338 CHAPTER XVHL 
appointed in Bengal in March 1921 and in Bombay in November 1921 to 
consider the possibility of alleviating industrial unrest. Reference has 
already been made to the stress laid by the former committee on the 
formation of works committees. This committee was opposed to the 
intervention of Government in private industrial disputes, except when 
both parties desired outside intervention, but it suggested the formation 
of a conciliation panel to deal with disputes in public utility services. A 
panel was formed and re-constituted every year until 1929, but its services 
were never utilised. The Bombay committee advocated the establish- 
ment by statute of industrial courts. With the diminution of strikes in 
1922-23, both public and official interest in the matter tended to languish 
until a serious strike in the Bombay cotton mills in 1924 led to the prepara- 
tion of a bill by the provincial Government for introduction in the Legis- 
lative Council. The bill was withheld at the instance of the Government 
of India, who circulated in the same year an all-India bill based in part on 
the British Industrial Courts Act. They expressed their intention to in- 
troduce the measure, with any modifications required in the Central Legis- 
lature, in the beginning of 1925. We do not propose to refer to the parti- 
culars of these proposals because it was not until 1928 that any bill was 
actually introduced, and the one then sponsored by the Government of 
India differed from their earlier draft in a number of important respects. 
The Trade Disputes Act. 
The main part of this measure, which passed into law in 1929, is 
modelled to a large extent on the British Industrial Courts Aet, but it does 
not provide for any standing Industrial Court. Disputes can be referred 
either to Courts of Enquiry or to Boards of Conciliation. Courts of En- 
guiry, which are appointed to enquire and report into specific matters 
referred to them, consist of one or more independent persons. Boards of 
Conciliation consist of an independent chairman and ordinarily of other 
members who may be either independent or may represent parties to 
the dispute. It is their duty to endeavour to investigate the dispute, 
primarily with a view to its settlement and secondly with a view to 
enlightening the public regarding its merits. The Act also contains 
provisions rendering punishable by fine or imprisonment lightning strikes 
or lock-outs in certain public utility services and embodies provisions 
aimed at the prevention of general strikes ; the latter are based on some 
of the clauses of the British Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act of 
1927. Up to the end of 1929, the Act has been used on three occasions. 
The Bombay Government in that year appointed a Court of Enquiry 
consisting of a High Court Judge and two other independent members, to 
investigate a number of matters connected with the prolonged general 
strike in the Bombay cotton mills. A Board of Conciliation, consisting 
of a retired High Court Judge as chairman and representatives of the two 
parties, was appointed at the end of 1929 with reference to a dispute on 
the B. B. and C. I. Railway. It was unable to effect an agreed settle- 
ment, and the members themselves differed on certain points. Another 
Board of Conciliation was appointed by the Government of Burma in 
July 1930 in connection with a serious dispute among the dock workers.