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

£70 "CHAPTER XXV. statistical work at presént, and the extent to which statistics will fall within the province of the provincial Governments and the Central Government respectively is uncertain. But in either case the Council will provide a useful focus for statistical development. The need for securing co-ordination in Indian economic statistics will always re- main, and the Council will provide a body of men able to review the needs of India as a whole and to ensure that such resources as are available are utilised to the best possible advantage. If the Council is established, ‘the provincial and central Governments might, at a later stage, when the form of the new constitution is settled, explore the possibility of concentrating their efforts in a Bureau attached to the Council. Fven if no such step is taken, the Council might be able to advise regarding the collection of statistics. If a Statistics Act were passed, as we have proposed, the Council should be in a posi- tion to scrutinise proposals for the grant of mandates to investigat- ing officers for the collection of statistics, and it might also be able to make suggestions regarding the form in which statistics might be nollected. Provincialised Legislation and the Council. Hitherto we have been discussing the Council with central legislation in view. If, however, labour legislation is to be decentral- ised to any extent, the need of some co-ordinating body will be imperative. The withdrawal of the unifying force exercised by the Central Legislature and executive would give much greater urgency and importance to any machinery that can do something towards secur- ing the same end. Indeed, the formation of a Council such as we have proposed seems to us the only feasible way, under a system of pro- vincial legislation, of conserving that unity of purpose and method which is vital to progress. The main question which would arise in that event would be whether the Council should not be given some direct authority. When the constitution of the International Labour Organisation was being framed, it was proposed by the representatives of France and Italy that the Conventions of the Conference should be binding upon the members, ¢.c., their ratification would be obligatory, whether the national legislatures approved them or not. This idea was rejected as premature. The Commission on International Labour Legislation observed: “If an attempt were made at this stage to deprive States of a large measure of their sovereignty in regard to labour legislation, the result would be that a considerable number of States would either refuse to accept the present Convention altogether, or, if they accepted it, would subsequently denounce it, and might even prefer to resign their membership of the League of Nations rather than jeopardise their national economic position by being obliged to carry out the decisions of the International Labour Conference.” In the case we are considering, these objections do not apply, as it would be virtu- ally the existing powers of the centre and not of the provinces which would be transferred to the Council, and there would be no question of placing the national economic position under the control of other powers.

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