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 XIX. - The planatations

Collection:: Economics Books

THE PLANTATIONS, 353 result, in the Wynaad, the Anamalais and the Nilgiris, considerable areas, formerly under coffee, have been converted into tea estates. In Coorg and in Mysore the industry has been able to hold its own. The area of the crop has shown a steady increase during the last 10 years, but the total acreage of coffee grown in British India in 1929-30 was under 75,000, which is only a little over one-tenth of the acreage under tea. Rubber. The only other important plantation crop is rubber, the systematic cultivation of which began as recently as 1900. There are only two tracts in which the climatic conditions are suitable for the growth of rubber on a commercial scale, namely, certain parts of Burma and the Malabar coast below the Western Ghats from Mangalore to Cape Comorin. The total yield, including the Indian States, is about 28 million Ibs., of which Burma and Travancore each produces about 11 million lbs. The province of Madras accounts for only about 3 million lbs., and in Coorg the vield of rubber is a little over half a million lbs. . Plantations in Burma. The plantations in Burma are mostly situated in the Tenasserim Division, which is the. southernmost part of the province. Excluding cinchona, the only plantation crop in this province is rubber, of which the total acreage is about 113,000, but there is considerable scope for develop- ment. A feature of rubber cultivation is the small labour force employed as compared with tea or coffee. In 1929 the Burma plantations employ- ed about 17,000 persons, of whom less than 13.000 were permanently settled on the plantations. Planting Areas in India. The plantations in India proper fall into two well-marked and widely separated groups—those in North India and those in the South. These groups present a number of points of difference. The North is limited to a single crop, tea, while the South is not so limited. From the labour point of view, the fundamental difference is the fact that the plantations in the South are situated close to the areas from which their labour is obtained. The Madras Presidency has a potential labour force very much in excess of its present industrial needs, and the increasing pressure of the population on the soil is driving large numbers to other parts of India and to such distant places as Burma, Ceylon and Malaya. In spite of this drain, the plantations and other industries of the pro- vince are experiencing no difficulties in obtaining labour. The planters of the North are less fortunate in this respect. They have to obtain recruits from long distances, and have also to face competition for labour from the coal mines of Bengal and Bihar and Orissa, the jute industry of Bengal, the cotton industry, the railways and the oilfields of Assam. As we show later, this factor of distance has an important bearing on the system of recruitment. Briefly it may be stated that the Plantations of the South, like the factories, rely on a regular flow of labour which returns to its home at periodical intervals, whereas, generally

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