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 XXV. - Labour and the constitution

Collection:: Economics Books

$72 CHAPTER XXV, its work while it is not in session. A committee, including the President for the year and two or three other members, could meet two or three times during the year, if necessary,and would also be available for con- sultation by correspondence. The main responsibility for the heavy task of preparing the material for each session must rest on the chief executive officer and his staff ; but the general supervision of an execu- tive committee would be valuable in securing that the material is pre- pared in a form acceptable to the Conference, in controlling expen- diture and in making arrangements for the sessions. If the future con- stitution of India makes it at all possible, it would be most desirable that the expenses of the Council should come from central revenues. Otherwise, they must be met by provincial contributions. In the former case, the Central Government and Legislature should control the budget. In the latter case it will probably be necessary to arrange for fixed allotments, e.g., for five years, and this might be settled by representatives of the provincial Governments, after consultation with the Executive Committee or the Council. But the same problem may arise in connection with other co-ordinating authorities, and some other solution may be found more suitable. We do not propose to discuss the procedure of the Council in detail ; this must, to some extent, be guided by its evolution and we suggest that it might be left, in part, for regula- tion by the Council itself. But we invite attention to a study of the methods adopted by the International Labour Conference as giving useful suggestions for the procedure in the early years. A Council constituted as we have suggested would naturally be brought into close contact with the International Labour Organisation. It would obviously be well qualified to advise on the Draft Conventions and Recommendations adopted by the International Labour Conference. There should be little difficulty in establishing a convention whereby the Central Legislature referred the decisions of this Conference to the Council which in turn would forward its conclusions to the Legislature. Competition of Indian States. We have referred to the increasing economic unity of India and the need for co-ordination in labour matters. Our enquiry, however, has related only to a part of India, for the Indian States lie outside our scope. But their presence cannot be ignored in considering the problems of British India, for they shareincreasingly its economic unity and its industrial development and are bound to exercise an important influence on its political development. They lie in some cases close to industrial centres in Indian provinces ; but the laws and regulations which protect labour in, those centres do not extend across the boundaries of the States. A number of States have copied various Acts of the Indian legislature ; but, except in rare cases, their labour laws are substantially behind those of British India. Industrialists not unnaturally feel the danger involved in making advances in British Indian legislation while their rivals within the boundaries of the States remain unaffected by these advances. There is already, in fact, on a small scale, the problem which would face all India if central labour legislation disappeared. In making our proposals

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