HEALTH AND WELFARE. 265

social custom and economic conditions differ widely in the two countries-
We received evidence that in parts of India women returned to work
with the same employer only a few days after childbirth, and the pay-
ment of maternity benefit may not at first be sufficient to restrain such
early return. The qualifying period of employment might be fixed at
twelve months, but it should in no case be less than nine months.
Benefits and Medical Facilities.
The more closely the benefit can be linked with medical treatment
the better. This will obviously be less easy in the case of factory workers
in large industrial towns than in the case of workers for whom hospital
facilities are provided by the employers. Probably the best method is to
give the woman a maternity benefit in any event and an additional
confinement bonus only if a trained midwife is employed or hospital treat-
ment is adopted. We do not think that failure to use existing facilities,
whether municipal or private, should disqualify the applicant. The
benefit and bonus together should not exceed the amount laid down in
the Act. The administration of the Act should be entrusted to the
factory inspection staff and, wherever possible, to women factory in-
spectors. The Women’s Medical Service might profitably be asked to
survey the field and to advise those local Governments most affected as to
how maternity benefit schemes under the Act could best be combined
with existing medical facilities.
The Need of Provision for Sickness.
The question of making provision for workers during sickness,
even if it had not been previously raised by Government, would have
been forced on us by what we found in every industrial centre. Of the
great need of the workers for something of this kind there can be no
doubt. By common consent the incidence of sickness is substantially
higher than in Western countries ; the medical facilities are much less
adequate, and the wages generally paid make it impossible for most
workers to get through more than a very short period of illness without
borrowing. Indeed, sickness is an important contributory cause of in-
debtedness, with all that debt entails under existing conditions; for
often, at his time of greatest need, the worker may find himself destitute
of resources, unable to take proper measures to restore his health and in
difficulties regarding even the means of subsistence. The situation calls
for the exploration of all methods that may lead to the alleviation of the
existing hardships.
International Labour Conventions.

] These considerations were recognised by the Government of
India in 1928 in considering the Draft Conventions and Recommenda-
tions on the subject of sickness insurance which had been adopted by the
International Labour Conference inthe preceding year. They stated
that they were satisfied that the introduction in India of any compre-
hensive scheme on the lines of the Conventions was not practicable