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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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter XXV. - Labour and the constitution

Collection:: Economics Books

. CHAPTER XXV, us, therefore, important to ensure that, if the links which do much to hold together the existing structure are removed, there is sufficient assurance that legislation and administration are not-completely divorced from each other. } Central Administration. This need arises in the case of all labour laws, but it is more imperative in some cases than in others. Acts whose essence is the creation of civil privileges or liabilities, such as the Workmen’s Compensa- tion Act and the Trade Unions Act, do not demand any intimate relation between the authority responsible for the law and the authority responsi- ble for the administration. Still less is such relation necessary in the case of Acts which merely confer the power to invoke machinery, such as the present Trade Disputes Act. On the other hand, in the case of protective Acts, such as the Factories Act and the Mines Act, it is vital that the authority passing the law should have the assurance that they will be made universally effective. This point could be completely secured by making the law and the administration both provincial or both central. As regards the first of these alternatives, it is important to observe that it is precisely in connection with laws of this type that the need for central legislation is greatest and the peril of withdrawing legislative power from the centre most acute. As regards the alternative of combining legisla- tion and administration at the centre, the centralisation of some machinery and particularly the factory inspection staff, would bring distinct ad- vantages. The present system has led to unjustified variation from province to province in the standard of enforcement of the Factories Act ; some provinces administer the Act rigorously and others do not. [t may render the factory inspectors at times unduly exposed to local influence. It makes it difficult for the smaller provinces to recruit a satisfactory staff; they cannot offer scope for advancement, cannot look for or properly utilise high specialist qualifications, and are unable to make satisfactory arrangements for leave vacancies. The Central Government are deprived of experts on factory administration, and an mspectorate divided between many Governments cannot get the fullest value from common experience. Occasional or periodical conferences of inspectors can do something to secure the pooling of experience, but bhey cannot yield the results which are gained by an inspectorate working as a single team. The administration of the Mines Act, which has always been central, seems tous to have gained considerably thereby, and its provincialisation, if that proves necessary, is bound to weaken its force. Central Legislation and Provincial Administration. We must recognise, however, that considerations with which we are not competent to deal may make it inadvisable or impossible b0 move in the direction of centralisation or even to maintain centralised administration where that is at present in existence. If this proves to be the case, we believe that the difficulties of combining central legislation with provincial administration must be faced, as this com- bination is, in our view, infinitely preferable to the complete withdrawal of legislative power from the centre. So far as we are in a position to

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