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 XXIV. - Statistics and administration

Collection:: Economics Books

STATISTICS AND ADMINISTRATION. 445 Other Periodical Returns. Annual returns are also issued by provincial Governments in connection with the Workmen's Compensation Act and the Trade Unions Act. These are accompanied by statistics relating to the pay- ment of workmen’s compensation and to registered trade unions. The former statistics cover the main branches of industry and are summarised annually by the Government of India with some comments on the working of the Act. We recommend that for the convenience of the public a similar summary be published relating to the Trade Unions Act. The Government of India also publish statistics of industrial disputes. These are supplied by provincial Governments, some of which publish the figures for their provinces. The tables, prepared on a monthly basis but issued quarterly, give the number of disputes, the number of persons involved, the principal causes and the general results. The Need of Statistical Information. The periodical statistics to which we have referred are designed mainly for administrative purposes and throw little light on the economic position of the worker. Even if they were supplemented in respect of wages in the manner we have suggested, they could not take the place of regular statistics of earnings and of the worker’s expenditure, We have already referred to the limited information available in respect of the standard of living of the industrial classes, and we have stressed the importance of taking steps to remedy the present deficiency. There seems to be an impression in some quarters that the collection of such statistics is a luxury in which only rich countries or provinces should indulge. This, in our view, is a profound error. It is on facts that policy must be built, and so long as there is uncertainty as to the facts, there must be confusion and conflict regarding the aim. The absence of accurate statistics regarding the life of the workers constitutes a serious handicap to intelligent efforts to better their condition. Wages. The three main subjects on which information is most urgently needed are wages, earnings and the expenditure of the workers. So far as wages are concerned, practically nothing has hitherto been achieved with the exception of the enquiries made by the Bombay Labour Office into wages in the cotton mill industry of that Presidency. An attempt was made by the Government of India to institute a wages census in 1921, but retrenchment led to its abandonment. Satisfactory statistics regard- ing wages can only be obtained from employers and must be collected on a fairly extensive scale on the basis of individual industries. The pos- sibilities of working on samples are very limited ; in its last and most slaborate enquiry the Bombay Labour Office depended on sampling, but the sample taken was a very large one. In most Indian industries there would seem to be wide variations in wages, and even in their methods of calculation and payment, from establishment to establishment in the

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