THE INCOME OF THE INDUSTRIAL WORKER. 211 
chapters we have made recommendations designed to improve matters 
in this respect in various branches of industry. But we would again 
press the importance of substituting, as far as possible, the regular for 
the irregular worker, and employers can do much in this direction. It 
may be urged that, if Wage rates are not raised, the only effect is to en- 
rich some workers whilst preventing others from entering industrial 
employment, with no resultant benefit, This, however, is a short-sight- 
ed view. Even if the surplus workers that the factories now 
attract to the city could find nothing to do in their villages, they 
would still be better there, where they are in healthier surroundings 
and can be supported at less expense. It has always to be remembered 
that the villages offer at least sporadic work to all. The reduction of the 
numbers in the industrial centres would ease the problems of housing, 
sanitation, medical attention and health generally. Finally, there is the 
increased efficiency which the regular and better-paid workers would 
attain with benefit to themselves, to their employers and to the nation. 
VI. 
Industry and the Community. 
Before turning to another direct method of raising the standard 
of living frequently suggested by witnesses—namely, the application 
of minimum wages, we must refer to an aspect of the position which is 
often overlooked, both in this and in other connections. Indian industry 
is not a world in itself ; it is an element, and by no means the most im- 
portant element, in the economic life of the community. Care must be 
taken, therefore, to ensure that, in adopting measures for the betterment 
of industry or of industrial workers, the interests of the community as a 
whole are not overlooked. It is obviously possible to raise the standard 
of living of sections of industrial workers by methods which would in- 
volve the diminution of the national Income that is available for other 
sections of the community. On the other hand, the prosperity of the 
industrial worker can be advanced in such a manner as to enrich 
rather than to impoverish the rest of the community. It is to these 
methods that attention must be confined. 
The Minimum Wage Convention. 
We received a considerable volume of evidence in the course of 
our tour on the practicability of instituting statutory minimum wages, 
and it became increasingly clear that, whereas the idea was now generally 
current among those concerned with or interested in industry, its impli- 
cations were very variously interpreted and by no means generally under- 
stood. The majority of witnesses in favour of the principle appeared to 
desire the arbitrary fixing of wages for industrial workers at a level suffi 
cient to provide what appeared to them a reasonable standard of living, 
apparently without regard to the comparative prosperity of industry or the 
altimate effect on the economic structure of India as a whole. The 
opposition to a minimum wage suggested that it was precisely this view 
of the question which wag uppermost in the minds of those who led it, 
A few witnesses had evidently devoted deeper thought to the theory of the 
subject, but their discussion wag largely academic, and they were for the