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in a lead process by the medical staff of the Corporation. The manages
ment has also established a system of periodical medical inspection with a
view to excluding persons who appear to be suffering from lead poisoning
or constitutionally unsuited to employment in alead process. In spite of
these precautions, however, a number of cases of poisoning are reported
 annually and additional measures appear to be necessary. Secondly,
we observed that, in applying the Mines and Factories Acts to the Shan
States, sections 23 and 28 of the former and sections 21, 22, 27, 28, 31 and
35 of the latter have not been applied. These sections include the provision
 for a weekly holiday and the limitation of weekly hours in mines,
and all the important provisions relating to hours and holidays in factories.
 We were unable to ascertain the grounds on which these exemptions
 were made, and we recommend that the omission of these sections
be now reconsidered.
Mineral Oil.
Petroleum is produced in India in the Punjab, in Assam and in
Burma, nearly 9/10ths of the output coming from Burma. We received
very full memoranda and every facility for enquiry from the Burmah Oil
Company, which, with its associated Company in Assam, is responsible for
about 4/5ths of the Indian output. We visited a small subsidiary field
in Assam, and the main field at Yenangyaung, on the east bank of the
Irrawaddy. What we say below must not be read as necessarily applisable
 to other companies, from which we received no evidence. Yenangyaung
 is dependent entirely on the oil wells and a pipe line 260 miles long
conveys the oil to the large refineries near Rangoon. The field is thickly
studded with rigs, the wells numbering nearly 2,500 in this small areq.
The settlement of the Burmah Oil Company includes offices and workshops,
housing for the staff and more than half the workers, recreation grounds
and a large and well-equipped hospital. Approximately half the employees
 are Burmans and half Indians, the proportion of skilled labour
being high. The normal week is one of 56 hours, worked either in
8 hour shifts or in five 10 hour days with a short Saturday. Some
15% of those employed work 8 hour shifts on continuous processes,
without a rest day. Practically no women or children are employed.
After a period of labour unrest, the Company decided in 1923
that it was essential to get into closer touch with the workers and the
conditions under which they work. They therefore established a labour
bureau with a labour superintendent in charge, whose duties include all
engagements and dismissals as well as the numerous tasks ordinarily
undertaken by a welfare officer. We were informed that, from the
Company’s point of view, the superintendent is the representative of the
workers, and it is his business to find out their needs and aspirations
and to endeavour to obtain Justice for them. The experiment appears to
us to be justifying itself by the results obtained. Of the 17,000 workers
employed by this Company on the actual oilfields, about 12% are subject
 to the Factories Act, but the bulk of their workers and of those em-Ployed
 by other oil companies are subject to no statutory control in the
matter of hours and health and to few statutory regulations in respect of