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

UNREGULATED FACTORIES. 105 necessity for frequent visits, and to begin with at any rate, it will be suffi- cient to cover only a proportion of the factories each year. Those which do not use powér and which employ children in appreciable numbers will require more attention, but even here visits can be brief, particularly if they are made outside the hours within which the employment of children is permissible. Here also the inspector would not require any large amount of technical knowledge. Much of the inspection of such places could be done by part-time inspectors, and we suggest the empowering of municipal health officers, who are already con- cerned with house to house visitation for the purposes of sanitary inspec- tions, sub-divisional magistrates and other officers who may be available. Their work should be co-ordinated by the Chief Inspector of Factories acting in consultation with the medical authorities, and the qualified inspectors maintained for the administration of the Factories Act might inspect or re-inspect a small proportion of each class of factory. Where the factories are so numerous as to necessitate the employment of a whole- bime inspector, we suggest the use of the grade of assistant inspector for the purpose. These should be selected, not so much on account of their technical (e.g., engineering) qualifications as for character and address. They should be remunerated on a scale which enables them effectively to ignore the temptations to which they may be subjected at first by a certain type of employer anxious to avoid compliance with the new requirements. If filled by properly selected persons in the first instance, this grade should prove a useful training ground for inspectors under the Factories Act, to which senior grade there should be a free avenue of promotion where this is warranted by individual ability. Sympathetic Administration. In conclusion, we suggest that the policy of gradualness which underlies our proposals for legislation should also influence its en- forcement. If our recommendations are adopted, the result will be to bring a large number of establishments under control for the first time. These will be owned in many cases by proprietors of limited edu- cation. In matters other than those affecting child labour, the aim should be the gradual raising of standards rather than the immediate enforcement of any ideal, and it is important that the beginning of enforcement of con- brol should be actuated by sympathetic understanding of the difficulties to be encountered. To begin with there are bound to be many contraven- bions of the law resulting from ignorance of its provisions, and until a know- ledge of these has become fairly general, prosecutions should ordi- narily be instituted only for an offence committed after a previous warn- ing. We are convinced that, if the administration is animated from the beginning by such a spirit, legislation on the lines advocated will do much to improve the health and physical welfare of those who are at present among the least protected and most helpless of the industrial workers of India. Moreover, it will have been effected without the pos- sibility of the ery being raised that the law has achieved the betterment of the few at the expense of the livelihood of the many.

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