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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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter VIII. - Mines

Collection:: Economics Books

118 CHAPTER VIII. work. We should add, however, that, if the miner attended for the full working day on six days a week, he would in most mines exceed the legal weekly limit of hours. Cost of Recruitment. The cost of recruitment varies widely from mine to mine, but it appears to be frequently in the neighbourhood of 3 or 4 annas per ton of coal raised. It is occasionally 1 anna per ton or even less and is some- times as high as 6 annas per ton. When regard is had to the wages paid, the amount spent on recruiting must be considered high. Each anna per ton of recruiting costs is equivalent on the average to about 10-12 annas a month for every worker employed. Although a sub- stantial part of these costs, if it does not find its way to the labourer in cash, meets expenses which he would otherwise have to bear, the aim should be the elimination of all recruiting costs. We do not think this an ideal impossible of attainment. In present conditions a shortage of labour and the necessity of sending out emissaries to recruit indicate that all is not well with an industry, and we would emphasise the importance of making conditions sufficiently attractive to secure labour without recourse to systematic recruitment. But some managers have already found that the best advertisement for recruiting is not the emissary in the distant village, but good conditions atthe mine itself. During recent yearsimprovementsin underground working, better wages, better housing, water-supply and sanitation, and more reasonable hours have all contributed to make the mines more attractive to labour, with the result that, although there is now more labour employed than in any year before the war, it is more easily obtained than it was then. Some of the recommendations made below should have an effect in further improving conditions and every such improvement should reduce recruiting costs. Indeed, some of the money so spent would be more effectively invested in ameliorating the conditions of labour at the mines. Tenancy and Labour. A number of colliery proprietors own surface rights in the land above the mine and are able to assign small holdings to a proportion of the miners, and for a number of tenants the rendering of labour in the mine is & condition of holding their land. This practice is fairly genera) in the Giridih field, which is largely held by the East Indian Railway. Here there are colliery villages entirely peopled with service tenants, who retain their holdings at a low rent on condition of rendering a certain number of days’ service in the mine. A few colliery owners in the Jharia field acquired proprietary rights in land lying outside the coal- fields with a view to securing labour for their mines from the tenants, Enquiries made at our request by the Government of Bihar and Orissa indicate that this method of securing labour is no longer utilised by the collieries themselves, but at the time of our visit we understood that contracts were still given to persons whose interest in land made it easier for them to secure labour from their tenants. We are informed that tenants are Increasingly ready to avail themselves of the safeguards

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