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. 355 only about one-eighth of the total population of the province and many of them own rice lands or small coffee estates. The migratory hill tribes provide only a small proportion of the labour required for the planta- tions and for.the cultivation of the paddy lands. The bulk of the workers come from the adjoining districts of South Kanara and Malabar in the Madras Presidency, and from the State of Mysore, which lies to the east of the Province. Recruitment. in the South. The system of recruitment for almost all the plantations mn the South is through labour suppliers, called kanganis or maistries, who re- ceive from the planters loans free of interest from which they advance money to individual labourers or families wishing to goto the estates. These advances are debited to the labourers’ account and are recovered during the period of their employment. The amount of the advances varies in different districts, but is estimated at an average of Rs. 15 for each labourer. Plantation labour in the South, like factory labour, is migra- tory in character and returns to its village every year for periods of from 1 to 3 months and in some areas even twice or three times in the year. But there is a marked tendency to return year after year to the same estate. According to the estimate of the United Planters’ Association of Southern India, the percentage of workers who returns to the same estate varies from 60 to 90 Penal Contracts. The Madras Planters’ Act of 1903 introduced the penal contract as a protection for the planter against the loss of the advances made to his workers. This Act remained after the repeal of the Workmen’s Breach of Contract Act and was not finally repealed till January 1929. The evidence we received shows unmistakably that the abolition of the penal contract in Madras has not added to the planters’ difficulties ; if anything, it has promoted a more regular flow of labour to the plantations. We were informed that the planter in some cases had recourse to the cwvil law for the recovery of the advance, but the civil agreements which have replaced the penal contracts are usually made with the supplier of labour, namely, the kangans or the maistry and not with the labourer. In Coorg, the demand for a penal contract was made not only by the planter but also by the ordinary landholder, who also relied on outside labour for the cultivation of his land. This was secured by the application to the province of the Workmen’s Breach of Contract Act. With the repeal of this Act the planter and the local landholder pressed for the retention of the penal contract, which was then legal in the Madras Presidency under the Madras Planters’ Act. As a result, the local council passed a bill in, 1926, known as the Coorg Labour Act, based on the Workmen’s Breach of Contract Act, but at the instance of the Government of India the operation of the measure was limited to five years to give the planter time to effect the necessary adjustments demanded by changing condi- tions, During the years 1926, 1927, 1928 and 1929, 13,415 cases were instituted under the Act, 2.946 persons were ordered to work out the FL49

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