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CHAPTER XX, 
life and their responsibility for the chronic scarcity of labour; but it 
should be recognised that one of the important causes is far from being a 
discredit to the industry, namely, the fact that many of those who serve 
it are able to leave it for a more independent existence. 
Advantages of Migration. 
Quite apart from the economic advantages which the develop- 
ment of the tea industry confers on India as a whole, we are satisfied 
that migration to Assam for work on the tea plantations deserves en- 
coutagement in the interests of labour. In any large scale migration, 
some immigrants are bound to find that they have made a change for the 
worse and, in the past especially, many must have regretted going to 
Assam. There is still considerable room for improvement in condi- 
bions generally ; bus for the great majority of the immigrants the change 
is for the better, and for some it is an avenue of escape from desti- 
tution and even servitude. We met no one familiar with conditions 
both in Assam and in the recruiting areas who wished to discourage 
migration. It is to be feared that some of the opponents of emigration 
into Assam were interested in preventing labour from strengthening 
its position in the recruiting areas. Having endeavoured to examine 
the question from both ends, the source of the labour and its desti- 
nation, we are satisfied that the labourers generally improve their condi- 
tion by emigration. The better features of existence on the gardens 
are many, and there are none of the worse features that cannot be found, 
in an aggravated form, in some of the recruiting areas. Nor should the 
effect of migration on those left behind be overlooked. Attention has 
already been drawn to the question of the pressure of population in 
the Report of the Royal Commission on Agriculture, and we would 
merely remark again that the mobility of labour is the greatest safe- 
guard against the continuance of depressed conditions in particular 
localities and perhaps the most effective means of breaking down the 
vicious systems of bond-service, to which reference was made in a 
previous chapter. Under the kamiauti system in parts of Bihar, 
and the vette and khambar: systems in the north of Madras (to mention 
two examples of practices which we understand are not confined to these 
localities), the labourer borrows money from a landlord under a contract 
bo work until the debt is repaid. The debt tends to increase rather 
than to diminish, and the man, and sometimes his family, is bound for 
life. Serfs are even sold and mortgaged. Such systems have now no 
legal sanction, and in Bihar special legislation has been adopted in the 
endeavour to eradicate the abuse; but it continues to exist. It will 
be readily appreciated that serfs who can escape from such a system 
and agriculturalists oppressed in other ways are ready to go to Assam, 
and that there are those who are vigilant in the endeavour to prevent 
them and anxious to discredit Assam by any means in their power. 
Restrictions on Recruitment. 
We are now in a position to examine in more detail the system 
of official control which regulates the recruitment of labour for the