Full text: Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

1D) 
CHAPTER II. 
centres with a definite concentration of industries, the more important 
are Madras, Cawnpore, J amshedpur and Rangoon. Many of the remain- 
ing factories are concentrated in capitals where the factory population is a 
small part of the total population, such as Delhi, Lahore, Lucknow and 
Nagpur. Centres of this type have generally a few larger factories, and a 
considerable number of small ones which serve the miscellaneous needs 
of the city and its vicinity. Apart from such centres, the only approach 
bo a concentration of factories is in the main coalfields and in a few 
cotton mill towns such as Sholapur. 
(2) SOURCES OF LABOUR. 
Centres Recruiting from Short Distances. 
The smaller centres everywhere draw on the surrounding rural 
areas for all the workers they require, except labour demanding special 
skill. © As industry expands in a centre, the area of recruitment has to be 
snlarged. If the centre is situated in a region where population is dense 
and pressure on the land is great, a large addition to the labour force 
may be obtained without going far afield ; this is illustrated by Ahmed- 
abad and Cawnpore. The cotton mills of Ahmedabad draw 659, of their 
labour from Ahmedabad district and the adjacent State of Baroda, 
while most of the remainder come from areas not far distant, .e., other 
Gujerat districts and the adjoining parts of Rajputana and Kathiawar. 
Cawnpore has close to it areas where the pressure of population is severe, 
and the bulk of its labour comes from the adjoining districts and those 
mmediately beyond them. Railway workshops frequently show a greater 
variety of labour and may include substantial numbers from more dis- 
tant areas ; the grant to employees of travelling concessions increases the 
attraction of the work for labour from a distance, and the type of work 
does not appeal to the people resident in some areas. In every centre of 
importance a certain number of the factory workers come from long 
listances ; men from Madras and the United Provinces may be found in 
factories all over India 
Centres Recruiting from Long Distances. 
The only centres which have reached the stage of being compelled 
to go far afield for the bulk of their labour are Rangoon, Jamshedpur and 
the two big centres, Bombay and the Hooghly area. Rangoon, like Burma, 
generally, has to look mainly to Indian labour for the maintenance of its 
industries as the Burman shows little desire to enter the lower ranks 
of factory employment. The factories of Rangoon therefore rely on 
the great stream of migration from across the Bay of Bengal ; the 
workers come chiefly from the Telugu speaking tracts adjoining the 
aorthern Madras ports. Jamshedpur was established in an area that 
was practically virgin forest and required a large number of workers 
from the start ; there was a big expansion of work during and after the 
war, which demanded a further rapid increase in numbers. It is not 
Surprising, therefore, that the labour force here should include sections 
from nearly every province of India: in particular, Bengal, Bihar and
	        
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