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 XX. - Recruitment for Assam

Collection:: Economics Books

RECRUITMENT FOR ASSAM. 373 persuasion and propaganda. The law should be designed to regulate merely assisted recruitment, and assistance should be defined 80 as to include nothing more than the giving of tangible assistance (z.e., money or some concession having a monetary value) in order to induce a person to emigrate. Misrepresentation which results in emigration will, of course, remain punishable under the ordinary criminal law. Further, we propose later to provide an important additional safeguard against misrepresentation by securing that the emigrant who is recruited by such means be repatriated without delay at the employers expense. Scope of the Act. The Act should apply to those provinces in which the present Act is in force, but the Government of India should retain the power to extend it to other provinces. We do not consider, however, that it should be possible to control recruitment within Assam itself. The movement of labour from one district of Assam to another cannot be regarded as emigration, and we are not in favour of making it possible to restrict such movements. The new Act should make it possible to extend control to recruitment for any work in Assam, but in present circumstances we see no justification for control except in the case of tea gardens. The only contingency which would make such control necessary, would be the recruitment of labourers for other work with a view to their early transfer to plantations. Abolition of the Assam Labour Board. We turn now to the agencies responsible for administering the System of control. We have already indicated some objections to the Present constitution of the Assam Labour Board, but it is not proposed bo pursue this question in further detail, because we consider that the Board has outlived its usefulness and recommend its abolition. We fecognise that the Board and its officers deserve a share of the credit for the great improvements which have taken place since its inception, but those improvements are due in large measure to the tea employers acting through their own principal recruiting organisation, the Tea Districts Labour Association. The Board, in fact, owes much of both its weakness and its strength to its affinity, through the bodies electing its members, With that Association. The Board, in addition, served a useful purpose, during a period when reforms were being attempted, by providing a link between the industry and the central and provincial Governments. The main difficulty in the existing system is that the Board, which is responsible for the prevention of irregularities, exercises with provincial Sovernments an overlapping control in the recruiting areas. but has no authority after the emigrant has reached Assam. Supervision of the Emigrant. As we have already stated, there are three stages in the emi- 8ant’s progress. Until now, attention has been concentrated almost entirely on the first stage, namely, up to the emigrant’s despatch from his district, and over this stage there has hitherto been overlapping control.

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