127
The Exclusion of Women.
The second important change recently made in the law relating
to mines is the introduction of the regulations for the prohibition of
employment of women underground. Power to make such regulations was
given in the Act of 1901 and renewed in 1923, but it was not exercised until
1929 when, after long discussion, the Governor General in Council made
the present regulations. Their effect is to exclude women from underground
workings forthwith, except in exempted mines, 7.e., except in coal mines
m Bengal, Bihar and Orissa and the Central Provinces and salt mines in
the Punjab. In these exempted mines the exclusion is to be gradual ; the
employment of women underground after 1st J uly 1929 has been limited
to a percentage of the total underground labour force, 29% in coal mines
and 40%, in salt, to be reduced by 3%, and 4% respectively each year, so
that after 1st July 1939 women will be entirely excluded from underoround
 workings.

Effects in Metalliferous Mines.
The exempted mines included all but 3,000 women employed
underground in 1928. Of these 3,000, nine-tenths worked in the mica
mines. The owners informed us that they would find difficulty in replacing
 the women workers, but the Chief Inspector’s report for 1929
seems to indicate that this difficulty is being surmounted. In the
Punjab salt mines, where we found some difficulty in obtaining accurate
figures of the numbers of women employed, we were told that the question
 of exclusion was not expected to arise for one or two years : meanwhile
 fresh women workers were being emploved. We recommend that
this practice be discontinued

Effects in Collieries.

In collieries, the immediate results of the regulation have
exceeded expectations and the table below gives the relevant figures
of average numbers employed.

Women.

Men.

Category of workers.

Underground
Open workings
Surface

w 5

Total

1998.

28,408
2 019

a.

=

19.572

1920

21,880 °

7.945

- R52

te

1928

68,727

9.443

36,007

5. 14.287

1929.

75,022
10,793

37,366
423,181

——

The effects of this change must be increasingly felt as time goes
on, but in some directions are not difficult to foresee. First and most

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