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

178 MINUTE BY SIR VICTOR SASSOON. ' Nor am I convinced that the end we all have in view may not be achieved by methods other than those used in the West. A study of the Guild System in Ahmedabad will show how, with no legislative provisions but purely by the harnessing of social forces, the most stringent restrictive regulations were evolved in the past; and there may yet be other methods which have not even been thought of by this Commission. The ground we have had to cover has been vast, the time re- stricted, the facts available exiguous and sometimes inconclusive, if not positively inaccurate. Further detailed enquiries would absorb more time and entail greater delay ; but it is surely better to proceed cau- biously at the beginning than to build on insecure foundations and subse- quently patch up mistakes that may have been made. I should like this Report of ours to be used as a general starting point to be followed by a series of ad hoc enquiries on the widely differ- ing subjects with which we have dealt, such enquiries to be instituted after more facts and accurate data have been collected. In the meantime, except where our recommendations are based on fully established facts, statutory measures should be ‘carried out on the most general lines. Hours in Factories. The majority of my colleagues have agreed that a reduction of hours from 60 to 54 is practicable and desirable throughout the country, and admit that such a reduction would primarily affect the cotton industry, since this is by far the most important of the industries which still work most of their operatives for 60 hours a week?2. The argument adduced is that the present ten-hour day is not in reality a day consisting of ten hours’ concentrated work. There is, the Commission maintain, a considerable amount of loitering and “In Bombay particularly, the visitor is struck by the large numbers of men who can be found outside the factory building at almost any hour of the dav >’ 2. My colleagues therefore assert that a ten-hour day should not be worked, ® cannot be worked, % and is not in fact actually worked.? Their argument continues on the lines that a shorter and more disciplined working day is preferable to a longer day containing the unauthorised intervals for loitering referred to above. After consideration of the reduction of the working day from 12 to 10 hours they continue, “ As hours are lessened, a point must be reached at which, even if the industry can maintain production by employing shifts, the operatives cannot face a further reduction of earning capacity. But the evidence shows that this stage has not been reached and that. L Page 4c. 2 Page 41, 3 Page 40,

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