RECRUITMENT FOR ASSAM. 377 
which the public have no right of access. Access is not ordinarily with- 
held in practice, but, whenever the manager considers it necessary, a watch 
is maintained on visitors, and there are almost always chaukidars, part 
of whose duty is to observe movements to and from the lines. It is con- 
tended by planters that no amount of vigilance can keep a labourer 
who is determined to leave; and chaukidars are probably employed 
more to prevent other employers from enticing labourers than to prevent 
the labourers themselves from leaving. At the same time, we had 
evidence that workers who wanted to leave even a good garden without 
permission found it advisable to do so by night. In speaking of a 
labourer who goes without permission the term universally used is *“ ab- 
scond 7; and this term reflects accurately the position in which the 
labourer on some gardens finds himself when he wishes to seek employ- 
ment elsewhere. 
Employers’ Agreements. 
a 
In a somewhat different category, but tending in the same 
direction so far as the worker is concerned, is the system by which most 
employers bind themselves not to entice each others labour. The 
agreement between the planters, referred to as the “labour rules”, 
imposes a penalty for enticement and prescribes that, if a labourer goes 
from one garden to another, the manager of the latter must either eject 
him with all his belongings or refund the cost of his recruitment and 
the amount of any outstanding advance. The effect of this agreement is 
that no reputable planter attempts to obtain labour from another garden, 
and it is against the accepted standards to engage labourers, if there is 
reason to believe that they have left another planter. With the cost 
of recruiting as high as it is, such an attitude is intelligible and can, in- 
deed, be defended as nothing more than the application of a principle 
familiar to other trade organisations. There is, however, no organisa- 
bion on the workers’ side to redress the balance ; the effect of the system 
8 to diminish still further the liberty of the worker to dispose of his labour 
bo the best advantage and to add to the restrictions upon his movements. 
The effect of this policy, combined with the lack of organisation on 
the part of the workers, has been to increase the temptation to resort to a 
policy of restrictions in order to retain labour. The next chapter contains 
Proposals designed to meet this difficulty, and some of the proposals 
which immediately follow, if adopted, should go far to improve the general 
Position of the worker in his relations with the employer. 
Knowledge of the Law. 
k The first essential, in order to secure the freedom of the worker, 
8 knowledge. It is, to a large extent, his ignorance which restrains him. 
It 1s a matter for regret that when, in 1926, the vital change was made 
In the law by which penal contracts became illegal, little was done to 
acquaint the worker with the change. The cessation of criminal 
Prosecutions for breach of contract is bringing enlightenment, but the 
Process seems to be a slow one. As we have suggested, the informing of 
the workers would have been a wise policy for planters to have adopted,