LABOUR AND THE CONSTITUTION, 473
we have had to recognise that it would be a poor service to labour and the
country so to raise standards in one part of India as to drive industry
into another part where standards are lower.
Effects of Competition.
So far as we have been able to judge, existing legislation has
had remarkably little effect in this direction. This is partly due to
geographical and climatic features. It is obvious that the location of
mining industries and those connected with them and of plantations
is determined largely by natural forces. In the case of the railways,
the problem does not arise, and a large number of other industries have
their choice of location restricted by factors which lie outside their
control. While some of these industries exist both in British India and
in Indian States, there is no evidence of any handicap arising from
differences in labour laws. It isin respect of some of the factory industries
that the choice of location is widest. But even here it is difficult to find
evidence of any loss sustained by industrialists in British India on account
of legislative differences, or any tendency to move to Indian States,
at any rate so far as large factories are concerned. In certain centres
of British India which lie in close proximity to Indian States, there have
recently been important developments of industry which, if industrialists
had felt unduly hampered by labour laws, could have taken place across
the border. It is worth repeating in this connection that good conditions
of labour need not hamper industrial development. The big improve-
ment effected in British India since the war is, in our view, partly respon-
sible for the disappearance of the scarcity of labour which handicapped the
factory industries in previous decades. Plentiful and efficient labour will
gravitate to places where it receives fair treatment, and many measures
for the improvement of conditions are directly profitable to the employer.
In respect of small factories, there would seem to have been in one or two
limited localities a tendency to develop industry in States to avoid the
regulations of British India. For example, in the Punjab there is said to
be a tendency to move cotton ginning factories to Indian States to avoid
restrictions on hours of work and child labour. In Rajputana the same
industry is said to be developing in the States at the expense of Ajmer-
Merwara, a very small province surrounded by States. We do not con-
sider that our recommendations will have any general tendency to give
an advantage to Indian States at the expense of British India. They are
intended rather to lead to a steady and stable development of industry
within British India. We must recognise, however, that there are
danger points, particularly in respect of very small establishments. The
bringing under regulation of those workshops which do not employ power
is a case in point. Some of the industries which will be affected by the
adoption of our recommendations are not likely to develop in Indian
States ; but there seem to us to be distinct dangers that, in respect of
others, persons will seek to exploit, beyond the bounds of British India,
the labour of young children, and that owners working within British India
with children of reasonable age may find themselves handicapped in
consequence.