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CHAPTER VIII.

work. We should add, however, that, if the miner attended for the full
working day on six days a week, he would in most mines exceed the
legal weekly limit of hours.
Cost of Recruitment.
The cost of recruitment varies widely from mine to mine, but
it appears to be frequently in the neighbourhood of 3 or 4 annas per ton
of coal raised. It is occasionally 1 anna per ton or even less and is sometimes
 as high as 6 annas per ton. When regard is had to the wages
paid, the amount spent on recruiting must be considered high. Each
anna per ton of recruiting costs is equivalent on the average to about
10-12 annas a month for every worker employed. Although a substantial
 part of these costs, if it does not find its way to the labourer
in cash, meets expenses which he would otherwise have to bear,
the aim should be the elimination of all recruiting costs. We do not
think this an ideal impossible of attainment. In present conditions
a shortage of labour and the necessity of sending out emissaries to recruit
indicate that all is not well with an industry, and we would emphasise the
importance of making conditions sufficiently attractive to secure labour
without recourse to systematic recruitment. But some managers have
already found that the best advertisement for recruiting is not the
emissary in the distant village, but good conditions atthe mine itself.
During recent yearsimprovementsin underground working, better wages,
better housing, water-supply and sanitation, and more reasonable hours
have all contributed to make the mines more attractive to labour,
with the result that, although there is now more labour employed than
in any year before the war, it is more easily obtained than it was then.
Some of the recommendations made below should have an effect in further
improving conditions and every such improvement should reduce recruiting
costs. Indeed, some of the money so spent would be more effectively
invested in ameliorating the conditions of labour at the mines.
Tenancy and Labour.

A number of colliery proprietors own surface rights in the land
above the mine and are able to assign small holdings to a proportion
of the miners, and for a number of tenants the rendering of labour in the
mine is & condition of holding their land. This practice is fairly genera)
in the Giridih field, which is largely held by the East Indian Railway.
Here there are colliery villages entirely peopled with service tenants,
who retain their holdings at a low rent on condition of rendering a certain
number of days’ service in the mine. A few colliery owners in the
Jharia field acquired proprietary rights in land lying outside the coalfields
 with a view to securing labour for their mines from the tenants,
Enquiries made at our request by the Government of Bihar and Orissa
indicate that this method of securing labour is no longer utilised by the
collieries themselves, but at the time of our visit we understood that
contracts were still given to persons whose interest in land made it
easier for them to secure labour from their tenants. We are informed
that tenants are Increasingly ready to avail themselves of the safeguards