates, the hours are frequently unregulated by the employer
and many smaller workshops are open day and night. Regular intervals
 for meals and weekly holidays are generally non-existent. In
the case of adults these matters are automatically regulated by individual
 circumstances, the worker coming and going as he pleases and
often, indeed, working in more than one place in the course of the week.
Nevertheless in the case of full-time workers, ¢.e., those not using bids
making as a supplementary source of income, the hours are too frequently
 unduly long, the length of the working day being determined by
the worker’s own poverty and the comparatively low yield of the piecerates
 paid. ‘
Child Labour in “ Bidi ”’ Factories.
The paramount matter for concern, however, in a number of
areas, particularly in the Madras Presidency, is the question of child
(i.e., boy) labour. In many cities large numbers of young boys are
employed for long hours and discipline is strict. Indeed there is reason
to believe that corporal punishments and other disciplinary measures
of a reprehensible kind are sometimes resorted to in the case of the
smaller children. Workers as young as five years of age may be found
in some of these places working without adequate meal intervals or
weekly rest days, and often for 10 or 12 hours daily, for sums as low as
2 annas in the case of those of tenderest years. This recalls some of
the worst features of child apprenticeship in Engiand at the time of the
agitation prior to the passing of the first Factory Act, particularly when
it is realised that many of the parents of these child workers are in
debt to the employer. As a result they are not in a position to enquire
too closely into the treatment meted out to their children or to do other
than return an absconding child. Although it is impossible to give
sven an approximate ficure of the numbers of such child workers in the