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Mining and Agriculture. 
We have referred to the fact that the great majority of miners 
are also agriculturalists. Some come from villages near enough to allow 
them to work in the fields as occasion arises ; others, when they come to the 
mines, leave members of their families in charge, returning only when 
bheir supervision and labour are most necessary. Yet others, who may 
have no land of their own, find work in agriculture at harvest time, 
when there is naturally a substantial rise in agricultural wages and work 
of this kind becomes temporarily more profitable than mining. In conse- 
quence, there is a marked variation in the supply of labour throughout 
the year. The number of workers in the minesis at its height about 
the end of February. Thereafter there is a steady diminution as 
the winter crops mature. The exodus is checked in April, when 
there is little agricultural work available, but begins with renewed 
strength about the middle of May, and employment is at its lowest 
point about the middle of July, when the sowing or transplanting of 
monsoon crops is at its height. Thereafter large numbers return to 
the mines and another peak is reached by about the end of September, 
From this stage there is again a decline and by the middle of November, 
when the rice harvest is at its height, the labour force reaches almost as 
low an ebb as in the middle of J uly. Thereafter it rises rapidly through- 
out the winter to the peak about the end of February. These movements 
of labour can be measured with fair accuracy by reference to the monthly 
raisings of coal for British India. In a normal year the amount raised 
in February or March is about 50 per cent above that raised in J uly, 
while the September raisings may exceed the July figures by about 30 
per cent. These differences naturally vary with the vagaries of the mon- 
soon. Defective rainfall, besides making labour rather more plentiful 
throughout, the vear. diminishes the extent of the exodus to the fields. 
Irregularity of Working. 
Apart from seasonal absences, there are other irregularities 
in the miners’ working time which have their effect both upon their 
earnings and upon the industry. In earlier days it was the miner's 
custom to come with his family from the village and to go underground 
for a period which might extend to one, two or more days, returning to 
the surface and to the village when he had earned as much as he desired at 
the moment. This manner of working has largely disappeared, though 
1b survived in some degree up to the introduction of the daily limit of 
hours in 1929. But even abandoned customs leave their mark, and it is 
probable that the present lack of discipline in regard to working times 
Is due, in part at least, to the tradition of the past. Whatever the cause, 
few miners work six days a week and few mines have hitherto been able 
bo count on the punctual attendance of their workers, even on those days 
when they present themselves for work. The mines do not work on 
Sunday. On Monday very few miners put in an appearance, many are 
still absent on Tuesday and it is not till Wednesday that a good attend- 
ance 1s secured. Reasonable estimates indicate an average of 4 to 41 
days’ work per week for the individual miner during the weeks he is at