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 XXI. - Wages on planatations

Collection:: Economics Books

384 CHAPTER XXI. based on the one-anna unit and in the case of plucking on the one-pice unit. Whichever system is taken into account, the consideration of wages resolves itself into the consideration of piece earnings. * The periods of wage payment vary in different gardens; some pay weekly, some monthly and a few daily. Where wages are paid monthly, payment is usually made within 10 days of the completion of the month for which wages are due. A fact which must strike every visitor to the Assam plantations is that comparatively high average earnings do not necessa- rily mean greater contentment among the labour force ; and we visited some gardens in which, though the average earnings were compa- ratively low, the workers appeared to be happy and contented. The explanation is that the actual cash earnings of the worker do not repre- sent his total remuneration, and that an important element in the attrac- tions of a garden is frequently the value of the ‘ concessions ’ offered in addition to the cash wage. It is necessary, therefore, to consider the nature and extent of these concessions before we proceed to the examina- sion of the level of cash wages. Land for Private Cultivation. Practically every garden worker receives free housing, medical facilities and firewood, and many are given free grazing for cattle and tand for cultivation, either free or at an uneconomic rent. To these must be added the grant of advances without interest, and in a few cases the issue of rice at concession rates. We deal later with housing, medical facilities and maternity benefits. Of the others, the conces- sion to which the worker attaches most importance is the grant of land for private cultivation. The garden worker is essentially an agriculturalist, and his desire for the possession of a holding which he can cultivate with the help of the members of his family is great. This ambition for private land, if fully satisfied, would remove all desire for garden work, and in the allotment of garden land for private sultivation the planter has, therefore, to study his own interests as well as those of the worker. Hence the worker who desires and is able to set up as an independent cultivator has to move to Government land outside the garden, and private cultivation within the garden is confined to those families which can provide labour on the garden. The extent of this con- cession can be judged from the fact that in 1929 nearly 150,000 acres of land were held by garden workers as tenants of the garden proprietors. This represents about a quarter of an acre for each adult labourer living in garden lines; and, as the rent charged is substantially below the real economic rent, the value of the concession is undoubted. But all gardens are not favourably situated in respect of the amount of land available for culti- vation by their workers. In most gardens the acreage which can be distributed among the workers is limited, and few gardens can offer a holding of any size to the majority of the workers. Further, in the ab- sence of any tenancy law applicable to the garden grants, the enjoyment of this concession is entirely at the discretion of the garden manager. Strictly speaking, the worker has a right only to the crop which he has sown and can be evicted from his holding, even though he mav have

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