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 XXII. - Burma and India

Collection:: Economics Books

Lt “ee I CHAPTER XXTIII.—BURMA AND INDIA. We completed our tour of the Indian provinces by March 1930, but were unale to visit Burma during that season. While in London, we contemplated the possibility of submitting a proposal that Burma should be excluded from our terms of reference. The field to be covered in India proper was very Wide, and it seemed probable that the extension of our survey to a country differing from India in many respects would give little assistance on the questions which we were already examining, while it might raise a large number of new problems and add seriously to the difficulty of finishing our task in a reasonable time, In addition, some of our number were requested to participate in the Indian Round Table Conference and were unable to leave England till 1931. But serious trouble connected with the employment of labour in Rangoon broke out in May 1930 ; there were clearly questions calling for examination, and it was suggested to us that it would be aseful if we visited Rangoon. We therefore arranged to complete the programme eriginally contemplated, and the majority of us spent three weeks in Burma in October and November 1930. Industrial Differences. The wide general differences between Burma and India have been stressed on many occasions, and we do not need to dwell upon them here. Separated from India by a sea Journey of two or three days, its people present in race, religion, customs and outlook a great contrast bo those of India. For our purpose, it is the differences in the economic sphere that are chiefly important. Though not in general so wide or fundamental as those which exist in other fields, they are by no means negligible. There are important differences in respect of the distribution of industries. In India, the bulk of the factory population is employed in factories working throughout the year, and the textile factories, with nearly 700,000 operatives, form much the most important group. In Burma, textile factories using power are represented by three factories employing less than 700 operatives in all. The most important factory industry in Burma is rice milling, which is seasonal, followed by saw-milling and the refining of petroleum, which in India employ few persons: These three factory industries account for two-thirds of the 100,000 persons employed in factories in Burma. Turning to the extraction of minerals, in India coal, mica and manganese mines account for four-fifths of the workers in register- ed mines; these industries are non-existent in Burma.’ On the other hand, tin, wolfram, lead and silver mines, which do not exist in India, employ the majority of Burma’s mining population of about 20,000. More important than these is the production of mineral oil, an industry which is on a very small scale in India. In respect of transport, a feature in Burma is the part played by inland water transport. In India, planta- tions, and especially tea plantations, are of great importance ; in Burma the main plantation industry is rubber, and the numbers employed are not large.

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