102

CHAPTER VII.

be employed except between 9 A.M. and 12-30 P.M. and again between
1-30 p.M. and 5 p.M., and the manager of any factory in which children
were discovered working outside those limits would be liable to prosecution.
 We believe that a provision of this kind would prove as easy to
enforce as any other that could be devised, for surprise visits to factories
at hours lying outside those prescribed by the provincial Government
would ordinarily be sufficient to ensure compliance with the law.

Homework and Overtime.

We further recommend that no child who had been employed
full time in a factory should be allowed to work overtime or to take work
home after factory hours. The criticism of unenforceability might be
made against this latter requirement since it is possible for work to be
taken away by the child ostensibly for a homeworking member of
the family, and no control could be exercised on the child’s activities
once he had left the factory premises. This criticism, however, has
applied in the past with almost equal strength in other countries, and
yet the very existence of such a clause, taken in conjunction with
factory legislation, has ultimately proved to have an educative effect.
There is no need to anticipate less good results in India.
Pledging of Child Labour.

Reference has been made to the existence in some of these factories
of a system of mortgaging thelabour of children. The system is indefensible
 ; it is worse than the system of indentured labour, for the indentured
 labourer is, when he enters on the contract, a free agent while
the child is not. The State would be justified in adopting strong measures
to eradicate this evil. The giving of advances to secure the labour of
shildren and the execution of bonds pledging such labour could both be
made criminal offences. But, as there may be other questions of policy
to be taken into account, we commend the proposal for examination
by Government. In any case we recommend that a bond pledging
the labour of any person under the age of 15 years, executed for
or on account of the receipt of any consideration, should be void.
This will not interfere with any honest system of apprenticeship, for
in the cases where a bond is executed on behalf of an apprentice, any
preliminary payment is made by and not to the parent or guardian of the
apprentice. This recommendation is intended for application not merely
to work in the factories mentioned in this chapter, but generally. Unfortunately,
 there is evidence that similar abuses have occurred in
connection with the employment of children in «ome of the Ahmedabad
aotton mills.

Weekly Holidays.

We also recommend that in every factory of this kind there
should be a weekly holiday. This is particularly necessary for
children, but there is no reason why it should not apply to adults also,
wind we recommend that all such factories should be entirely closed