£70 "CHAPTER XXV.
statistical work at presént, and the extent to which statistics will fall
within the province of the provincial Governments and the Central
Government respectively is uncertain. But in either case the Council
will provide a useful focus for statistical development. The need for
securing co-ordination in Indian economic statistics will always re-
main, and the Council will provide a body of men able to review the
needs of India as a whole and to ensure that such resources as are
available are utilised to the best possible advantage. If the Council
is established, ‘the provincial and central Governments might, at a
later stage, when the form of the new constitution is settled, explore
the possibility of concentrating their efforts in a Bureau attached to
the Council. Fven if no such step is taken, the Council might be
able to advise regarding the collection of statistics. If a Statistics
Act were passed, as we have proposed, the Council should be in a posi-
tion to scrutinise proposals for the grant of mandates to investigat-
ing officers for the collection of statistics, and it might also be able to
make suggestions regarding the form in which statistics might be
nollected.
Provincialised Legislation and the Council.

Hitherto we have been discussing the Council with central
legislation in view. If, however, labour legislation is to be decentral-
ised to any extent, the need of some co-ordinating body will be
imperative. The withdrawal of the unifying force exercised by the
Central Legislature and executive would give much greater urgency
and importance to any machinery that can do something towards secur-
ing the same end. Indeed, the formation of a Council such as we have
proposed seems to us the only feasible way, under a system of pro-
vincial legislation, of conserving that unity of purpose and method
which is vital to progress. The main question which would arise in
that event would be whether the Council should not be given some
direct authority. When the constitution of the International Labour
Organisation was being framed, it was proposed by the representatives
of France and Italy that the Conventions of the Conference should be
binding upon the members, ¢.c., their ratification would be obligatory,
whether the national legislatures approved them or not. This idea
was rejected as premature. The Commission on International Labour
Legislation observed: “If an attempt were made at this stage to
deprive States of a large measure of their sovereignty in regard to labour
legislation, the result would be that a considerable number of States
would either refuse to accept the present Convention altogether, or,
if they accepted it, would subsequently denounce it, and might even
prefer to resign their membership of the League of Nations rather than
jeopardise their national economic position by being obliged to carry
out the decisions of the International Labour Conference.” In the case
we are considering, these objections do not apply, as it would be virtu-
ally the existing powers of the centre and not of the provinces which
would be transferred to the Council, and there would be no question of
placing the national economic position under the control of other powers.