338 CHAPTER XVHL

appointed in Bengal in March 1921 and in Bombay in November 1921 to
consider the possibility of alleviating industrial unrest. Reference has
already been made to the stress laid by the former committee on the
formation of works committees. This committee was opposed to the
intervention of Government in private industrial disputes, except when
both parties desired outside intervention, but it suggested the formation
of a conciliation panel to deal with disputes in public utility services. A
panel was formed and re-constituted every year until 1929, but its services
were never utilised. The Bombay committee advocated the establishment
 by statute of industrial courts. With the diminution of strikes in
1922-23, both public and official interest in the matter tended to languish
until a serious strike in the Bombay cotton mills in 1924 led to the preparation
 of a bill by the provincial Government for introduction in the Legislative
 Council. The bill was withheld at the instance of the Government
of India, who circulated in the same year an all-India bill based in part on
the British Industrial Courts Act. They expressed their intention to introduce
 the measure, with any modifications required in the Central Legislature,
 in the beginning of 1925. We do not propose to refer to the particulars
 of these proposals because it was not until 1928 that any bill was
actually introduced, and the one then sponsored by the Government of
India differed from their earlier draft in a number of important respects.
The Trade Disputes Act.
The main part of this measure, which passed into law in 1929, is
modelled to a large extent on the British Industrial Courts Aet, but it does
not provide for any standing Industrial Court. Disputes can be referred
either to Courts of Enquiry or to Boards of Conciliation. Courts of Enguiry,
 which are appointed to enquire and report into specific matters
referred to them, consist of one or more independent persons. Boards of
Conciliation consist of an independent chairman and ordinarily of other
members who may be either independent or may represent parties to
the dispute. It is their duty to endeavour to investigate the dispute,
primarily with a view to its settlement and secondly with a view to
enlightening the public regarding its merits. The Act also contains
provisions rendering punishable by fine or imprisonment lightning strikes
or lock-outs in certain public utility services and embodies provisions
aimed at the prevention of general strikes ; the latter are based on some
of the clauses of the British Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act of
1927. Up to the end of 1929, the Act has been used on three occasions.
The Bombay Government in that year appointed a Court of Enquiry
consisting of a High Court Judge and two other independent members, to
investigate a number of matters connected with the prolonged general
strike in the Bombay cotton mills. A Board of Conciliation, consisting
of a retired High Court Judge as chairman and representatives of the two
parties, was appointed at the end of 1929 with reference to a dispute on
the B. B. and C. I. Railway. It was unable to effect an agreed settlement,
 and the members themselves differed on certain points. Another
Board of Conciliation was appointed by the Government of Burma in
July 1930 in connection with a serious dispute among the dock workers.