14 
CHAPTER VII. 
seven or eight hundred. Here again the main difficulties, not all being 
necessarily present in any one industry, are the unsuitability or the 
dilapidated nature of the type of building used, the absence of adequate 
sanitation, poor lighting, defective ventilation, overcrowding, long 
hours and—above all—a preponderance in certain cases of the labour of 
under-age children, i.e., children well below the regulation age for such 
workers in factories coming under the Factories Act. In these industries, 
which are of varying sizes, some localised and others widely distributed 
throughout India, visits paid by us confirm the evidence submitted from 
various quarters as to the main defects. By way of illustration we cite in 
greater detail six industries together responsible for large numbers of 
places typical of this class—namely, mica cutting and splitting, wool 
leaning. shellac manufacture, bedi making, carpet weaving and tanning. 
Mica Factories. 
The industry of mica cutting and splitting is almost entirely un- 
regulated, only one out of 127 factories in the province of Bihar and Orissa 
coming under the Factories Act because of its use of power machinery. 
The units are often large and may go up to as many as 800 workers. 
Approximately 30 per cent of the workers are children. The buildings 
are for the most part adequate, but much of the work is done on over- 
crowded verandahs. In most cases the hours are not excessive in the 
case of the adults or of the older children but, taking the time of leaving 
home and of returning to it in the case of those living in villages several 
miles distant, they are too long for the smaller children. There is no exa- 
mination in the case of the young workers to ascertain age or fitness, and 
children of from 6 to 10 years of age are employed directly or with their 
parents on splitting and sometimes also on cutting, because * if started 
young they may become experts ”—a statement which will have a familiar 
ring to those who have studied the history of the regulation of child labour 
in other countries. But in fairness to the employers, we should add that 
the representatives of the Kodarma Mica Association, who appeared 
hefore us. were prepared to agree to the exclusion of such children. 
Wool Cleaning. 
Wool cleaning is done in the Punjab and one or two other 
provinces. In the Punjab, women and children from about 8 years 
of age are employed, seated on the earth floor of the open yards to 
which the loosely baled wool is brought. The initial process consists of 
tearing or beating out, with the hands and with iron rods, lumps of dry 
mud, coagulated blood and other extraneous matter from the unsorted 
wool. This is a foul process and, as no system of grids to remove the 
scoumulated dust is provided, the air, the person and the ground quickly 
become covered with powdered dirt and wool fluff. Very young children 
sleep alongside their mothers on piles of wool, their faces and clothes co- 
vered with a fine layer of this germ-laden dust. Other women are employ- 
ed, either indoors or out, effecting a rough colour grading of the partly 
cleaned wool, men being used on the more skilled second grading for both 
rolonr and quality, which is done indoors. Here also. as the wool is