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 XII. - The income of the industrial worker

Collection:: Economics Books

222 CHAPTER XII, Consumption of Drink. We now proceed to consider the possibility of making the work- er’s earnings more effective by diverting his expenditure into more pro- fitable channels. Here it is necessary to guard against too easy an assump- tion that the worker’s money can be better spent by some other person. But there are two items of expenditure in connection with which unprejudiced observers would agree that protection is requir- ed.” By far the more important of these is the expenditure involved in the liquidation of and payment of interest on debt, and this raises questions of importance and difficulty which must be reserved for another chapter. The other item is the expenditure on drink. The consumption of drink, and particularly of spirituous liquors, may be said to be a feature of the majority of industrial areas and has created considerable havos in some of them. It is not possible to give accurate figures of expenditure under this head, because the worker who drinks is in many cases naturally reluctant to give information regarding his consumption or even to admit that he is not a total abstainer. For this reason the results yielded by family budget enquiries are certainly under-estimates, even though nearly all show a substantial amount. Various influences have recently been at work to reduce consumption. The drinking of intoxicating liquor is repugnant alike to the religious beliefs and the social opinions of many per- sons in India, and there is a large section of public opinion in favour of the prohibition of its manufacture and sale. On the opposite side there are the arguments based on the impossibility, especially in India, of prevent- ing wholesale illicit manufacture, and on both the rightness and the wisdom of coercing people to abstain. In this report we are dealing with only a small section of the population, and it is no part of our function to attempt to indicate a national policy on the subject. But there can be no doubt that a reduction in the consumption of liquor would increase the welfare and efficiency of the industrial workers. IN Restrictions on Sale. It is possible, and in our opinion desirable, that efforts should be made in all industrial centres to reduce the number of drink shops and to restrict the hours during which liquor may be sold. We suggest thatin all large cities and industrial areas a general policy should be adopted of restricting the facilities for the sale of liquor. The areas selected should be sufficiently wide to ensure the policy of restriction being effective. The number of drink shops should be reduced and the hours of opening should be limited to certain hours which should in no case include any part of the forenoon. Outside the stated hours, the sale of liquor should be pro- hibited. We note with interest that in some areas of the United Provinces spirituous liquor may be supplied only in sealed bottles, a rule which, according to the memorandum furnished to us by the local Government, has resulted in reduced consumption. We recommend that the possibility of a wide extension of the svstem be examined,

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