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 XXV. - Labour and the constitution

Collection:: Economics Books

pn CHAPTER XXV, previous stage. Recently, indeed, the world has awakened to the fact that tack of progress in one country constitutes an obstacle to progress in others, and theneed of dealing with labour questions on a scale transcending national boundaries resulted in the formation of the International Labour Organisation. To divide India, at this stage, into a series of units which could only progress independently would be a definitely retrograde step. If legislation were left to the provinces, there would be many occasions in which a province would have a difficult choice. It would either have to refuse to adopt a salutary reform or run the risk of placing its own industrialists at a disadvantage as against their rivals in another province, and possibly of encouraging industry to migrate outside the province. The difficulties in the way of introducing a shorter working week in industries in one province would be very serious if the same industries in an adjoining province were permitted to work for a longer week. Even if public opinion in every province desired some such reform, industrialists would insist on a guarantee that their rivals would accept the reform before binding themselves to it. Each province would thus tend to wait upon action elsewhere, and all would be at a disadvantage. In more than one connection we have stressed the advantage of co-operation and co-ordination, and we feel that in respect of labour legislation, particularly, co-ordination is one of the valuable assets for progress in India. The position of India in respect of inter- national labour relations has been urged as another ground for keeping labour legislation as a central subject. We do not think that India’s treaty obligations involve any insuperable obstacle to the constitutional changes which would result in transferring labour legis- lation to the provinces ; but it is certainly true that India’s relations to the world of international labour make it desirable that she should preserve her unity in this matter. Objections to Uniformity. On the other hand, the great size of India and the variety of her races, climates, languages, ete., furnish an argument for abandoning the attempt to preserve uniformity. There is no area in the world approach- ing India in size in which uniformity may be said to be secured in respect of labour laws. In the United States, Canada and Australia, it is the component states or provinces that are mainly responsible for labour legislation. Against this must be set the fact that all these federations were formed by combining states which were independent of each other. The powers of the central authority, therefore, had to be created by subtraction from the powers of the States, and the position was, in consequence, very different. Further, when two of these federations were formed, the subject of labour legislation had not appeared above the horizon, and their experience does not suggest to us that their example is one that could be followed by India with advantage. It is brue that in most matters India presents greater variety than any of these federations; but, having reviewed industrial conditions through- out India, we are satisfied that, if Burma, is excluded, there are no such variations as would justify the acceptance of appreciably different

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