Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

Bibliographic data

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 XX. - Recruitment for Assam

Collection:: Economics Books

RECRUITMENT FOR ASSAM. 377 which the public have no right of access. Access is not ordinarily with- held in practice, but, whenever the manager considers it necessary, a watch is maintained on visitors, and there are almost always chaukidars, part of whose duty is to observe movements to and from the lines. It is con- tended by planters that no amount of vigilance can keep a labourer who is determined to leave; and chaukidars are probably employed more to prevent other employers from enticing labourers than to prevent the labourers themselves from leaving. At the same time, we had evidence that workers who wanted to leave even a good garden without permission found it advisable to do so by night. In speaking of a labourer who goes without permission the term universally used is *“ ab- scond 7; and this term reflects accurately the position in which the labourer on some gardens finds himself when he wishes to seek employ- ment elsewhere. Employers’ Agreements. a In a somewhat different category, but tending in the same direction so far as the worker is concerned, is the system by which most employers bind themselves not to entice each others labour. The agreement between the planters, referred to as the “labour rules”, imposes a penalty for enticement and prescribes that, if a labourer goes from one garden to another, the manager of the latter must either eject him with all his belongings or refund the cost of his recruitment and the amount of any outstanding advance. The effect of this agreement is that no reputable planter attempts to obtain labour from another garden, and it is against the accepted standards to engage labourers, if there is reason to believe that they have left another planter. With the cost of recruiting as high as it is, such an attitude is intelligible and can, in- deed, be defended as nothing more than the application of a principle familiar to other trade organisations. There is, however, no organisa- bion on the workers’ side to redress the balance ; the effect of the system 8 to diminish still further the liberty of the worker to dispose of his labour bo the best advantage and to add to the restrictions upon his movements. The effect of this policy, combined with the lack of organisation on the part of the workers, has been to increase the temptation to resort to a policy of restrictions in order to retain labour. The next chapter contains Proposals designed to meet this difficulty, and some of the proposals which immediately follow, if adopted, should go far to improve the general Position of the worker in his relations with the employer. Knowledge of the Law. k The first essential, in order to secure the freedom of the worker, 8 knowledge. It is, to a large extent, his ignorance which restrains him. It 1s a matter for regret that when, in 1926, the vital change was made In the law by which penal contracts became illegal, little was done to acquaint the worker with the change. The cessation of criminal Prosecutions for breach of contract is bringing enlightenment, but the Process seems to be a slow one. As we have suggested, the informing of the workers would have been a wise policy for planters to have adopted,

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