220

CHAPTER XII.
railways and the practice in the cotton textile mills, already men-
tioned, of handing over spoilt cloth. We have dealt with railway debits
elsewhere. So far as spoilt cloth is concerned, where the wholesale price
is deducted from the weaver’s wages, there can be no undue profit
to the employer. Further, it is a tenable position that the worker is
entitled only to payment for satisfactory cloth and that he is liable to
make good the damage done to the employer’s material. While there
is evidence to show that in some mills the practice is carried too far,
there are no reliable figures to indicate the actual loss sustained by
the weaver which obviously depends on the price which he can se-
cure for the cloth. We recommend that the law should provide that the
deduction should in no case exceed the wholesale price of the goods
damaged. This, together with the registration of deductions proposed
later, may be sufficient to prevent abuses, but the registers will in
any case provide the material necessary to determine whether or not
further regulation is required.
A Minority View.

Mr Cliff, Mr Joshi and Diwan Chaman Lall dissent from our
general conclusion on the ground that if an employer is to exercise
the power of making deductions from the wages of the worker, equity
demands that he should not be the final arbiter, but that a right of
appeal should lie with an impartial tribunal. They are opposed to
employers being able to exercise such power. In many instances, the
power to make deductions is distributed indiscriminately over a large
body of subordinates occupying minor supervisory posts, who do not
usually possess the judicial qualities necessary for the exercise of such
power. An examination of the working of the system reveals that, in
many cases, fining becomes a habit and is resorted to as the line of
least resistance. The workers, owing to lack of combination and other
causes, are unable to exercise any effective check against the abuses
which unquestionably occur. Experience teaches that, where the
practice has been discontinued or where it has never been resorted to,
the discipline necéssary to industry can be maintained and, in their
opinion, leads to a better relationship between the employer and the
worker. The interests not only of the worker but also of industry
dictate that the practice of making deductions from the wages of workers,
except the charges for services rendered to which reference is made in
the following paragraph, should he prohibited, and they recommend
acrordingly.
Other Deductions.

Of the other deductions to which reference has been made, namely,
those In respect of specific causes or benefits, some should be recognised
as legitimate and others should be prohibited. The former are deduc-
tions made on account of definite services rendered by the employer and
voluntarily accepted by the worker, and in this case the only restriction
we suggest is that the deduction should not exceed the equivalent of the
services rendered. Deductions may be allowed on account of the pro-
vision of housing accommodation and of tools or raw materials. In