Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1850495947

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-233603

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: His Majesty's Stationery Off.

Year of publication:: 1931

Scope:: xviii, 580 S.; graph. Darst., Kt.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter VII. - Unregulated factories

Collection:: Economics Books

102 CHAPTER VII. be employed except between 9 A.M. and 12-30 P.M. and again between 1-30 p.M. and 5 p.M., and the manager of any factory in which children were discovered working outside those limits would be liable to prosecu- tion. We believe that a provision of this kind would prove as easy to enforce as any other that could be devised, for surprise visits to factories at hours lying outside those prescribed by the provincial Government would ordinarily be sufficient to ensure compliance with the law. Homework and Overtime. We further recommend that no child who had been employed full time in a factory should be allowed to work overtime or to take work home after factory hours. The criticism of unenforceability might be made against this latter requirement since it is possible for work to be taken away by the child ostensibly for a homeworking member of the family, and no control could be exercised on the child’s activities once he had left the factory premises. This criticism, however, has applied in the past with almost equal strength in other countries, and yet the very existence of such a clause, taken in conjunction with factory legislation, has ultimately proved to have an educative effect. There is no need to anticipate less good results in India. Pledging of Child Labour. Reference has been made to the existence in some of these factories of a system of mortgaging thelabour of children. The system is inde- fensible ; it is worse than the system of indentured labour, for the inden- tured labourer is, when he enters on the contract, a free agent while the child is not. The State would be justified in adopting strong measures to eradicate this evil. The giving of advances to secure the labour of shildren and the execution of bonds pledging such labour could both be made criminal offences. But, as there may be other questions of policy to be taken into account, we commend the proposal for examination by Government. In any case we recommend that a bond pledging the labour of any person under the age of 15 years, executed for or on account of the receipt of any consideration, should be void. This will not interfere with any honest system of apprenticeship, for in the cases where a bond is executed on behalf of an apprentice, any preliminary payment is made by and not to the parent or guardian of the apprentice. This recommendation is intended for application not merely to work in the factories mentioned in this chapter, but generally. Un- fortunately, there is evidence that similar abuses have occurred in connection with the employment of children in «ome of the Ahmedabad aotton mills. Weekly Holidays. We also recommend that in every factory of this kind there should be a weekly holiday. This is particularly necessary for children, but there is no reason why it should not apply to adults also, wind we recommend that all such factories should be entirely closed

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