WAGES ON PLANTATIONS. 389 
determined by the joint action of the employers, influenced by the ex- 
tent of the supply of labour available for employment on the planta- 
tions. The workers on their side have no effective means of meeting 
this owing to the absence of cohesion among them. This is due to a 
number of causes, among which are the fact that they are emigrants 
from a distant country, speaking many different languages, the uni- 
versal illiteracy, the preponderance of aboriginals and the compara- 
tive isolation of plantation life. Workers in such a position stand 
in special need of protection. This has already been recognised by the 
Government of India and the Indian Legislature, who have taken an 
active part in securing the introduction of minimum wages for Indian 
workers on the tea plantations in Ceylon and Malaya. We are satis- 
fied that the position in Assam of the emigrant from Chota Nagpur is not 
essentially different in this respect from that of the Tamil emigrant in 
Ceylon. Indeed, the contact between the recruiting districts and the 
districts of employment is closer in the case of Ceylon than in that of Assam. 
The proposals we have made in another chapter are designed to effect a con- 
siderable improvement in this direction by giving the emigrant the assur- 
ance that, after serving for a reasonable period, he will be able, if he so de- 
sires, to return to his original home. But even when this system is in 
operation, the average labourer will still remain in a comparatively weak 
position, for the right of repatriation is not applicable to existing workers 
and, in the case of new emigrants, will cease after the first three years: 
Even those who have this right will not ordinarily be in a position to leave 
Assam until the time for repatriation comes. All these factors increase 
the danger that some of the workers may not receive a fair wage. This 
danger becomes greater in times of rising prices, when the existing rates 
tend to be maintained longer than would be the case if the workers were 
effectively organised. Further, there are certain individual gardens 
where the workers are not assured of the rates prevailing elsewhere. The 
weakness of their position is greatly enhanced by the measures which 
the employers have been compelled to take to prevent enticement of 
labour. These make it difficult for a labourer who is dissatisfied with 
conditions on one garden to find employment on another and they go far 
towards eliminating competition. Another restraint on the free move- 
thent of labour is the absence of alternative employment. Some of these 
elements in the weakness of the workers’ position will, we trust, be 
eliminated at no distant date ; but the fundamental weakness, namely, 
the absence of any organisation, and therefore of any effective method 
of collective bargaining, is not likely to disappear at any time in the near 
future. 
Wage-fixing Machinery and the Employer. 
We believe that the industry also is likely to gain from the 
introduction of wage-fixing machinery. For years: the position of the 
worker in Assam has been the subject of widespread suspicion in 
other parts of India. In reviewing the conditions obtaining in Assam, 
it has been our endeavour to indicate how far that suspicion is 
justified and how far it is based on ignorance or misrepresentation. We